What are your current marketing practices? What is being done in your office, today, to connect with potential new clients and generate leads? Chances are the answer is likely attending trade shows and networking events, sending out eBlasts, cold calling and traditional advertising. These are all typical ways to push your message out through as many channels as possible in hopes of catching someone’s attention and turning them into a customer. How well are these “outbound marketing” tactics working for you?
Consumers have more and more ways to block out the standard forms of marketing. Between DVRs, spam filters, satellite radio, phonebook opt-out and caller ID it gets harder and harder to ensure that your message is being received.
As a consumer yourself, what influences you? How often are you looking online to find product information or seek expert advice? This is what your potential customers are doing as well; why not go where they are spending their time? Flip your “outbound marketing” strategy on its head and use an “inbound marketing” strategy to drive traffic to you.
The specific elements of an “inbound marketing” strategy vary depending on whom you ask. You essentially want to be involved in those channels where your customers spend their time. A typical combination is search, social and content driven platforms.
Search involves applying search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to your website and utilizing other tools that enable you to be found through organic search.
Social entails identifying the specific social media channels where your target audience spends their time. Having a presence on all current social media platforms may not be necessary if it does not fit with your product or service. For example, Pinterest is a very visually based medium with a high percentage of female users; if that is not your target market it may not be a wise platform to focus on.
Content can be a mix of a company blog, white papers, podcasts, ebooks, videos and infographics. Compelling and valuable content will attract visitors and inspire them to share it with their peers thus causing a buzz about your brand.
As you transition from outbound to inbound marketing, give us a call to find out all the ways we can be an effective part of your strategy.
Image Source: MorgueFile
Consumers have more and more ways to block out the standard forms of marketing. Between DVRs, spam filters, satellite radio, phonebook opt-out and caller ID it gets harder and harder to ensure that your message is being received.
As a consumer yourself, what influences you? How often are you looking online to find product information or seek expert advice? This is what your potential customers are doing as well; why not go where they are spending their time? Flip your “outbound marketing” strategy on its head and use an “inbound marketing” strategy to drive traffic to you.
The specific elements of an “inbound marketing” strategy vary depending on whom you ask. You essentially want to be involved in those channels where your customers spend their time. A typical combination is search, social and content driven platforms.
Search involves applying search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to your website and utilizing other tools that enable you to be found through organic search.
Social entails identifying the specific social media channels where your target audience spends their time. Having a presence on all current social media platforms may not be necessary if it does not fit with your product or service. For example, Pinterest is a very visually based medium with a high percentage of female users; if that is not your target market it may not be a wise platform to focus on.
Content can be a mix of a company blog, white papers, podcasts, ebooks, videos and infographics. Compelling and valuable content will attract visitors and inspire them to share it with their peers thus causing a buzz about your brand.
As you transition from outbound to inbound marketing, give us a call to find out all the ways we can be an effective part of your strategy.
Image Source: MorgueFile
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