Think of Inbound Marketing as the holy grail of marketing strategies. Inbound Marketing is a genius concept developed by practical geniuses who saw that traditional forms of marketing haven’t been performing as well as they previously have. This is because Inbound Marketing strategies are non-intrusive and have a more natural flow and feel to them – Inbound Marketing blends the content that your target audience needs in a way that draws them to you rather than forcing yourself onto them.
What’s more is that marketing tools exist to make your life that much easier and your inbound strategies more effective and efficient.
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound Marketing is all about forming bonds that last with your audience thanks to its multiple, successive stages which we will get into soon. It’s basically about giving your audience what they need no matter where they are in the buyer’s journey.
Marketing is a channel whereby businesses influence consumer curiosity in their product offerings or services. It is an overarching terminology that encompasses branding, public relations, advertising, direct response, multi-channel promotions, customer retention, and so on.
In other words, the primary goal of marketing as a whole is to entice customers and raise their awareness of a product, service, or brand’s name. Customers learn about the significance of a company’s products or services and how well they can benefit them via marketing.
The use of non-invasive approaches is the most significant part of the Inbound Marketing Strategy. It’s all about the client approaching the firm rather than it disrupting the former’s everyday life with intense marketing approaches.
Inbound Marketing Tools
What are marketing tools?
Marketing tools are the structures, processes, strategies, assets, software, and resources that businesses or marketing specialists use to develop and implement successful marketing strategies for their products or services.
Marketing tools can assist a company or marketing professional in a variety of ways, including:
- Improving brand awareness
- Boosting lead generation and sales
- Acquiring significant consumer and market information
Types of marketing tools
Businesses can select from a wide assortment of marketing tools. Among the most frequent marketing tools are:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is one of the most important marketing tools, and particularly so for Inbound Marketing strategies. This is because SEO helps you optimize your pages and blogs based on what your audience is looking for or searching on search engines like Google. Having a robust SEO strategy would thus boost your ranking on search engines which will see you as vital for web surfers.
Because the majority of people typically scan the first page of query searches, the better your SEO position, the more powerful your digital marketing will most likely be.
SEO solely relates to organic search results ranks and does not include paid advertisements at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). The production of high-quality content that customers will consider pertinent to their search is required for optimal search engine optimization.
Because content is at the core of inbound marketing, proper search engine optimization (keywords in your blog posts and promotional campaigns) will fling your brand to the sky. Or as close to it as possible. There are many practical tools you can use for SEO strategies, but we recommend using the following:
Well-developed and optimized website landing pages
A landing page is where a web surfer “lands” when they click on your links that are visible on search engine results pages. If your landing pages aren’t informative and visually appealing, then your visitors would leave your site and look for someone else – we don’t want that.
For this reason, invest time and effort in “beautifying” and optimizing your different landing pages. There are several software you can use for this, and here are a few free website-building software we recommend if you prefer doing the task yourself over hiring website developers:
- WordPress – Elementor (free and paid versions)
- Wix (free and paid versions)
- Figma (free and paid versions)
- Bootstrap (free)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
The ultimate goal is selling your products and/or services, not contending with cumbersome spreadsheets, congested inboxes, or slow-moving tools. That is why adopting a Customer Relationship Management System, or CRM, is critical.
A CRM will not only assist your sales team in maintaining connections, but it will also provide you with a location to distribute the leads you created to your sales department. CRM software centralizes all customer data and enables firms to achieve profitable growth. It facilitates, among other things, firms’ ability to:
- Increase efficiency
- Increase transparency
- Retain clients
- Increase sales
We recommend the following CRM tools:
Analytics
Since the world has gone digital, there is much more content than ever before. Use systems that analyze and offer data about your viewers across all of your channels, including your website, email, social media, and more.
Google Analytics provides information about your leads and customers’ online activities, such as clicks, page hits, bounce rate, time on site, traffic origin, and general web analytics. This type of tool tells you how your inbound marketing initiatives are performing — who is viewing your material and for what purposes.
Obtaining all of this data allows you to optimize your content so that you can continue to make more strong bonds, which propel your business ahead.
Other analytics we recommend are:
Social media marketing
Our world has grown and will continue to grow increasingly reliant on online presence, especially after the Coronavirus pandemic. Research and estimates indicate that almost 5 billion people today are on at least 1 social media platform, with around 2 billion on Instagram.
This means that including social media marketing strategies in your Inbound Marketing initiatives is of very, very high importance.
For a clearer picture, 1% of the world’s population is around 78 million people. This means that 5 billion people is equal to 62.5% – imagine the impact that social media marketing would have on your brand exposure.
Sure, you definitely won’t be visible to all 5 billion people, but your chances of being acknowledged by your target audience is pretty high when marketing tools are used correctly.
Since Instagram is one of the most visual platforms, marketing your offerings on it would focus on aspects of your brand that would attract more people than if you market yourself on, say, Tumblr or Twitter. Check out this article for content ideas for your business Instagram. Don’t forget to create a content marketing strategy and calendar.
Here are our recommendations for social media marketing tools:
Email marketing
Sources that tell you that email marketing is dead are dead wrong. Email marketing, though one of the oldest inbound marketing strategies available, is also one of the most beneficial when done right.
Inbound email marketing strategies are built on behavioral marketing segmentation, which makes email marketing much more effective and cost-efficient. After developing relevant buyer personas and knowing whom to target, your segmented list of contacts will most likely engage with the emails you send.
What makes it better is that there are several marketing automation software that make your life easier. One such example is VBOUT, which helps with more than just email marketing automation. We urge you to check them out and request a demo – we use their services, so you can take our word for it.
Here are some email marketing tools — in addition to VBOUT — that we recommend:
Free trials and loyalty programs
This is more of an abstract tool because you’re the one putting in the effort instead of using a tool like SEO’s SEMRush, for instance. However, it is a very powerful tool for your (Inbound) marketing strategy. This is because free trials would allow your leads to see your product or service in action – to test it out themselves.
Loyalty programs, which are part of the Delight stage that will be discussed later on, make clients feel like they’re important to your company. People nowadays want to be seen as more than just a number, and launching a loyalty program is a great way to cement this feeling in their minds. In addition, it would greatly increase the chances of buyers going back to you for their needs and even spreading word of your considerate philosophy.
Here are some tools we recommend for creating loyalty programs:
Benefits of Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing has undoubtedly become a major component of marketing as an economic philosophy. Throughout the last decade, more company executives and entrepreneurs have shifted their focus to inbound marketing methods.
Inbound marketing is always about harnessing modern consumer-friendly strategies like SEO, social media marketing, and content development. While conventional techniques of marketing are not completely obsolete, the emergence of the Digital Age has empowered Inbound Marketing to acquire traction at a far faster rate. Here are some of the benefits of Inbound Marketing for organizations, prospects, and buying customers:
- Inbound marketing raises online brand visibility.
- Inbound marketing builds legitimacy.
- Inbound marketing produces qualified traffic and leads.
- Inbound marketing streamlines the marketing and sales processes.
- Inbound marketing educates audiences.
- Inbound marketing is cost effective.
To read about each in more detail, check out this article.
Inbound Marketing Methodology
As we’ve already mentioned, there are different stages that an Inbound Marketing Strategy follows for optimum results. To be more specific, there are 4 stages in the Inbound Marketing Funnel:
Attract stage
The core of any marketing strategy is drawing prospects’ awareness to what your organization has to deliver and how it can alleviate their concerns. Inbound Marketing isn’t an invasive strategy that seeks to promote a product or service at every step; instead, it empowers prospects to make educated decisions and adds value to their hunt for the best solution to their challenges.
Here, your content must be centered on topics that answer their questions before they even ask them. Examples of this include:
- What is the difference between SMART goals and KPIs?
- What is the buyer’s journey?
- What is the difference between inbound marketing and outbound marketing?
Such content is of vital importance because it would increase website traffic, even if the topics aren’t an exact match to your offerings.
Engage stage
People have identified your company at this point and are getting more acquainted with what you have to present, leading to prospects that you would like to convert to clients. Lead Generation comprises personalizing lead communication and improving sales in a combination of techniques.
Here, your content must be centered on topics that would turn passive viewers into qualified leads. Examples of this include:
- Explainer video content
- Case studies and whitepapers
- Guides
Close stage
This is the most important stage of the Inbound Marketing approach. This is where your organization must go above and beyond to persuade leads that your company is the solution to their problems. To complete the transaction, your company’s sales force must contact prospects at the right time and right pace. Simply said, the closing stage is the point at which the whole Inbound Marketing process fits together.
Here, your content must be centered on why you are the most convenient choice. Effective ideas include:
- Testimonials
- Free trials
- Consultation services
Delight stage
This stage of the Inbound Marketing process is perhaps the most undervalued. A range of variables, such as referrals and sales from current clients, have a direct impact on business development and market share growth.
This is attributable to the fact that Inbound Marketing is focused on the individual – the client is everything. Even though they have already purchased your products or services, it does not mean that your organization can ignore them.
Inbound Marketing allows you to delight your consumers in a variety of ways, including:
- Regularly producing and publishing newsletters / relevant blog posts
- Social media re-posting of client material
- Testimonials from clients who are willing to provide them
- Surveys (feedback / needs)
- Follow-up emails
Final Thoughts
Inbound Marketing strategies are less invasive and have a more seamless rhythm and vibe – Inbound Marketing integrates the content that your target demographic needs in a way that pulls them to you instead of imposing yourself upon them. There are many benefits of inbound marketing, as emphasized earlier, and the marketing tools you can use are of vital importance.
Consider your sales and marketing divisions joining forces to naturally foster leads and transform them to recurring customers. That’s just who we are and what inbound marketing does. We are an inbound marketing agency that assists you in developing, strengthening, and expanding connections with your audience.
Inbound marketing is quickly becoming a critical strategy for enhancing your digital footprint. You may be wondering what an inbound marketing agency does. That is a frequently asked question. Do we create websites and code? Do we publish blogs and articles? Or do we engage in online marketing? Well, the answer is all of the above.
