For a long time, it was thought that you had to solicit prospects to sign them. And everything was done to “go and get them”: advertising, e-mailings, sponsored links, banners, outbound calls… This was effective for a few years, then became more and more expensive and less and less effective. We then realized that, ultimately, the simplest and most effective way would be to attract them, to make them come to you. This is how we moved from Outbound Marketing (traditional push marketing) to Inbound Marketing (pull marketing).
Mainly by creating a community of interest around your brand, your product, or your service, thanks to the combined use of:
- Quality content on your site
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Targeted use of Social Networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Youtube, DailyMotion, SlideShare…)
At the end of a well-executed Inbound Marketing strategy, it is now your customers who find you and choose you.
Once prospects are attracted to your site, the trap will be able to close on them in 4 highly effective acts:
- Act 1: You transform your visitors into leads (prospects)
- Act 2: You convert your leads (prospects) into customers
- Act 3: You transform your customers into ambassadors
- Act 4: You analyze the sales process to improve the offer
To all companies:
- that have strong expertise in their field
- that have quality content to “tell” this expertise (storytelling), on a regular basis (blog, white papers…)
- that will thus build and strengthen their e-reputation, day after day
- that want to develop a marketing strategy equal to the challenges of digitalization
In 2016 more than ever, your visitors demand sharp, original, unique, personalized, and regularly updated articles. Since the majority of buying journeys start with information gathering, often recurring (especially for heavy and complex decisions where “impulse” buying is no longer on the agenda), invest without hesitation in high-level content marketing! Your credibility and expertise depend on it. Plan to devote time regularly: community management is not a sprint but a long-distance race!
Knowing that more than 100 billion Google queries are recorded every day, and that 95% of users do not go beyond the first page of results…, naturally always ensure that your brand appears on the first page of Google when searching for strategic keywords that interest you. But do not bet 100% of your visibility on SEO! Also be present where your brand is discussed, in reviews and comments on social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat…).
In 2016 more than ever, think mobile, create mobile, write mobile, be ergonomic and responsive. Especially if your website remains the central element of your Inbound marketing strategy. It must therefore imperatively be Mobile Friendly and Search Engine Friendly (to optimize your SEO). This is the sine qua non condition for optimizing your visibility on smartphones. And your conversion rates!
Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat: these are millions of French internet users who use these apps every day where images, visuals, and infographics have taken precedence over text and reading! Adapt your social media strategy without delay by integrating this new way of transmitting information!
It is out of the question to let traffic accumulate on your site without knowing the identity of your visitors! To implement a strategy around its users (by essence, inbound marketing is a user-centric strategy), it is about knowing your ideal customer perfectly and in every detail. Luckily: at each of their visits, your internet users “offer” you information without knowing it, which you just need to exploit. The more you process and analyze this data, the more you will know about your future customers, the more performant your Inbound Marketing strategy will be!
Proposing a response and personalized offers to each of your visitors is the alpha and omega of a winning Inbound Marketing strategy (see point n°5)! Use the entire spectrum of customer data to build it.
At a time when keyword auctions are skyrocketing on the Internet, where acquisition files and campaigns are becoming more and more expensive for lower and lower ROI, investing in expert content and hyper-credibility of products and services becomes essential… and profitable! Especially when new tools allow measuring the efficiency and return on investment of a text! The key idea is to invest in sustainable visibility, opposite to (or in addition to) one-shot campaigns (SEM, advertising…) which are necessarily ephemeral.
It is well understood: Inbound marketing is to customer acquisition what the laser-guided missile is to military armament: the surgical strike has replaced large-scale spraying! Thanks to the strategy described above, you will make your (future) customers come “naturally” to you rather than going to them “artificially” and somewhat blindly. By sparking their curiosity through expert content and speaking “when needed where needed”, by providing them with the information they desire at the right time, you will “speak” to them at the ideal moment, when they are the warmest: when, without really knowing it, they expose their problem to you and when they are ready to hear your arguments and study a commercial proposal because it will respond precisely to their expectations.
Are you used to hard prospecting? Well, Inbound Marketing is precisely the opposite! QED.
