How to attract more customers with inbound marketing
In this blog, you’ll find actionable tips and strategies on how to attract more customers through inbound marketing.
1. Introduction
If you’re looking to attract a steady stream of new and profitable customers, consider implementing ‘inbound’ marketing strategies.
As the world becomes increasingly digital, traditional marketing methods such as print ads, radio spots and cold calling are becoming less effective. These are what we call ‘outbound’ tactics and can be like throwing mud at a wall and hoping something sticks.
Today’s customers are more interested in learning about your products and services before making a purchase. That’s where inbound marketing comes in – it’s all about creating really useful content that attracts, engages, and retains customers.
2. Understanding Inbound Marketing
Marketing can be broadly divided into two categories: push and pull. As the name suggests, push marketing pushes products and services towards customers, while pull marketing – also known as inbound marketing – focuses on the right people finding your products or services at the time when they need it most – thus pulling them through to you.
Unlike traditional sales and marketing methods that interrupt potential customers, inbound marketing focuses on attracting them when they are actively searching for solutions to their problems – and are therefore most likely to be receptive to you. So, your sales team can more effectively deal with what are already well-qualified, warm leads coming in, as opposed to cold calling and hoping for the best.
Other advantages include greater marketing reach and lower acquisition costs.
This approach to inbound marketing involves creating really useful content for your customers, optimizing your website for search engines, using paid search on Google and other platforms, and reaching out to your target audience through social media.
By implementing these strategies, you can build trust with your audience, drive more traffic to your website and good quality warm enquiries into your inbox – and generate a steady stream of customers.
3. Creating long form content
One of the most effective content strategies for inbound marketing is what’s called long form content. Long form content is defined as any piece that is longer than 1,000- 1,500 words and is typically posted as a blog on your website. When done correctly, long form content can dramatically increase your website traffic, attract more leads, and ultimately increase your sales. It’s a key part of successful inbound marketing and worth getting right.
4. Tops tips to create effective long form content
Here are 10 tips on how to attract more customers using inbound marketing long form content:
1) Write for your audience
Before creating any content, you need to define and understand your target customers. This means identifying their needs, wants, problems, and interests. We call this creating buyer ‘personas’.
2) Create really useful content
Once you know what your audience is looking for, you can create really useful content that speaks directly to those needs. Not in a salesy way though, but by finding engaging ways to help and educate them. A great way of doing this is to answer real questions that real customers ask. Marcus Sheridan has written a book about this, called ‘They Ask, You Answer’. You can find out more about it here. You should also do keyword research, to identify which phrases are most often searched by your target audience and identify the ones you could compete for.
3) Identify topics that are relevant to your business
Your long form content should be related to your business and industry. While it’s important to create content that appeals to your target audience, you should also make sure that it is related to your products and services. Don’t write about something that has nothing to do with your business just because it’s popular.
4) Back up your claims
Long form content often involves making a case for something. This could be a new way to solve an old problem, or explaining why your product is better than your competitor’s. To ensure that your audience believes what you’re saying, back up your claims. This could be in the form of statistics, case studies, customer video testimonials or expert opinions.
5) Optimize for search engines
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website in order to improve its ranking on search engines like Google. When creating long form content, make sure it is optimized for search engines by including relevant keywords, meta descriptions, and alt tags, so that your content can be found by those who need it most.
6) Repurpose your content
Once you’ve done the hard work and have created your content, for example as a blog post on your website, you can repurpose it and use it in videos, infographics, and e-books, whatever works for your target audience. A tip about videos though – don’t talk about yourself; talk about your customers and the problems you solve for them.
7) Promote your content
Don’t forget to promote your content. Now that you’ve created really useful content for your potential customers, share it on social media, include it in your email marketing campaigns, and reach out to influencers in your industry to see if they will share it with their audiences. One of the advantages of creating buyer personas is that you’ll know which social media channels are right for your audience, and which influencers are most likely to influence.
8) Capture the lead generation
Create effective landing pages, lead magnets, and contact forms that encourage people to get in touch with you. Have multiple, clear ‘calls to action’. Make it crystal clear what you want them to do. When it comes to contact forms, make them short and sweet so they don’t put people off completing them. Don’t ask for too much mandatory information; just their email address should be enough to enable you to respond to their enquiry and start the process.
9) A systematic follow-up process
Put in place a great follow-up process. The quicker you can respond to an enquiry, the better the chance of converting it before they go somewhere else. So, put in a place a system that enables you to respond quickly to your inbound enquiries. Not everyone buys immediately though, and just because they don’t, doesn’t make them a bad lead. Some are in information-gathering mode. You have to keep in touch with them, so that when they are ready to buy, they come to you. You need a follow-up process to nurture them through your sales funnel and convert them into paying customers. Engaging email Newsletters can be great at this, if done well.
10) Analysing and optimising the results
Finally, don’t forget to track and analyse your inbound marketing efforts, to identify what’s working and what’s not. Key metrics include website traffic and conversion rates.
5. Conclusion
In conclusion, inbound marketing can be a powerful tool for attracting more customers to your business. By creating really useful content that speaks directly to your target audience, backing up your claims, optimizing for search engines, and promoting your content, you can increase your website traffic, attract more leads, and ultimately boost your sales.
So, rather than pushing your products or services on people, try attracting them with inbound marketing strategies. With the right tactics in place, you can attract a steady stream of new and profitable customers and grow your business.
We have helped others just like you to get and keep more customers. Book your free discovery call to find out more.