Inbound Marketing: Stages and Benefits

Changing times have brought about a transition in marketing tactics, making traditional methods of mass marketing not as effective as they were in the past.

The market is client-centric, with consumers who are well-informed about the available options, allowing them to make up their minds before any marketing campaign reaches them. If a customer wants to connect with an advertising agency, you’ll simply find them searching for ‘Top advertising agencies’ online and selecting one from the clutter that suits their needs. It’s just that easy!

Marketers can no longer dictate the choices of their audience. In addition to that, the audience can also decide whether or not they want to be receptive to a particular marketing communication from a brand.

This has encouraged brands and marketers to embrace ‘inbound marketing’. This method helps attract potential customers and visitors instead of overexposing them to marketing communications.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is an advertising method that focuses on creating a marketing experience for its clients. Instead of pushing forward a sales pitch, you focus on creating a valuable experience for the target audience, giving them a real reason to interact with you.

(Source - Ring Central)

Stages of Inbound Marketing

1. Attract Audience

The first stage of inbound marketing is attracting an audience. In this stage, you can create content and use SEO or social media to target your audience. Content creation conveys information about your business and offerings while providing value and the opportunity to learn something new to your audience.

2. Lead generation

In the second stage, you try to convert your visitors into leads that will offer you business. How can one do that? Engage them when they're curious and offer something more. You can add forms or a questionnaire to understand their requirements, or have an FAQ section where they can post queries and seek answers from you. Lead them to your website or share more information. Focus on landing pages and opt-in forms. Ensure to include a call-to-action tab on your pages to encourage conversation from the audience.

3. Leads into conversions

The goal behind lead generation is to induce purchase. Through lead generation, one attempts to convince the audience to offer business. In this stage, you can reach the audience using several communication tools. Go beyond social media and start email marketing to send personalized messages to your audience. In addition, focus on customer relationship management (CRM) and offer something beyond the business. Focus on problem solving with your offerings. Establish an association with your products or services that make your clients’ lives easier or solves a problem for them. Don’t talk about selling a product or service; instead, promote the idea of problem solving or enhancing the experience.

(Source - Digital Technology Institute)

4. Charm customers

Inbound marketing is not limited to sales or business. Here, you need to engage your audience and keep them happy with the after-sales service. Attract more customers and give them good reasons to keep coming back to you. Use surveys and feedback forms to get reviews from your audience and work on the negative feedback.

Benefits of Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business and stay relevant to your target audience. Additionally:

• It is cost effective

• Modern consumers are tech savvy and hence, interact well with inbound marketing

• Inbound marketing has excellent value for any business due to low investment and high returns

• It works authentically with client feedback and engagement.

• You get real time feedback for the on-going campaign

• Such campaigns are dynamic and hence you can experiment with different strategies.

Inbound marketing is an empowering experience for your audience. It offers autonomy over business communication and marketing. Never stop at lead conversion; focus on relationship management and create lasting impressions using inbound marketing.

If you’re looking for experts to help you with inbound marketing, click here to connect with Albarot. Our work speaks for itself. Learn more about our projects by visiting the Albatrot website.