There is a fast-growing need for certain products or services to be marketed by employing a more enriched, different, and effective strategy. Why?
There's no such thing as one marketing strategy that fits all businesses. On the contrary, each strategy needs to be made according to the company's goals –and yes, the budget too. This might be intuitive knowledge but not as popular as one might think, with all the buzz around articles like: 'how to get x amount of followers in no time," the increasing need to be part of every social network and follow the last me-too trend.
Understanding this straight now is crucial to:
Boosting chances of success.
Making our value proposition stand out to the crowd.
Increasing the chances of serving the ever-growing needs of potential customers.
This article will go over the whys and when inbound marketing can be a great fit for you and your brand.
In case you are unfamiliar with this strategy, let's dive deep into the concept to get the gist of it :
Inbound marketing lets customers find you instead of proactively and directly reaching out to them.
It can be, for instance, an incredible fit when marketing a digital product or service.
It's all about the content
Delivering relevant and valuable content is crucial to building trust and interest within people that can potentially be clients or buyers –rather than directly luring customers into buying first to get a potential value (as in retail or commodity).
Each content strategy aims to deliver knowledge, so the consumer can take us as a trusted source on our topics. Delivering new or repurposing older content helps to climb to a top-of-mind position and to nurture our audience. So when they're ready to make the purchase, we’re their first option.
Ideally, content creates the perfect breeding ground for this scenario: Leads or prospects aware of our brand, taking the next step and ultimately getting a hold of our products or services to improve their lives. It's that easy.
It's just a matter of time
Inbound marketing is about putting relevant content out there, attracting a specific audience, engaging with them, and delighting them once they become clients.
Attract, engage, delight. The main pillars of the Inbound marketing flywheel. It converts consumers into clients and takes them through the different stages in an organized and well-timed manner.
When is Inbound Marketing a good idea?
These days, it's no surprise to say that when offering digital products or services, we need a constant output of quality content to create brand awareness. Inbound marketing can be really useful to market these, given its convenience and how fitting it is.
The Inbound strategy works on the basis of moving leads through a funnel, and the whole idea is to set interesting content in front of people who care to know that: different content strategies for different funnel stages.
Let’s walk through an Inbound process taking as an example a software agency.
So, our agency sells development hours. They work with talented developers from different countries, developing apps and web apps for VC-founded startups.
How can an Inbound strategy work for this agency, in such a crowded market?
Let’s follow each stage of the funnel.
Top of the Funnel (TOFU)
Attract by putting up quality and meaningful content on the platforms where their audience is. We talk about the company, show expertise and knowledge, we prove the agency is functional and highly qualified to take on big projects. At this stage, the audience we’re after sees us but we need to get to their top-of-mind.
Once they show interest, they move to the next stage.
Where: blog articles, podcasts, social media, video marketing, email marketing.
Middle of the Funnel (MIFU)
Engage our prospects to know first-hand that we deliver quality products. They know our agency, they’ve shown some interest, but now they are shopping around: studying different options, comparing agencies. So this is our moment to shine.
How? With Call-to-Actions, Specific landing pages, and targeted Ads.
Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)
Delight them and sign the contract. At this moment, the client is ready to sign, so it’s a great moment to show them what a great agency we’re to work with.
How? We can meet with them, send them a demo video, take them through product demonstrations, and offer our support or even discounts.
Ultimately, a well-articulated Inbound marketing strategy can be extended across the realm of most digital products or services. It emphasizes value and content, which are of utmost importance to today's products and services.
Because in today's world, customers have more power than ever. Inbound marketing will not only increase their power, but also it will boost our power to get our message across and out there as a brand. We let them get to know us.
The best part
Customer and seller win through a less invasive and more humanly genuine approach to marketing and delivering value. That's powerful.
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