Inbound Marketing 101: 3 Areas Businesses Need to Master

The field of marketing has changed throughout the years. During the late nineties, talking about marketing would bring images of salesmen going door to door while carrying sturdy briefcases filled with sample products. Then with the popularity of telephones, cold calling became the norm where operators would say everything to get you to commit to a few orders. Fast forward to the 21st century, and the wonders of the internet are regularly changing the rules of the game. Marketing became much more than being the loudest voice in the marketplace. It’s now about building a community of fans that can identify with the brand’s values and products. Eddie Yoon, the author of the best-selling book Superconsumers, identifies the shift as going from “advertiser monologues to dialogues.” Marketing in the present world means having an authentic and engaging relationship with the business’s target audience. This new arena gave birth to the popularity of inbound marketing, a term first coined by Hubspot co-founder Brian Halligan. He believes that effective marketing is about cultivating positive and valuable experiences with customers by sharing useful and thoughtful content. Customers aren’t looking for specific product advertisements anymore. Instead, they’re searching the internet for relevant articles that can help them solve problems and issues, which can include purchasing products and services. Getting experts for web design services becomes significant, as businesses don’t want to turn off potential clients with a clunky interface and slow loading times. Here are a few areas companies should learn to master the inbound marketing strategy:

Buyer’s Journey

To know how customers act, businesses should be able to chart their ideal buyer’s journey. The process usually has three stages, namely (a) Awareness, (b) Consideration, and (c) Decision. First, the buyer encounters a problem, which will lead them to the second phase of considering options that can help solve it. Last, they decide the solution that is within budget and works for their circumstances. Having an intimate understanding of the buyer’s journey can help businesses optimize the experience with targeted tweaks and software.

Landing Pages

Landing pages are an indispensable tool for marketers. This individual web page helps drive traffic and leads and captures customer information by promoting campaigns with a specific call to action. Website visitors are persuaded to sign up for an account, be part of the email newsletter, or avail of discounts for their next purchase. According to Hubspot, a successful landing page has ten elements. One element is to have a catchy headline that can summarize the offer at one glance. Another is highlighting the value of the offer. The use of bullet points and eye-catching design can help in this goal.

Page Rank

Not all web pages are created equal. Some are deemed by search engines like Google worthy of being on the first batch of search results, while others won’t reach the light of day except through direct links. Websites can increase their ranking by providing useful content for users, without sounding like it’s written by robots trying to fit in a lot of keywords. In the eyes of Google, the website becomes a source of authority, especially if topics are niche and specialized. Another way is by link building where other sites share and link the articles because it’s interesting and engaging. In today’s modern world, marketing has become multi-dimensional and customer-centric. Businesses can take advantage of these trends by learning how to implement inbound marketing successfully.