Inbound Marketing: Just round the Corner Deals await you

CHAPTER 1

Inbound Marketing: An Introduction

OBJECTIVE

The author strives to inculcate into the minds of the readers the art of Inbound Marketing which is a tactic to attract visitors or potential customers to buy a product rather than pushing a product onto them. It aims to give the readers an understanding the process that is followed for inbound marketing.

INTRODUCTORY CASELET: THE SALESFORCE WAY TO INBOUND MARKETING

Salesforce.com is very efficiently using inbound marketing for generating traffic as well as leads in the United Kingdom. Salesforce has identified that the purchase journey has changed in the contemporary world.This new purchase journey consists of threeimportant aspects:

• Now-a-days a considerable number of people search products on search engines.

• There is lot of user generated content available on social network platforms that does effect the purchase decision.

• People can now choose where and when to engage with a brand, plus what content they would like to consume.

Looking at these facts, Salesforce has come to understand that the actual sales people come in contact with the buyers much later in the purchase cycle as compared to the traditional purchase cycle.

Salesforce came up with the Get Found strategy, which helps it to get found by the people who are actively looking for help with the kinds of issues salesforce caters to. To implement this strategy, Salesforce used the Content Rich Microsite. This involved building content-rich microsite filled with the kind of content the target market valued, thus, creating a value addition for the organization.

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Marketing is the heart and soul of any business. The main aim of marketing is to

Marketing is the heart and soul of any business. The main aim of marketing is to plan and attract as many customers as possible and convert these leads into a sale. Outbound marketing and Inbound marketing are two concepts which are getting big in the market and include the overall concept of contemporary marketing it self. For a successful business one needs to know and understand which inbound marketing efforts could work for the business. Literature suggests that the term was originally coined by HubSpot in 2005, thus, this concept is quite new.

The fundamental concept of inbound marketing is to provide content to the visitors on the company’s website which the potential customers want and in such a way that the potential customers are able to find it easily. Thus, Inbound Marketing is a technique by which company and its related information is made available easily to customers for their knowledge and decision making.

In the following chapters we will be discussing the inbound techniques, assessment of Inbound marketing efforts, etc.

1.1.1 THE CONCEPT OF INBOUND MARKETING

There are many ways of defining Inbound Marketing. It is the process of drawing the attention of prospective buyers by using content creation, even before such people are ready to buy the product.

Inbound marketing can also be defined as a technique for attracting customers to products and services through the use of content marketing, social media marketing and search engine optimization.

Further, Inbound marketing can be looked as a strategy which focuses its efforts on drawing customers, or leads, by using company-created Internet-based content, thus, making potential customers to come to the company site rather than marketers struggling to get their attention.

It strives to make it easier for customers, who are actively looking for goods or services on the Internet, to find what a particular company is offering.

Thus, inbound marketing has emerged as one of the best and cost effective options to convert strangers into customers and even become promoters of a product or service.

It would be good to know that content marketing is done by using a blog, and is a very good example of an effective Inbound marketing.

To sum up, some of the characteristics of the Inbound marketing are:

a. Inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content by using tools like social media marketing and search engine optimization.

b. Its aim is to attract or pull strangers to the business to become customers of the business.

c. Helps customers, who are active online looking for goods or services on the Internet. Such people are already searching for answers online, researching the industry, checking out the competitors, and trying to decide if they really need the company's service or product.

d. Aims at aligning the content which company publishes with the customer’s interests.

e. Aim is not only to convert strangers into customers but also into evangelists and promoters of the brand leading to more referrals and renewals.

Inbound Marketing is a bit different from the traditional marketing efforts (also termed as Outbound Marketing) where companies try to publish their Ads on TV, Newspapers, etc. and just wait for people to listen or read them and respond to them if they are interested in these services or products. We will be discussing the Outbound Marketing concepts in later sections of this chapter.

1.1.2 WHY INBOUND MARKETING BECAME AN OVERNIGHT SUCCESS

Inbound marketing has been able to surpass outbound marketing. Some of the primary reasons for this are:

a. It costs less than outbound marketing.

b. Unlike inbound marketing, outbound marketing tries to target audience when they are not interested, so it becomes a waste of time, money and energy.

c. 44 percent of direct mails,which is one of the tools of outbound marketing, is never opened. Thus, a waste of time, postage and paper.

d. 86 percent of people skip through television advertisements and change the channel when advertisements(Ads) are displayed. Moreover, TV Ads and Radio Ads are very expensive to create and broadcast.

e. The cost per lead in outbound marketing is more than for inbound marketing.

1.1.3 DOWNSIDE OF INBOUND MARKETING

Now that we have understood what Inbound marketing is and what its aim is, its time now to discuss about some of its disadvantages.

a. The audience of inbound marketing messages is very restricted as only those audiences are able to view such messages who have chosen to get them.

b. Companies have less control over what a potential customer may see while surfing through a company’s website. There is a high degree of chance that the audience might miss an opt-in offer.

c. Too much and too many kinds of inbound marketing content can overpower a prospective client and cause a company’s content to get misplaced in the shuffle.

d. With inbound marketing, it takes more time to understand the Return On Investment(ROI) as it is possible that an audience might not immediately be ready to buy the said product or service.

e. Inbound marketing also tries to establish two-way communication. The customer’s feedback and review of company’s brand or product or service is used to attract other people. Sometimes it does happen that a frustrated or unsatisfied customer may post negative comments instead of positive comments.

Thus, there exist a number of disadvantages associated with the Inbound marketing, but still the merits of Inbound Marketing far reach the demerits of the same.

1.1.4 SCOPE OF INBOUND MARKETING

The scope of Inbound marketing is limited. Though, it aim is to transform the strangers to the business into customers and eventually into promoters of the business’s product or service, but it doesn’t target everyone. Some marketing philosophers are of the view that consumers don’t want to have products pushed at them, but are willing to search for them if they want to, and have the facility to do so.

According to the concept, the Ad campaigner is not supposed to disturb the people, rather it focuses on sending informational message in the form of quality content to limited number of people who want an answer to their specific problems and are ready to receive such messages and help the people to find solutions to their problems. In a nut shell, Inbound marketing tries to draw the people towards the product or brand rather than the product or brand running after people to buy it.

Thus, the scope of Inbound marketing is limited to enable companies and company-related information to be easily found by consumer.

1.1.5 INBOUND MARKETING VS. OUTBOUND MARKETING

Now that we have elaborately learnt about the inbound marketing concept, we would shift our focus a bit on the Outbound Marketing concept which is a sort of traditional marketing. In section we are going to discuss about the concept of outbound marketing and later we will have a comparative analysis between Outbound and Inbound marketing.

Outbound Marketing:

Outbound marketing is actually the traditional marketing. TV and Radio Ads, Ads in Newspapers and Magazines, cold-calling, advertising on billboards, or sponsoring a booth at an event are all examples of outbound marketing.

Outbound marketing is called by this name because the marketer sends out a marketing message to the audience and hopes that the audience will listen or view it and give a response which will then be converted into a lead and subsequently into a deal.

Inbound marketing is not supposed to replace outbound marketing rather it is meant to enhance and supplement it. (Figure 1.1)

Figure 1.1: Tools of Outbound marketing

Inbound Marketing:

Here quality content is used to pull the audiencein to business or brand. Such audience is already searching for answers online, researching the industry, checking out not only a particular brand or product but also the other competitors. By doing so, the customers try to decide if they really need the service or product.

Thus, the objective of inbound marketing is to let the quality content speak of scenarios and stages of the buying process and capture these already interested prospects when they are already online.Creating killer content is more about brains and commitment rather than budget when speaking about inbound marketing. (Figure 1.2)

Figure 1.2: Tools of Inbound marketing

In inbound marketing we align the content and publish it as per customer’s interests, thus, attracting inbound traffic which can then be converted into lead and then into customer and later into brand ambassadors.

Inbound marketing focuses on earning and not buying a person’s attention. The content used is interesting, informative and adds value. It strives to create a positive connection in the eyes of the consumer.It costs less and has better a ROI.

Now that we have elaborately studied the concepts of both Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing;we hereby, present a comparison between these two concepts in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1: Inbound Marketing Vs. Outbound Marketing

To summarize, inbound marketing and outbound marketing always go hand-in-hand. One cannot take the place of the other. It is required to create a mix of both these techniques depending on the product, the scenario and the needs of the audience.

1.1.6 INBOUND MARKETING CATEGORIES

There are numerous categories of inbound marketing. Rarely it happens that only one type will help to achieve company’s marketing goals. Thus, we need to have a mix of them on case to case basis.

Here are some commonly used inbound marketing types.

a. SEO

Search Engine optimization (SEO) is an important part of inbound marketing. SEO helps the company to the top of the search results which ensures that the company’s content is seen by the desiring audience which can then create sales leads. SEO also helps content manager to create compelling, keyword-rich, link-worthy content through analysis of keyword data and trends, and tracking traffic and links.

It, thus, helps in building relationships with influencers in the market. SEO statistical analysis help business development and account management teams to aid the retention of search-driven customers.

b. Social Media

User statistics regarding social media are quite impressive. Here, are some astonishing statistics about Facebook. Worldwide, there are over 1.94 billion monthly active Facebook users as in for March 2017.Five new profiles are created every second on Facebook. Average time spent per Facebook visit is 20 minutes. Statistics from Twitter and other social media are also not different. Such huge audience can’t be ignored when it comes to inbound marketing.

Informative content can be shared on these platforms about company, product, brand, service, etc.

c. Live Events and Webinars

For business clients, informative webinars have become a big hit as they offer a great opportunity to bridge the gap between downloadable fixed content and an in-person event. This is because the attendees get a chance to ask questions and engage with the expert presenter. The only problem with webinars is that they have a higher cost per lead. Polls and Q&A sections are a great way to keep the webinar audience engaged. People can participate in the webinar sitting in their offices, thus, saving their time in travelling.

d. White papers

A white paper is basically a detailed guide on a specific topic written in formal tone. Inbound marketing content creator, in initial stages, can combine three or four of their blog posts on a given subject.

e. Analyst reports

This type of content is great when the audience is hungry for data that supports the latest industry trends to help guide broader decision making.

This is very helpful when targeting highly skilled, motivated and intelligent professionals to first gain trust and credibility.

It’s great for demand generation and Public Relation. Such published reports can further be used for a variety of future content, like sales collateral and blog posts.

f. EBooks

EBooks are books which are available in digital form. They boast of more graphical elements and design imagery than white paper. It works best in situations where audience has a preference for simplified visual content and are generally used to drive awareness at the very top of the funnel.

g. Infographics

Visual learning is one of the best ways to convey information. Infographics are the best ways to convey your message to the audience with least text and maximum suggestive visuals. Infographics does this for an individual and is a good way to perform inbound marketing.(Figure 1.3)

Figure 1.3: A example of Infographics

It is a great way for visual representations of the key take aways to bring statistics to life. They are easily shared, and so can do great Public Relation(PR)work and may even go viral.

h. State of The Industry Reports

State of the industry reports, though, rarely used in inbound marketing, still give the company a unique opportunity to accomplish something which many of the company’s competitors probably never will.

As an inbound tool, the factual data which it uses is craved by many who want facts, trends, and yearly updates of the industry they’re in.

1.1.7 The Process of Inbound Marketing

a. Content Creation and Distribution

The first stage of inbound marketing is the quality content generation. Such content must strive to answer the audience’s needs and questions. Once created efforts are made to share that content is far and wide.

b. Lifecycle Marketing

One must understand that strangers can’t just become promoters of a product or brand, etc. Strangers are first attracted and converted into visitors when they visit a page online. These visitors are then converted into leads and subsequently converted into customers when satisfied become the brand ambassador of the product. Specific marketing actions and tools are needed at each of these stages to transform those strangers into promoters.

c. Personalization

Content needs to be personalized and tailored as per the wants and needs of the targeted audience.

d. Multi-Channel

Content should be distributed by using multiple channels as different people use different channels to get to the information. It is good to use a mix of different channels like social media, google search, etc. This helps to cover the wider audience.

e. Integration

The final stage is to combine content creation, publishing and analytics tools to work together like a