Inbound Marketing: Explained

Is it too obvious to say that Inbound marketing is the opposite of Outbound marketing? Maybe, but what do we mean when we're talking about inbound?

It starts with a buyer persona 

For successful inbound marketing, you first need to consider who your Buyer Persona is and create relevant content for them. You have to think, 'what would our potential customers actually want to read that we could write?'

It’s difficult to start with, but it gets easier the more you ask yourself it.

You just have to think what you can say that you have expertise in that other people would want to read. That way, you can draw your target audience to well written, valuable content.

An example of a buyer persona for an inbound marketing strategy

It's not shouty content

In comparison, imagine how you respond to LinkedIn posts, Google Ads, and sales emails. Traditional outbound marketing is ‘shouty.’ It's all about the company that is doing the shouting, such as the awards they’ve won and the new team member that's starting.

The problem with this though is that, in general, your customers aren't really interested.

Instead, to convert strangers into customers, you must be prepared to give something away to build trust and to nurture the relationship. That way, they are more likely after awhile to offer their email address in return for a piece of really juicy content.

More  For You:

• How The Inbound Methodology Can Revive Your SME’s Marketing Strategy

• Creating A Content Strategy: The Basics

• How To Conduct A Content Audit in 2022

it's about building a relationship

It's important that you don't let your Sales people jump on them. This isn't a lead - it's a visitor. You are still building a relationship with repeated exposure to your content.

When that visitor is ready to ask about buying from you, they will let you know.

They may click on a 'Call Sales' button on a landing page or contact you directly. Whichever way they choose to reach out, your job is to make it easy for them to get in touch when the time is right.

How we can help

Ultimately, content marketing is a key part of the Inbound approach. This is where most SMEs struggle, but as a UK HubSpot partner, we can help.

We know our clients very well and learn what their market wants so that we can create content (whether that be blog posts or case studies) on their behalf.  And we do this in such a way that strangers become visitors and leads become customers.

Now you've read that, you're probably thinking - but isn't this a bit outbound? Well hopefully you've learned something. We've not asked for your email to explain it to you and if you don't want to, you never need to visit the site again.

It would be nice if you did though, because then we can offer you more marketing insights, templates, e-books and all sorts of materials to help you on your way.

 Then hopefully one day, when you are ready, you'll get in touch and we can have a chat.

If you want to learn out more about the inbound marketing methodology, why not check out our Intro to Inbound e-book?