What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing, in its most general sense, is a type of marketing which focuses on getting potential customers to come to you. This differs from outbound marketing, which relies on costly practices such as media advertising to generate leads.

Nowadays, thanks to the technological boom that gave birth to the Internet, generating leads based on individuals seeking out your business or organization is possible. Using these advancements, instead of marketing to the masses and getting less results, potential customers can now find and call you. Inbound marketing allows you to develop a voice on the web, and gives you the credibility to make you an expert in your field. It is not difficult to see what a favorable scenario this is.

Many businesses rely solely on outbound marketing strategies in order to generate this kind of response. They “buy, beg, or bug” in order to generate leads. This includes paid advertisements, publishing press releases in order to get written up in articles or reviews by 3rd parties, and hiring salespeople to go and find customers. In order for sales people to be effective, it is best to train them to be better closers. Finding potential clients and bringing in leads is helpful, but creating great closers that know the product well and can close a deal are far more valuable. The downfalls of this marketing strategy are plentiful.

The best lead is the one that is looking for you. These leads are already pre-qualified before you ever even make contact with them.

But how do they find you? There are several methods that are used in order to achieve these results. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a practice used to increase the likelihood of a particular website being visible on search engines like Google. For instance, if your business is selling appliances, when someone searches for microwaves or refrigerators, your website will show up near the top of the page of the search results. The leads generating from this type of marketing are fantastic. They are already looking for the product or service that your business offers, and they have chosen you with their own free will.

Article writing and creating a voice on the web are also necessary to an inbound marketing strategy. Writing and distributing high volumes of articles per month will help your business gain a voice on the web. When your business has a voice on the web, you become an expert in your field, and will then become more searchable and easily reached by more potential clients.

Another effective way to apply inbound market is through social media marketing. Here, a business would share pertinent and valuable information in forums such as Facebook or Twitter. They can be used to create a buzz in a viral way, making your business visible to more people. Interested people will read your content and will often reach out to you for advice in your particular field. By doing this, a business will establish a prominent web presence, which will lead to good, pre-qualified leads.

There are other ways to organically produce leads via inbound marketing, but the crux of the practice is simple: get the business to come to you. If you can do this, making sales will be easy; counting the money is what will take the time.