Imagine being able to position yourself so that new clients and customers sought you out and came to you. Leads flowed to you easily and you didn’t have to spend your time chasing customers or deals. While many people focus on outbound marketing, inbound marketing will naturally attract new clients and customers to you. Keep reading to learn how to create demand for your business using inbound marketing no matter what industry you are in!

Old School vs. New School

If you’ve done any sort of marketing for your business, you know that there’s an old way and a new way of doing things. The old way uses outbound marketing strategies such as radio advertising, television commercials, cold calling, trade shows, and direct mail. Outbound marketing intends to cause a disruption, forcing people to take notice of you and your business.

Inbound marketing does things a bit differently. When you utilize inbound marketing, you focus on creating high quality content that can naturally and organically attract the right people to your business.  Examples of inbound marketing are blog posts, SEO, and social media. With the rise of the digital age, this form of marketing is more popular than ever. Inbound marketing is dominating the industry because it’s no longer about creating an interruption but rather creating a conversation.

Solutions and Credibility

With the ability to utilize tools such as social media and organic content on your website, you can offer solutions for the customers who need your services. You can build credibility, and in some cases, reach people who didn’t realize just how much they needed your services.

No longer are brands forcing themselves into the conversation with broad irrelevant messaging. Now we can create content that is specific to our audience. Content that is useful, educational, and most importantly, shows up when and where they need it.

Creating Conversation

Inbound marketing creates the opportunity for two way conversations. It can help you build trust and a strong relationship with the customer. With the right content in place, you can move your potential clients through your marketing funnel by creating relevant content each step of the way. Your content will vary to generate an initial attraction, earn trust, create conversion, and finally ongoing loyalty.

When creating your social media content, it is important to be mindful of what you are posting. You don’t want to go from being informative and helpful to suddenly being disruptive and causing interruption. Creating that sort of content does not get noticed in a sea of competition. It is important to continue to focus on what you know about your audience, using analytics and the tools that are available to learn even more about them.

Inbound Marketing Strategies

Neil Patel is a leading guru when it comes to inbound marketing. In this article, he offers 22 incredible strategies for inbound marketing. My 3 biggest takeaways from this list include:

• Surveying potential customers via social media – by asking lots of questions to your existing audience, you will have a better idea of the content they are after. Use these platforms to listen and learn from your customers. Here’s an example I did to my audience.
• Use email wisely – send helpful content via email that your potential clients will want to read. Recognize that it’s a long term play and you are building trust and credibility.
• Make sure your website is search friendly with SEO, clear calls to action, and helpful downloads.

Inbound marketing is something anyone can do. By listening to your audience, creating the content they are after and making sure to stay relatable, you will be able to develop interest, trust, and loyalty. To learn more about how the team at Ellen Grace can help you with your inbound marketing efforts, reach out to us today!