Like all things digital marketing, an effective inbound marketing strategy isn’t as simple as just blogging or posting quirky images and videos on social media. Spending too much time creating content that gets no long-term traffic (from Google search or anywhere) and sinking resources into simplistic or unorganized efforts to draw attention to your website will not get in front of your prospects regularly enough to benefit either your audience or your sales growth needs.
Inbound and outbound marketing differ in the approach they take toward potential customers. While more traditional “outbound” marketing focuses on pushing your message out and hoping to catch the attention of a certain audience, inbound marketing is about attracting your potential clients to come to you. Think about television ads, telemarketing calls, and unsolicited emails in comparison to social media, reading an article, listening to a podcast, and downloading a useful ebook.
Which is more likely to pique your interest in a company?
We have gathered 13 of the most effective inbound marketing examples that will grow your business the fastest. While the ultimate objective of inbound marketing is usually to drive traffic (usually through SEO), build brand awareness, and generate leads, each type is suited for various situations.
Because of the effort required to employ inbound marketing, you may need help from an outside writer or agency rather than doing it in the house, depending on your manpower. However you decide to approach it, inbound marketing is worth the effort in the long run to build credibility while acing your SEO game.
Just make sure you are committed to this over the long haul. Hear me when I say that it is not worth pursuing if you are going to expect results in 6 months. This journey will take 12, 24, or even 36 months to pay off, but pay off it will in building you a lead generation machine!
Disclaimer: This article does contain affiliate links. If you purchase a tool through one of my links, I will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.
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What is an Inbound Marketing Funnel? 4 Phases
The inbound marketing funnel takes the classic visualization used to describe sales funnel and applies it to the inbound marketing strategy. This illustration shows how you progress through the stages of converting potential clients to leads, customers, and promoters. The four main phases are
- Attract
- Convert
- Close
- Delight
Attracting new visitors to your website and its content is the foundation of this form of marketing. Rather than intruding on the lives of potential customers with ads (push marketing), the goal is to attract them by providing useful information about topics in which they are interested (pull marketing). The main focus in this stage of the funnel is to figure out what people are searching for in search engines, and then create quality content that meets their needs.
Conversion is an important step in the process that often gets missed. Just because you attract someone to your website doesn’t mean you’ve won the sale. 80+% of website visitors leave, never to return again.
In order to convert them into an email lead, you need to get their contact information and give them a reason to stick around. This can be done using a call-to-action, where the guest provides contact information in return for useful information pertaining to the content that attracted them in the first place (e.g. a tip sheet, downloadable e-book, or white paper). This is a natural way to start to solidify the relationship between your business and move them through the funnel towards a potential client.
The third phase is where you nurture your leads and close the sale. Once you’ve established your credibility, people will be much more willing to hear how you can also help solve their problems. It is important to note that inbound marketing is not meant to replace what your sales team is doing. A well formulated email drip nurturing campaign should both accompany and amplify their work in order to boost your business and close more deals.
For example, this phase is the time to nurture your email leads, which can be done through email marketing automation workflows. Your CRM will score each lead, and then you can have your salespeople follow up with those who have the highest lead scores (or show most interest in your product or service). This is a much more strategic and efficient approach to sales that incorporates both your marketing and sales team to benefit your company as a whole.
But remember, there is a fourth step! Though closing may turn leads into clients, your work doesn’t stop there.
The final stage is to delight your customers. Satisfied customers are a wonderful thing, but you are looking to exceed expectations and elicit true delight. When someone is delighted, they become promoters of your product or service; word of mouth is invaluable to any business. Carrying out your marketing all the way through this final phase will result in promotion that pays for itself many times over (2X, 3X or higher ROI).
Inbound marketing turns the traditional outbound ad model on its head and is a way of building a relationship with customers unlike anything previously seen. These 13 examples will arm you with the most effective ways to start drawing prospects to your website and draw them into your lead generation system, which will transform the way you and your sales team does business.
1. Blogging + SEO = Inbound Flywheel
It seems like everybody has a blog these days, but is yours consistently generating leads?
You may be wondering how a blog will benefit your business when they’ve become so commonplace, but the numbers don’t lie. According to