The Basics of Inbound Marketing and the Benefit to Your Business

The term salesman (I would like to use salesperson, but just for the old-time effect, will stick with salesman) brings about old ideas about door to door vacuums, used overpriced cars, and cheap suits. Times have changed however, and now in order to sell, fashion, cars, and swag seem to be the name of the game; but are they really? While cold selling is certainly not off the table, competition has become so high that to make money, you have to spend money so that your clients can find you. It’s imperative that inbound marketing becomes as built into your overall selling strategy as Outbound. To keep yourself in the race, you have to be innovative, and make sure your name is always near the top of the list. According to the State of Inbound Marketing, 75% of marketers on the planet prioritize the inbound approach. Companies are three times as likely to see a Return on Investment (ROI) when integrating this strategy, and with the continuous rise of this internet fad, its importance is only growing.

Metrics, Metrics, and More Metrics

I love baseball, which like any modernized business marketing strategy, is just becoming more about the numbers. Luckily I am a Blue Jays fan, which I am now allowed to openly admit after twenty years, and it doesn’t take a statistician to tell me Josh Donaldson is the best third basemen in the league. But the numbers certainly help. Outbound Marketing can be measured in the traditional fashion; you can compare percentages of sales based on the number of calls made and direct mailing methods, but it seems a little more difficult on inbound doesn’t it? There are plenty of tools that help you in this escapade — Google Analytics, URL tracking, customer surveys, and a plethora of inexpensive third-party software providers. Using these methods, you can measure the exact number of customers who purchased based on Organic Searches like Google or Yahoo, via your Social Media platforms, Referrals, Email Marketing, and a number of others. Finally, a reliable way to decide where to put your valuable dollar. But, you need a jumping off point; you need a sample of sales before you can even think about using these tools. So, how?

Optimizing Your Landing Page for Inbound Marketing

Unfortunately, converting visitors to customers is a little more difficult than percentages to decimals. There’s a buzzword that’s floating around, or a buzzphrase more like it, known as a Call to Action (CTA). It is the singular most important tool to turn your visitors to customers; and therein, a vital part of your inbound marketing ROI. It has to be exciting, engaging, enticing, and any other “e” words you can think of off the top of your head. Clear and concise on your landing page, it’s one of the foremost objects a visitor will see and intrinsically want them to buy. A common mistake is for your landing page to be your general bio, history, executive team, etc. While this information is important for a lot of potential customers, it’s always secondary to “what can you do for me, and how much?” Forbes provides a few more “dont’s” for your landing page that will forever be useful when examining your site.

For a real detailed look, Unbounce is another great source to help you solve your lost customer problems.

Get to Know Your Prospects

I would love to make another baseball reference here, I mean, maybe I should have been a sportswriter, but alas. You should get to know your prospective buyers and your customers just as well as a GM gets to know his players. Their wants and needs are representative of a much larger whole, and the better you can conform your inbound marketing strategies, the better you make bank. Maybe it starts with a few customer surveys; maybe you make a small discount offer to customers who will take a few minutes of their time to tell you what they liked and what you can improve. A phone call never hurts here either; if they bought from you, they obviously like you, so the follow-up isn’t nearly as painful as trying them cold. In short, understand your customers interests to close sales.

While it may not seem like it, inbound marketing demands just as much interaction with your people as outbound. It’s not always over the phone or especially face to face, but effective communication and customer service is still key. Especially if you’re looking for repeat business, your buyer must feel like they have a reason to come back; it’s still about the full experience. Don’t let your prospects or your clients feel like you’ve given them a one night stand; buy them breakfast, and call them back. You don’t even have to wait the standard three days. And, just for the sake of a baseball reference, keep your customers in the big leagues; it’ll be more than worth your while to keep them in the majors.