With\u00a074% of marketers worldwide<\/a>\u00a0using inbound marketing as their primary marketing approach, it\u2019s no wonder that marketers across all sectors want to incorporate this practice into their ongoing strategy.<\/p>\n But exactly what is inbound marketing? How does it work? And why is it important for your business? This guide will tell you everything you need to know about inbound marketing.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s dive into the definition of inbound marketing. To put it really simply, inbound marketing describes any marketing method that draws in your potential audience. So that means that you are pulling your audience in rather than pushing out your brand, campaign, message, or products to potential customers. For this reason, it\u2019s often referred to as \u201cpull\u201d marketing, as it pulls the customer into your brand or sales pitch.<\/p>\n Inbound marketing is often viewed as a more genuine and organic way of interacting with and gaining customers. That\u2019s because it doesn\u2019t have a focus on repeated calls to actions and generic marketing messages.<\/p>\n By contrast, outbound marketing refers to any marketing tactics where a business is actively trying to approach and entice potential customers. This is often done to a mass audience that hasn\u2019t been specifically selected or researched. That is why outbound marketing can sometimes be classed as being a \u201cscattergun\u201d approach.<\/p>\n However, this doesn\u2019t mean that it is a bad type of marketing, as strategic, upper funnel, outbound marketing can help to reach people that can then be refined via retargeting using inbound marketing methods. Keep in mind that outbound marketing alone doesn\u2019t often yield a great return on investment, though.<\/p>\n You can probably think of brands that are guilty of purely using\u00a0outbound marketing methods on a regular basis \u2014\u00a0perhaps you\u2019ve received the same flyer in your mailbox one too many times.<\/p>\n Without the addition of some strong and genuine inbound marketing methods, these brands may be missing a lot of opportunity and business.<\/p>\n Because inbound marketing is about who you reach and in what way, it can include a wide variety of marketing methods.<\/p>\n Types of inbound marketing include:<\/p>\n Because inbound marketing can include so many different types of marketing channels, it\u2019s important to break it down into a methodology. This will provide lasting, genuine customer interactions that can help grow your business.<\/p>\n Inbound marketing methodology can include three steps:<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve become familiar with the above inbound marketing methodologies, the next step is to build a strategy.<\/p>\n The great thing about inbound marketing is that it\u2019s typically pretty clear which brands are \u201cfaking it.\u201d Customers gravitate toward brands that are knowledgeable and authentic, so it\u2019s important that your content comes across that way.<\/p>\n To create an inbound marketing strategy for your business, you should follow these 4 steps:<\/p>\n The first thing you need to do is understand your intended audience. You should try to learn everything you can about your potential customers, including:<\/p>\n Learning about their basic behavior can help you to know what content you need to create to encourage more of the same interactions.<\/p>\n To get this process started, use the Audience Insights tab of the\u00a0Traffic Analytics Tool<\/a>. All you need to do to gather valuable competitor data is add a competing domain.<\/p>\n For further information, see our guide on\u00a0how to use this tool for your inbound marketing campaigns<\/a>.<\/p>\n Next, find out what type of content your customers are consuming at different points in the buyer\u2019s journey, including:<\/p>\n Dig deeper by using the\u00a0Topic Research<\/a>\u00a0tool, which can help you understand what topics might appeal to your customers. You can also do preliminary keyword research with the\u00a0Keyword Magic Tool<\/a>\u00a0or find out what\u2019s working well for your competitors with the\u00a0Organic Research Tool<\/a>.<\/p>\n Next, determine which platforms you should utilize to generate maximum engagement. Think about it this way: there\u2019s very little point in investing a large amount of time trying to create the perfect Twitter campaign if this isn\u2019t where you normally acquire the bulk of your customers.<\/p>\n You can use our\u00a0Market Analysis Tools<\/a>\u00a0to help you to do this. The\u00a0Market Explorer Tool<\/a>\u00a0and Traffic Analytics Tool are great resources to help you find out what platforms your existing customers are coming from as well as where your competitor\u2019s customers are coming from.<\/p>\n The fourth step is sometimes one that people will jump to straight away, but the market research in the previous steps needs to be completed first.<\/p>\n Planning your content into a calendar will help you to be consistent and organized in the creation and publication of your content. You can adapt your calendar based on the customer interaction and engagement as you go, but sticking to a strategy or planned campaign is the best way to have a coherent presence across all platforms used.<\/p>\n Creating a content calendar from scratch can feel daunting, but there are lots of useful\u00a0guides<\/a>\u00a0and tools to help you. You can use the\u00a0Marketing Calendar Tool<\/a>\u00a0to organize your marketing and editorial activities across all platforms in one shared space. This is also a great way to keep things organized across multiple stakeholders and team members too.<\/p>\n The last step in any marketing strategy should be to analyze your results and learn from them. Whether you\u2019re tracking social media post engagement, views of a blog, or how long users watched your video, it\u2019s vital to fully understand the engagement data that you\u2019re seeing and adapt for your next campaign.<\/p>\n The Marketing Calendar Tool is useful here as well, as it allows you to monitor the progress of all of your content and amend anything that isn\u2019t working.<\/p>\nWhat Is Inbound Marketing?<\/h2>\n
Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing Definitions<\/h3>\n
Types of Inbound Marketing<\/h2>\n
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Inbound Marketing Methodology<\/h2>\n
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Inbound Marketing Strategies<\/h2>\n
1. Define your Business Goals & Audience Demographic<\/h3>\n
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2. Provide Content Throughout the Entire Customer Lifecycle<\/h3>\n
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3. Choose Your Platforms Wisely<\/h3>\n
4. Create a Content Calendar<\/h3>\n
5. Analyze & Optimize Results<\/h3>\n