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Inbound Marketing Vs. Outbound Marketing

Posted by Jennifer Lauro

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May 21, 2015

What is Inbound Marketing?

inbound_Marketing_Set_2Inbound marketing is when a company attracts and draws potential customers in to their website by creating relevant content via blogs, social media, and search engine optimization (SEO), etc. Traditional marketing such as Print Ads, Telemarketing, Radio Ads, etc. are losing impacting effect on modern society. Advances in technology are altering, and evolving how companies do business today. This world has become an Internet driven, automatic place.  Web users want responses, updates, and knowledge instantaneously.. According to The Statistics Portal, as of 2014 there are 2.92 billion active Internet users around the world. This high number of people online goes to show the importance of businesses securing a strong Internet presence and using their website as part of the sales process with inbound marketing techniques

Differences Between Inbound and Outbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is primarily about being found by the customer, rather than outbound (traditional) marketing that is based on the marketer finding and contacting potential customers. For the most part outbound marketing is viewed in today’s information era as interruptive, and unwanted. Modern day marketers are evolving and incorporating inbound marketing. Inbound marketing utilizes the advantages of the Internet by making websites, optimizing them properly (keywords, ad words, etc.), creating relevant content, attracting their target audiences, blogs, and  social media.

How to create traffic to your website

First and foremost a decent website needs to use relevant keywords in their content   for search engines to recognize the website for the company’s products and services. In most situations when a person does a Google search they click on one of the first top five search results, therefore the goal is to use  relevant keywords and remarkable content to be  one of the top searches. This is a practice in a process  called search engine optimization (SEO).

The content on the website has to be relevant to it’s buyer’s persona. Think of what problems they may have, and how they can be solved. Keep in mind the buyers career and what they do, their age, family life, and things they would typically be interested in. If the website has rich-relevant content it will create interest and traffic to the website as well as help maintain existing customers.

Blogging is an excellent way to bring visitors to a website. People are usually searching for answers online and blogs are a fantastic way to educate.. Everyone loves a good blog that is well written, interesting, and shares some knowledge. According to Word Press, every half a second, a new blog is being created. If this many blogs are being created that means the most of the world has an obvious interest in blogs, and that marketers should be creating blogs that will attract their target audiences. Chiara Ferragni, blogger for the “The Blonde Salad,” who also happens to be the world’s top blogger created her blog in attempts to help people understand how to dress with the popular trends of the season. She knew who her target audience was and created the content that portrayed and guided them to live the lifestyle that they wanted to live.

A Social media presence is a must have for any business in this world. This new generation is 100% social media inclined and Internet driven. Everything for them revolves around technology, for example 10 year olds have Facebook accounts and five year olds use Ipads. The older generations are adjusting, becoming internet savvy, and familiarizing with new technology platforms such as tablets, IPhones, laptops, IPods, etc.social media, which has revolutionized communication around the world, is a platform that companies should absolutely take advantage of.  Social media opens up so many doors for marketing. It is an easy way to share the brand, post great content, promotions, surveys, lifestyle the brand offers  links to other websites  and any other basic information. The best part is, is that it is always there for social media users  to look at as many times they wish, and offers the company a chance to get creative and engage customers. When using social media there are a plethora to choose from, but the most pertinent to the business world are Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, YouTube, Google +, and now becoming popular Instagram. Companies should use the platform(s) that makes most sense to their business.

How to convert visitors into leads

Marketers need customer’s information in order to add them to their email lists and know potential customers to reach out to. On a website where a blog might be posted there should be what is called a CTA call-to-action. These are advertisements that are eye catching to the visitor on the website, and will most likely get clicked on. An example of a highly successful CTA would be Victoria’s Secret’s, “Want to know the best Bra for you? CLICK HERE for bra size quiz.” Once a CTA is clicked, the visitor will be taken to a landing page, which will have a form to fill out his or her name and email address. This is how marketers get customer information and ways to further contact the now lead. Next there must be a thank you page where the company thanks the potential customer and gives an exact time frame to when they will be contacted again. Thank you pages are also great to give additional information such as upsell offers or additional relevant CTAs

How to close a Customer

Emailing customers is perceived to be not successful or useful, but that is not true. Email is still in high use and apart of most Internet users daily life. Email is a fast, easy and professional way to keep contact, and maintain business relationships. Businesses can utilize email  to let leads and customers know about new promotions, events, package tracking, order tracking, and follow up emails. It is an effective way to build and keep relationships, and gives businesses a chance personalize messages to customers, which is favored. In the past 10 years companies have been changing how they send emails, and making sure they send emails to people who want to open them, and not end up in the dreaded  spam  folder. Email can be useful when done properly. Always refer to the buyer’s persona, where their needs fall, speak their language, share information, close with a CTA.

Another misconception is that marketing and sales are completely separate, but that is just not true. Marketing and Sales are working on the same goal.;  The end result is for both  to convert Prospects/visitors into leads, and then close them as a customer and make a sale. If marketing isn’t done successfully then sales will most-likely drop, because no one knows about the product or service. If marketing and sales come together and share their information, and maintain communication there will likely be an increase in sales. Both marketing and sales need to be on the same page for a successful business.

Customer Relationship        

Every interaction whether it is with a lead, a new customer who just purchased, or an existing customer has to be a good experience. The business’s job is to make sure their customers are always happy; even if a mistake was made the customer can still be pleased. For example, a waitress brings out the wrong dish, he or she may then offer a gift card, or discount the order; anything that will keep the customer satisfied needs to be done. Good customer service will enhance any company or business. An unhappy customer is never a good thing, because people will talk about it, post about it, and ultimately be a lost customer. Employees should be trained to understand all of their duties and work autonomously with the knowledge of keeping the customer pleased.  As long as everyone is on a board and maintains good customer relationships the company has more of a chance to flourish and prosper

Inbound marketing keeps up with the current Internet world and personas of companies target audiences. By creating relevant content on websites, blogs, social media, and optimizing these platforms ultimately draws visitors/potential customers to websites. Inbound marketing gives customers the chance to choose what is best for them based on information they find about a company. Inbound marketing is the way to go in todays society based on how fast people get knowledge and how that effects their buying habits.

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Topics: Inbound Marketing

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