Killer Inbound Marketing Tips to Grow Your Business

What is inbound marketing? In short, inbound marketing is a set of tactics that you employ to create brand awareness and generate new leads. In contrast to outbound marketing, which is a set of tactics that help you find new leads, inbound marketing consists of you putting yourself out there so that leads can find you. The idea is simple, you showcase to the market that you are an authority or thought leader on a particular topic, so that leads to thinking of your brand first when they think of that topic. And that, in turn, means that when they need to buy something related to that topic, they will look for you first. There are many facets of inbound marketing, and you need to understand them in order to effectively use inbound marketing to generate new leads. Here we share tips that will help you establish a powerful inbound marketing presence and grow your business.

Search Engine Optimization

You have probably heard of search engine optimization (SEO). But in case you’re not fully clear on how it works, here’s a quick run-down. SEO is a set of actions that you take with the objective of boosting your web pages’ spot on the results page when someone does a search on a search engine, such as Google. If you have great content on your site, but no one is able to find it, it’s kind of moot point. When was the last time that you scrolled through ten pages of Google results before you found what you were looking for? That’s not to say that there’s not great content buried on the web, but our assumption as surfers of the web is that the closer to the top of the results a page is, the more valuable the page is. SEO ranking is a complicated topic, as there are numerous variables that determine where a page lands in the results. However, there are some basic tactics that you can employ to boost your SEO ranking, with little work on your end.

Focus on Quality over Quantity

If you have hundreds of content pieces on your site and blog, but most of them are not overly helpful or informative, it won’t benefit you very much. On the other hand, if you only have ten pages of content, but they are all stellar and highly sought after, you will generate many more leads. The point of inbound content is to establish your business as an authority in your space by sharing advice and educational information that is helpful to your audience. If your inbound content is light on helpful advice or doesn’t educate your audience, it will not attract leads. So, if you have 1,000 pages of content that are repetitive and doesn’t solve problems for your audience, it won’t be effective. If, on the other hand, your content is incredibly helpful and insightful, your readers will share it, extending the reach of your brand.

Leverage Marketing Automation

What is marketing automation? To boil it down, marketing automation software automates the time-consuming administrative tasks involved in digital marketing. It helps you automate the sending of marketing emails; gives you tools to generate leads, such as landing pages and web forms; tracks your leads’ behaviors, such as the web pages they click on and the emails they open; scores leads based on those actions to finely tune your lead qualification process; and a whole lot more. Marketing automation software is very helpful in ramping up your inbound marketing efforts because it helps you streamline the distribution of your inbound content and monitor how well it performs. Plus, you can configure most systems to alert your sales team when a lead is ready to have a conversation with them, improving lead conversion. There are many marketing automation solutions out there to choose from. One of our favorites is EngageBay which, in addition to marketing automation, also provides an all-in-one marketing platform — and it’s just $1 per day, which makes it a good choice for small businesses looking to grow. Check out EngageBay to learn more about marketing automation.

Develop a Blog

A good blog is one of the most important tactics involved in an effective inbound marketing strategy. Because inbound content is, by nature, educational and informative, a blog is a perfect place to showcase your great inbound content. In fact, that’s what a blog is for a business—an inbound marketing presence. Think about the common challenges your customers might face in their daily lives, and write articles that provide guidance on how to navigate those challenges. For example, if you sell job placement consulting services, you might consider writing a blog article on the top ten tips for creating a powerful resume. The point isn’t to sell your services, per se, but rather to help your audience create a better resume. If the article indeed does that, they are likely to come back for more advice. And eventually, they might call you up to solicit your services—because after all, you have convinced them that you have the insight they need, and therefore, your services must be valuable.

Measure Your Performance

It’s important to constantly measure how well your tactics are performing so that you can continuously improve your results. A good marketing automation solution makes this possible, by letting you track the open rate on your inbound marketing emails, measure click-through rates, and better understand which content is generating the most interest among your leads. When you know what is working and what is not, you can choose to focus more on the tactics that are producing results. There’s no point in working in the dark when you don’t have to.

Educational Webinars

There are many types of webinars, from product training sessions to share best practices. What we are focused on here are webinars that educate your audience, nothing more. Take the principles of effective, high-quality inbound content (see above) and apply that to your webinar content. Focus on topics that will improve the lives of your leads. Best practices are great for inbound marketing webinars because they teach the audience new concepts. If you can boil your webinars down to 30 minutes or less, you should do that. It’s hard to convince someone who has no connection to your brand to watch an hour-long webinar. So, make them as concise as possible and pack them with helpful information. Be sure not to let them become overly salty, or you risk losing your audience. And finally, use a webinar title that clearly states what the viewer will take away, such as: "Tips for Creating a Killer Resume."

Promote Your Content on Social Media

Let’s face it: social is king these days. It’s where an increasingly large number of people go to find information. And, luckily for inbound marketers, it provides a platform for free marketing. Once you have created your awesome blog articles, share them on social media. If the content is good, people will share it and you will be more likely to gain new followers. The more followers you have, the greater the likelihood that they will share your content with their social networks, increasing the reach of your content and generating, even more, followers in the process. And, be sure to engage with anyone who comments on your content. It will show them that you are invested in your specific industry, generating a positive reputation for your brand and further solidifying you as an authority in the space.

Engage Industry Influencers

Identify those individuals in your industry who people look to for information. Once you find them, interact with them on social media. Reach out to them directly and inquire if they would be interested in co-authoring some content with you. If you can get into their inner circle, you will be able to benefit from exposure to their followers. If they have 20,000 followers and you co-author a blog with them, which is then shared on their social media site, you have managed to put your content in front of 20,000 new leads. Engaging with industry influencers in an incredibly useful inbound marketing tactic.

Use Web Pop-Ups to Offer Content

Web pop-ups are, more or less, just what they sound like: small pop-up windows that get displayed on your website. They normally include a call to action. You can use web pop-ups to display personalized discounts, promotions, limited-time sales, and more. But, in this case, you will be using them to share your inbound content, which they might not otherwise find if they don’t spend much time on your site. You can choose to put a form in front of your content to capture new leads, or simply give the content away for free. Whether or not you use a form should depend on the value of your content. If you ask for their contact information, you had better be sure that the content they receive in exchange is worth it. At the end of the day, you should offer more free content when possible, because it’s better to have ten people read your article for free and generate brand awareness in the process than to have just one person read it in exchange for their contact information.

Sandeep Das is an active freelance writer. His other interests include organic SEO and growth hacking. He works closely with B2C and B2B businesses and has a background in marketing.