In the past decade, perhaps one of the most hyped buzzwords in the online business sphere has been the term ‘ Inbound Marketing.’ In 2005, Brian Halligan coined this term, which reshaped and proved how an audience responded to online marketing and thus, this created a whole new industry to capitalize on its relative success.

Inbound Marketing: What is it exactly?

Inbound marketing is like the God of problem-solving, solving critical marketing issues. In short, this type of marketing uses attracting methodologies instead of the approaching methodologies (aka outbound) to attract and convert customers.

How Can Start-ups generate leads using inbound marketing?

The main objective of start-up inbound marketing is to deliver more exciting and skilled leads. A business can opt for several inbound marketing strategies to start the process of lead generation.

• Content Marketing

Marketing of content is an important method of inbound marketing. With the help of this marketing, ideal buyers are attracted, converted, and closed. You create and share relevant, interesting, and coherent content, and with the help of digital marketing, it will add more value to the customers. The content created should be attractive, compelling and informative rather than purely promotional.

• SEO

Another essential segment of inbound marketing is search engine optimization. You will have to work on your search engine ranking if you want to get more leads and customer conversions. In fact, a search engine is responsible for 93 percent of all the online activities.

You need to pay a lot of attention to SEO rankings as it has the potential to make you into a leader. Therefore, make sure your website is well optimized and meets all the criteria of SEO.

• Email

Email is a great inbound marketing tool for start-ups.

• It helps to keep the clients informed about the services a firm wishes to offer.
• It is possible to use special promotions and coupons to drive sales. It’s an effective and efficient way to attract mobile users.
• Many tactics for inbound marketing are well integrated with email.
• Email marketing practices are cost-effective, and great for start-ups who have limited capital. It is easy to send attractive and customized content via email.
• Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly.

With recent changes in Google’s algorithm, making your website more mobile-friendly is one of the best ways to increase your organic search traffic. Every year, the number of mobile searches continues to grow, and if your site is not responsive, you will be struggling with rankings.

• Invest in Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing can be a great way to increase your brand’s visibility. 84 percent of total marketers plan to launch influencer – based programs this year, according to Column Five and Microsoft. Make sure the right influencers are attracted to you.

• Go Heavy on Social

Inbound marketing is hard to be successful if you don’t spend a lot of time on social media. Clearly remember that social media is more about being social with your future prospects and customers and having a conversation. Select a few networks to concentrate on.

Use the platform to promote all your content and actually share your industry’s insights. For your conversions, don’t rely on social, but think of it as an excellent tool for building your brand.

There are wide ranges of tools and metrics which can help you to track your marketing campaigns. Some vital performance metrics are:

1. Traffic Metrics: This helps to track the amount of traffic, sources from where the traffic is coming from, the number of new users, bounce back rate, etc.
2. Conversion metric helps to track funnel conversation rates, total conversions, and cost incurred in per conversion, click rates, etc.

Obviously, tracking metrics like this is essential for professionals in the digital marketing field as it helps them to analyze how their marketing campaign is performing. To get the best results from these campaigns, it is necessary to act after analysing proper data.

Since marketing activities have become automated, it is essential for salespeople to understand how these new marketing techniques will close deals.

• Convert visitors to potential customers using blogs
• Convert leads into customers using CRM and email.
• Conversion of visitors to customers or leads with the help of landing pages

Inbound marketing: is it necessary?

Business and start-ups make the wrong decision when they do not give more attention to inbound marketing. This type of marketing can do wonders, only if you know what it can help you to achieve.

• Prepare Yourselves for the Future

For a start-up, capturing an audience right at the start and continuing that relationship for a long time is crucial. Inbound marketing helps start-ups from the beginning to establish relationships with their target audience. Start-ups, therefore, find it easier to convert them into customers and continue to grow alongside them. A reasonable consumer base helps a company to understand the prevailing trends, taking into account their demands and recurrent nature.

• Helps in Building Credibility

Companies can produce and post-effective and dynamic content on their websites through inbound marketing, which establishes their authority on the web. Inbound marketing, therefore, helps firms build marketplace visibility and credibility. This gives the impression that the company is reliable to the potential audience and will be able to help them meet their needs.

While inbound marketing attracts many customers and converts significant leads, many analysts and firms believe that complementing it with traditional methods will lead to better conversions in sales.

It is very true that the businesses which identify opportunities and take the advantage immediately have the upper hand of becoming successful rather than those who ignore to identify new opportunities.

There’s no right mix of marketing strategies that are inbound or outbound. It depends on factors such as the size of the industry, the strategy of the competitors, the target audience and the marketing team’s objectives. For today’s business ecosystem driven by digital-first scenarios, having a balanced mix of both, outbound and inbound is crucial and a must.

About the author:

Fidha works as a Growth Assistant at AirTract.Com, a social platform wherein people ask any questions, write and learn from articles, share knowledge and experience. A Math graduate, who turned her passion into digital marketing, is now keen to develop SEO friendly contents, and build website traffic. She loves to dedicate her leisure time in creative stuff and design arts.