Guide to Inbound Marketing in 2023

You may have heard these terms “inbound” and “outbound” marketing, that have often been debated and compared to analyze which method is more effective. In a digital era with options, content, and promotions at every click, users want to feel in power when buying a product or investing in a service. Therefore many are becoming averted to traditional marketing strategies, since it involves a more invasive route.

But, what is inbound marketing and how can you implement it into your marketing strategy?

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing or inbound strategy is a methodology that allows you to attract customers using non-intrusive digital marketing and advertising techniques such as:

✅ Implementing SEO strategies (Search Engine Optimization).

✅ Creating quality content that relates to your ideal client.

✅ Posting on social media to promote your brand.

✅ Analyzing your content and comparing it against your strategy.

A successful inbound marketing strategy depends on the combination of these techniques, and how they are implemented and utilized. Inbound marketing

The purpose of inbound marketing strategies is to contact users who are at the beginning of the purchase process and accompany them until the final transaction to achieve a conversion. Subsequently, they turn into loyal customers.

Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing

While inbound includes tactics that attract users to a brand, outbound marketing focuses on getting in front of customers whether that’s through cold calling and emailing, TV and radio ads, press releases, trade shows, seminars, etc.

This is different from outbound where you can create a mutually beneficial relationship, where the user’s needs are met, and the brand wins a new client. To see the differences of these two strategies in depth:

Benefits of Inbound Marketing

Overall, inbound marketing moves away from traditional marketing strategies that rely on a brand reaching out to customers. Rather, customers find brands through organic searches, related content, social media, and blogs, just to name a few examples. Here are a few advantages to using inbound marketing:

Quality lead generation

One of the first benefits of using inbound marketing is opening the gates to lead generation. While you optimize your content to target your ideal audience, this will help generate more quality leads that are more likely to invest in your brand.

Increase website traffic

Improving your website’s pages and blog posts can help boost your rankings in search results, thus getting your content in front of more users. How can you do this? Through keyword research, you can see which topics are trending and what issues your ideal audience are having.

Then you can create content that helps address these issues, and let your brand be the solution. If you can do this, users are more likely to head to your website to find further resources, convert into a users, or make a purchase.

Gain authority and credibility

Rather than forcing messages in front of your audience, you can let users find your content organically. This allows users to do their own research and explore all options before purchasing, rather than feeling pressured by a brand to buy something. If you provide quality resources and solutions, this will help raise credibility among your ideal clients.

Save costs

Opposite from traditional marketing and advertising, inbound marketing cuts down on costs tremendously. Rather than putting all your efforts into a single expensive campaign that may or may not work, you can save a lot of money from utilizing organic strategies.

Stages of Inbound Marketing

The objective of most inbound marketing strategies is to attract customers and create a positive user experience. Inbound marketing encompasses each stage of the buying experience, from the moment a potential client becomes aware of your brand, through the purchasing process, and even afterwards to continue building loyal customers.

These are the four fundamental stages in an inbound strategy:

💡Attract, Convert, Nurture, Satisfy

1. Attract

This first phase, as the name suggests, aims to increase traffic and attract potential clients. For this stage, marketing techniques such as SEO and social media promotion are used to cross promote your brand.

💡 METRI TIP: We suggest creating editorial calendars for your social media content and blog, to stay on track with content distribution, and to brainstorm new ideas.

In these calendars you can keep track of trending keywords that relate to your ideal clients, so you can turn around and make content addressing these topics.

2. Convert

As you continue to create and post quality content, the next step is to convert these visitors into leads. To do this, you have to carry out other types of more personalized techniques. This can include emailing, setting up a meeting, responding via DMs, etc.

Make sure it is easy for users to find your contact information if needed. Then when you come in contact with a potential user, you can answer their questions, direct them to further resources, or explain more about your brand. It’s essential to be present and active on your channels during this stage.

3. Nurture

After the conversation has been initiated, you need to continue “nurturing” this lead in hope that they convert into a paying customer.

✳️ Lead nurturing is the process of engaging visitors that have interacted with your brand, to ultimately convert them into a customer. This can include offering limited promotions, special announcements and releases, and further support depending on their needs.

It’s important that you respect a potential clients space and not bombard them with information or messages to avoid any negative experiences with your brand.

4. Satisfy

The last stage of inbound marketing takes place after a customer has converted. The objective of this last phase is for customers to feel satisfied with their purchase, and to continue being a loyal customer. To do this you can:

• Conduct email marketing campaigns
• Send special client offers
• Invite customers to live events
• Offer customer support
• Ask customers for feedback

These strategies can help perpetuate a mutually beneficial relationship, where your brand can support the customer while they continue to support your business. Listening to your clients feedback, criticisms, and praises will help you understand what you need to do to continue building lasting customer relationships.

Elements of an Inbound Marketing Strategy

Once you start to build your inbound marketing strategy, there are a few elements to keep in mind so that you can maximize your efforts and see results:

Brand website

Most importantly, your inbound marketing strategy needs to rely on your brand website.

Within the website it is very important to have a blog, there are many channels through which inbound marketing can be done, but the blog is one of the most powerful and the one that works best. Blog content can add a ton of value to users and for many, can be a pivotal element in boosting conversions.

When it comes to optimizing your website, consider the following:

⏩ Design

This is the first thing that will catch a potential clients attention, so ensure that your website reflects your brand image and voise.

⚠️ In addition to having an attractive design, your website must be adaptable to any mobile device, tablet or computer to be accessible by any user.

⏩ User oriented

Neuromarketing will also attest to the fact that design is key to convincing your users to take an action. The more motivation and less complexity, the easier it will be for your client to make a purchase, a subscription or any other action.

Make your website easy to navigate, and tell your brand story throughout your website so users can connect with your brand on a deeper level.

⏩ Programming

In terms of programming, think about your reaction when you click on a link and the web does not respond, it takes time to load or gives an error.

You will not visit that website again and will look for another, right?

💡 Conclusion: pay special attention also to the technical part and its navigation errors.

Automation

Automation can help deliver instant responses, emails, or communications to customers. This will save you a lot of time and allow you to adjust based on clients needs. Although this process helps you in the lead nurturing phase, after someone has converted into a customer, it’s important to create more personalized and targeted messages. When it comes to creating social media content, creating automated processes can also save you a ton of time.

Content Marketing

Another key aspect of inbound marketing is what content you create. This strategy aims to create content that addresses users needs and send it to them through their preferred channel, whether that’s email, social networks, app, etc. In order to understand your ideal clients, you need to ask yourself:

• What do they need?
• Where do they consume content?
• What issues or problems are they facing?

This knowledge will help both the product team and editorial team work in the same direction, to find the information that the user demands. It’s extremely important to understand your ideal clients “buyer persona” which describes how a user behaves on the internet, what content they consume, and which channels they use.

This analysis will lead you to create a content plan for your ideal client with which you will guide them through the funnel until you get the action you want.

Analysis

An inbound marketing strategy that lacks analysis will only set your brand for failure. Thanks to the internet’s expansive collection of information, we can track a huge amount of data to observe successes and shortcomings.

Before you get overwhelmed with the numbers and data, it’s crucial to sit down and figure out what goals you want to achieve, and which metrics will help measure these objectives. Then, it’s time to analyze. Want to skip manual data collection as a whole?

Metricool’s analytics dashboard allows you to view data about your website or blogs performance, as well as all connected social media channels. This allows you to frequently analyze the data to ensure you’re on track with your strategy.

Schedule and Analyze Content With Metricool

With Metricool not only can schedule and auto-publish content across social media, but you can view in-depth data about how your content is performing. This will save time in social media management and planning. You can also utilize our Inbox to reply to all social media messages, comments, and reviews in one place. Plan, analyze, and grow your audience.

Create your FREE account (for life) and level up your social media game. 👾

Laura Montells , 13 December 2023