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An Inbound Marketing Strategy

September 20, 2013

Inbound marketing is difficult to get started as it take a lot of effort. That’s understandable but you need to start somewhere. yes, content is very important but what’s just as important, maybe even more, is your marketing strategy. With our insight in this field, here are some tips to help you get in there to convert your customers into leads.

1. What is your target audience’s persona? This is important because then you can gear your product towards a specific kind of person rather than having a generalization. Yes, you do want to have a large audience base but sometimes, specifying things can make the road a lot easier for you. The persona you are targeting will give you a chance to really get towards the people who share common problems, needs and wants. Through this, you will be able to have an audience base that knows that they can turn to you for their exact wants and needs.

2. Understanding customer buyers is the next step once you find out what demographic you are gearing your product or service towards. Awareness is the ability to find out what their problems. You can find this through blogs, PR research, ads, banners, analysts, etc. By searching for a problem or need, you will then be able to form steps to help your potential customers solve them.

3. Performing research at an educational standpoint gives you a starting commitment to your customer’s issues. By learning about the problem, you will finding different ways to solve them, helping your audience out as they do their research on their own. You can do this through ebooks, buyer guides, industry whitepapers, events, Q&As, etc. Through this, you can learn more about your customer and the issues they have. This starting commitment makes your customer feel like their problems are also yours and that gives you a stronger bond between your audience and your company.

4. Establishing the buying criteria tends to be the solution to the problems. Yes, there are many different kinds of products that can cater to your customer’s needs but you need to make yourself stand out and give them reason to choose your product over others. If your product is unique enough, you may have little to no competition. That is a large advantage but that usually isn’t the case. You need to help your customers understand why your product or service is right for them from an educational standpoint. Make sure you aren’t in a sales mode yet so that they can trust you as “one of them.”

5. Vendor evaluation from the customers themselves is how they proceed to the next step. They have all of their research and are educated in the different solutions for their problems. Now, it’s time to steer them in your direction full-on. from product demos to free trials, you can give them an inside sneak-peek at why you really are the perfect solution for your customers. Specific information and overall experience is what really speaks to people and if you give this to them, they are more likely to give in to what you have to offer because they already experienced it. They understand it and already have an idea of what it’s going to be like in the future or long run.

It’s important to have great content for marketing but you need to have people there for you to actually market to that will want to listen to what you have to offer. You need to have a great inbound marketing strategy to get there. With these ideas in mind, you can make a greater impact on your audience base.