Marketing in the Modern Day: Inbound Marketing

Posted on April 14, 2017
By Nick Chiechi, President, CS Designworks

Raise your hand if you hate commercials. What about those who never open the hundreds of promotional emails that you get from companies who somehow got your email (though you have no recollection of signing up for anything)? You probably also get annoyed every time your phone rings and its a sales call, "conveniently" occurring at dinner time. These are all forms of Outbound Marketing, which is the traditional tactic where a company sends a message out to an audience and tries to initiate a conversation¹. Outbound marketing has its place but it’s been proving less and less favorable with customers². No one likes to be bombarded with advertisements. So what is the alternative?

Inbound Marketing

The opposite of outbound marketing is inbound marketing. The difference is subtlety. Consumers of today have the control where as marketers of the past used to drive the conversation. Today, the more successful strategy is the one where the customers find your business on their own accord. Inbound marketing is about making it easy for customers to find your business, through a strong search engine presence, and discovering the value of your service. Think of outbound marketing as someone with a megaphone, shouting to you randomly throughout your day to buy your product. Inbound marketing is like leaving breadcrumbs that a customer will find leading them to the house made of candy (except, there is not witch inside waiting to eat them, just your valuable services).

The Ingredients of Successful Inbound Marketing

In a world where the majority of people are looking for and/or purchasing services and products online, there are several way to successfully draw customers to your website. Focus on these things:

Content Creation/Curation
Social Media
Search Engine Optimization
Landing Pages

Marketing Centered Around Content

This method of marketing requires your company to entice customers with information and content. Your aim is to draw customers in with valuable information and eventually cultivate a relationship with them where they may be interested in making a purchase or using your service. With a mixture of creating original content (blogging, infographics, videos, etc.) and finding and sharing existing content, you’ll soon have a wealth of knowledge to attract your potential customer.

Influencing Through Social Media

Most companies nowadays are on social media. The reason for this is because social media is a great tool for cultivating relationships with customers and for sharing your content. Just wrote a blog article? Make a status on Facebook or tweet about it on Twitter, letting your network know about the juicy information you have for them. An effective way to distribute your content to potential clients, social media allows you to immediately see if people are commenting, sharing, or liking your content. The better your content is, the more traction you will get, and the more likely you are to gain new customers.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO is the process of growing visibility in non-paid search engine results³. Optimizing your website’s content and structure can help boost your search engine ranking. Researching keywords and boosting your content through the various social media outlets will make your company more relevant to those you are trying to attract. You can’t sell you product if you no one can find you, after all.

Landing Pages

A landing page is a web page with a specific purpose for a specific audience. Equipped with a form for collecting information, a landing page exists to gain knowledge about visitors and to provide them with a very specific product or service. Landing pages are focused and target a tailored audience to ensure relevancy to a customers’ needs.

In Summary

As your customers evolve, so to must your marketing tactics. Inbound marketing costs less than traditional marketing and tends to attract more customers⁴. Need help getting started? Contact CS Designworks and develop a killer inbound marketing strategy.