Inbound Marketing: How to Turn Your Site’s Visitors into Customers

You've probably already heard of it, but what exactly is “Inbound Marketing”? Can you apply it to your business? Does it really help to create quality leads? How do you implement an effective inbound strategy? To find out the answers to all these questions, keep on reading!

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on getting your potential customers to come to you. This is quite different from outbound marketing, which focuses on companies reaching out to potential customers (e.g. cold-calling).

With a good inbound marketing strategy, the company becomes its own medium to attract visitors and convert them into customers. This concept might remind you of what we used to call ‘push and pull marketing’.

Typical inbound marketing strategies usually involve creating content or experiences that strike a chord with your target audience. This content (or event) drives users to your site and a certain percentage of these users can become customers through different sales and marketing techniques, which we discuss below.

Which types of businesses can implement inbound marketing?

This marketing strategy is quite accessible to a large number of companies and is stretched into different business models.

Although inbound marketing is more common in B2B, there are examples of B2C companies that have undertaken this innovative strategy, such as Red Bull (who sponsors and/or hosts their own events).

What are some examples of inbound marketing?

Let's look deeper at this Red Bull example. Fans of extreme sports come to the event for the athletes, but end up being exposed to a lot of Red Bull. Whether it's the product itself, the logo, a billboard, a newsletter signup, a magazine, free t-shirts, or other merchandise, Red Bull's demographic comes into contact with their brand for reasons other than the brand itself. Eventually, the brand becomes almost synonymous with extreme sports.

However, not everyone has Red Bull's budget. Simple things like creating free PDFs, blog articles, or how-to videos can bring traffic to your site and warm up these potential customers by introducing them to your brand, even if it is a bit indirectly.

It's just important to create value. Red Bull creates entertaining events that draws their audience in. There is also a lot of viral potential at these Red Bull events/stunts.

However, many "simple" content creators make money from their content, but also gain customers. For example, a YouTuber that focuses on woodworking might create a great how-to video for users in their niche. Not only is the user making money from YouTube views, but a certain amount of viewers may actually reach out to the content creator to inquire about their services as an expert. This is a simple and effective inbound marketing strategy that even the smallest business owner can do.

Recommended reading:
What is a Lead Magnet and How Can You Use it to Your Advantage?

What are the key elements of inbound marketing?

In other words, what do you have to do to put this strategy into practice?

• Define a clear publishing strategy
• Create and optimise as much content as possible (blog posts, whitepapers, infographics, how-to videos, etc.)
• Integrate marketing automation (emailing, lead nurturing, etc.)
• Be present and engage on social networks
• Focus on natural SEO
• Constantly work on conversion optimisation

If we compare the beginnings of inbound marketing in the 2010s to today, we can already see many changes. Social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, still show the increasing importance of publications, although organic impressions are decreasing.

It has also become increasingly difficult to rank articles naturally on search engines or to obtain a good open rate for your newsletter.

Inbound marketing is therefore directly linked to the development of these (and the newest) technologies. Keeping yourself up-to-date is essential to ensure the sustainability of your marketing strategy.

The advantages of inbound marketing

Shutterstock/bearsky23

Let's have a closer look at how an inbound marketing strategy can benefit your online shop:

The costs are rather low

According to a study conducted by Hubspot, inbound marketing is 60% less expensive than traditional marketing, which is a number difficult to ignore.

Increased traffic

According to the same study, 85% of companies that have implemented this strategy have seen traffic to their websites increase in less than 7 months.

By creating content and updating it somewhat regularly, you’ll increase and diversify your keywords in search engines, which should increase your visibility in your target group. It also sends a positive signal to Google and other search engines that appreciate relevant and up-to-date content.

Did you know that user-generated content (i.e. customer reviews, testimonials, etc.) is also taken into consideration by search engines? In other words, your customers' opinions help your SEO.

A better brand image

By creating content tailored to your buyer persona, you will come across as an expert in your industry. Furthermore, you will give your website’s visitors real added value which is quite useful in terms of credibility and customer loyalty. It's a really great way to work on your brand image while also generating leads!

Recommended reading:
Branding Guide: 6 Steps to Improve Your Brand Image

What is considered an effective inbound marketing strategy?

A good Inbound strategy aims to establish a connection between the different marketing activities mentioned above and integrate them into the different stages of your sales channel.

So, what can you do?

1. Make your (potential) customers reach out to you

How, you ask? By becoming your own marketer.

Create relevant content for your target customers (articles, whitepapers, videos, etc.) and share it on various channels (blog, social networks, newsletters, etc.). In other words, make people talk about you, get as many people to know you and your brand as possible!

Recommended reading:
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram Business Accounts: Creation and Promotion

2. Qualify your prospects

Gather information about your prospects. Get to know them by analysing who they are and what their needs and motivations are. Then, get their contact info.

How? By using ‘lead nurturing’.

This technique allows you to maintain or strengthen a marketing relationship with the leads that are not yet ‘mature’ (or ‘qualified’). You will decide what makes them ‘qualified’.

Shutterstock/gonzalo aragon

The main idea is that "unqualified leads' are generally not "ready" to buy from you after just one interaction with your company. Therefore, you can come up with a points system where certain actions (e.g. adding $50 worth of products to their baskets, signing up to your newsletter, visiting specific pages, etc.) will add points to this lead. Once they reach a certain threshold of points, they can be considered ‘qualified’.

This system makes a lot of sense because you would most likely fail to convert this not-yet-ready group of leads into customers if you were to start a sales action /pitch with them too soon in the marketing process.

The idea is then to "nurture" these new prospects by offering them relevant and adapted content, allowing them to grow their interest in your company at their own pace and according to their needs.

3. Turn your prospects into customers

When your prospect is sufficiently qualified (i.e. when they seem ready to make a purchase), communicate their information to your sales teams who will then contact them.

A prospect who knows your brand, appreciates your content and your business, will obviously be more likely to become a new customer.

4. Turn your customers into your brand ambassadors

By providing a high-quality service to your customers, they will be more likely to talk about you and recommend your brand (or at least share your content, which is good for traffic). Again, this is where social proof like reviews come in handy. This will significantly increase your visibility so it's easily a win-win-situation for you and your company!

Conclusion

With a well-realised inbound marketing strategy, you can ‘gently’ turn your prospects into your customers by supporting them at their own pace and in line with their needs and preferences. Don't rush them, but always give them the option to get in touch with you even if they are not qualified. By including a "contact us" button in your content, you give them the option to qualify themselves even faster.

Your business won’t have to rely on cold calls as much anymore! Instead you'll have potential customers coming to you. In due time, many of them will be ready to become paying customers.

Getting more involved in social media? Check out our whitepaper to learn how you can boost those social media click-through rates!