What is inbound marketing?
Well there are several ways to answer that question, but the gist of it is: the idea that your brand is a commodity that can be promoted via digital outlets to generate leads and value for your company. This is done effectively through the smart integration of many, many, different digital assets and tools, almost all of them centered around your website as the hub that feeds — and is fed by — the digital spokes, aka channels (think Facebook, Twitter, your blog, newsletters, email blasts, white papers, SEO, physical products, video, podcasts, etc.) to a multitude of consumers.
Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? It is an intricate dance and balance of elements to achieve the right blend for success, and everyone’s blend and balance is different. What remains the same is the positive net impact that inbound marketing has on your bottom line.
The answer is inbound marketing, which becomes a gateway to new customers and a relationship builder to current customers.
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This method of marketing digitally is usually used in conjunction with a tandem effort applied to your website, called GDD (Growth Driven Design), but it can be employed on it’s own.
[ see our previous story on that subject here: Smart Ways To Build And Activate Your Website. ]
So if your website is the hub, and you’ve created and established a handshake — something engaging that delights — the question now becomes how do your customers get there? Building and cultivating a growing website is great — but if no one sees it, or if no one knows about it, then what good is it? How can we activate all these amazing touch points? How do we let everyone know about the “newest” product, thought, idea?
The answer is inbound marketing, which becomes a gateway to new customers and a relationship builder to current customers.
Inbound marketing is about generating relevancy in SEO that amounts to relevancy with Google and other search engines, allowing you to be returned via keywords that your customers are using and searching with. It’s also about creating a sense of trust and usefulness with your visitor. It’s putting amazing insights and tactics into the world — through blogging, social media, and emails, for example — and then connecting those various channels back to your website, your products, or deeper ideas and offerings. With inbound you are building intricate connections and deepening relationships with your customers/users/viewers, which in turn increases the life and relevance of your website.
After all, being human is good business.
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This activation can take place in the form of lead generation for your sales team, reputation management, or thought leadership, to name a few. The specific goals may be different for every brand. Goals may even change over time, but the fundamental results are the same: relevance, growth, trust, and the forming of relationships .
No matter the specific goal, inbound marketing paired with amazing design and ideas generates results. It allows us to reach out further than ever before to gain potential and current customers while strengthening and building relationships with them. After all, being human is good business, and what's good for business is good for the bottom line.
It is no longer enough to assume “If you build it, they will come.” The web is too big. Users are too savvy and fickle and Google too powerful and accurate. To be seen and heard, you have to first put down the mega-phone and listen. Really listen. Inbound marketing allows us to listen with precision, GDD allows us to respond with accuracy, and the desired goal is reached; the customer is delighted enough to return, inspired enough to buy, devoted enough to share — or all of these.
Inbound marketing can help achieve these goals in many ways. We’ve developed an e-book to help get you up to speed on some of the fundamentals of using inbound marketing in your own marketing efforts and to help you generate your own leads. Go on — check it out. It’s free!
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