In our last post, we shared the basics behind Inbound Marketing and that it has been the most effective marketing method for doing business online. Instead of the old outbound marketing methods of buying ads, buying email lists, and praying for leads, inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that pulls people toward your organization and its offerings, where they naturally want to be.
Today, we want to begin walking you through the stages of the Inbound Marketing actions and learn more about what we call Rocket Fuel.
Attract
We don’t want just any traffic to our site, we want the right traffic. We want the people who are most likely to become leads, and, ultimately, happy customers. Who are the “right” people? Our ideal customers are also known as our buyer personas. Buyer personas are holistic ideals of what your customers are really like, inside and out. Personas encompass the goals, challenges, pain points, common objections to products and services, as well as personal and demographic information shared among all members of that particular customer type. Your personas are the people around whom your whole business is built and who you strive to connect with.
Some of the most important tools to attract the right users to your site are:
Blogging.
Inbound marketing starts with good ‘ol blogging. It almost sounds cliche, but a blog is the single best way to attract new visitors to your website. In order to get found by the right prospective customers, you must create educational content that speaks to them and answers their questions. Frequent, relevant and timely that, once published, can speak to your ideal customer whenever they need the information.
SEO.
Your customers begin their buying process online. In today’s world, they just do… usually by using a search engine (Google or Bing) to find something they have questions about. So, you need to make sure you’re appearing highly when and where they search. To do that, you need to carefully, analytically pick keywords, optimize your pages, create content, and build links around the terms your ideal buyers are searching for among other timely SEO (search engine optimization) practices.
Pages.
Your website pages are your digital storefront. So put your best face forward! Optimize your website to appeal to your ideal buyers and transform your website into a beacon of helpful content to entice the right strangers to visit your pages. This can include many things depending on your content, but some items already mentioned, like SEO, is a good place to start.
Social Media.
Successful inbound strategies are all about great content – and social publishing on soical channels allows you to share that valuable information on the social web, engage with your personas, and put a face on your brand. Interact on the channels where your ideal buyers spend their time and is where many people begin their online journeys outside of a search engine inquiry.
In our next blog post, learn more about the Convert phase and its role in the Inbound Process. If your would like to know more before our next post, feel free to let us know.
