Are you thinking about moving a portion of your marketing budget away from outbound marketing and more toward inbound marketing? Perhaps you're not quite sure what selling, marketing and advertising online entails. Maybe you're looking for some guidance on how to choose an inbound marketing agency. Well, if any of these scenarios apply to your enterprise, then this is a must read.
According to HubSpot's State of Inbound 2015 report, online marketing is the preferred channel for 75% of today's enterprises across B2B, B2C and B2G industries. The report also stated that inbound strategies achieved a higher marketing return on investment (ROI) and lead to higher customer engagement than outbound strategies. In fact, the success of inbound channels is predicated on continually engaging your audience and motivating them to purchase. Here are some essential ways an inbound marketing agency can help your company expand its reach.
Real-time analytics is a cornerstone of inbound marketing.
1. A Real-Time Customer Engagement Platform
An online strategy is preferred by so many companies because it's a customer engagement tool that generates high-quality leads and opportunities in real-time. Think about where your customers are right now and how an inbound channel can reach them. Ultimately, the surest way to motivate your customers is by having an online presence, one that reaches customers at work on their laptops and on the road via their mobile phones.
2. Content
Content is the most effective and inexpensive approach to generating leads online. It attracts prospects by allowing you to showcase your knowledge, your competencies, and capabilities. An inbound marketing agency can provide keyword-focused content that expands your market reach, generates new leads and opens up new opportunities. In the end, content is a brand builder. It defines common customer problems and outlines uncommon solutions, ones your company is best able to provide.
3. Social Media
What's the tool that makes content so powerful? Simply put, today's customers share, like and comment on the most interesting content through social media, which ensures that the content that's created now will produce leads and opportunities long into the future. Social media is the mechanism that makes content king. It builds your brand, keeps customers coming back and ensures that your message remains consistent and constant.
Social media makes content work.
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO isn't just about keyword research. It's not just about maximizing your digital messaging so that all approaches are using the right percentage of keywords and keyword terms. It's really about making sure your digital platforms are optimized for online searches so that potential prospects have an easier time finding your solutions online. This involves optimizing your website for laptop and mobile searches, and ensuring that your calls-to-action (CTA) on web-based content drives prospects to specific landing pages on your website.
5. Lead Management, Nurturing, and Marketing Automation
Lead management and nurturing are not just about generating a lead, closing the sale and then moving on to the next opportunity. Instead, it's about ensuring that your leads are compounded again and again. Marketing automation is the tool that makes this possible. Your preset marketing automation conditions ensure that each customer action initiates a response, one where your digital marketing strategies reintroduce customers back into the sales process, thereby ensuring that your company has a continuous source of new opportunities.
Using all of these strategies in unison is critical. The right agency will use real-time analytics and metrics in order to help you better understand how traffic is generated, what platforms produce the best leads and what digital strategies move prospects forward.
Connection Model knows how to leverage each of these aforementioned platforms. Contact us and we'll show you how.
Written By: David Carpenter
