What Is Inbound Marketing?
Posted by Robert Hennessey on Tue, Jan 31, 2012
Inbound marketing aligns perfectly with small business consultative selling by building rapport, generating B2B sales leads and being affordable.
Nevertheless, there are other options when it comes to small business marketing. You are likely most familiar with traditional marketing, also known as outbound marketing.
Traditional/Outbound Marketing
The traditional or outbound marketing approach interrupts a sales prospect with a marketing message. They say, we have this capability or this capacity to _________, fill in the blank.
What does this mean? It means that most people cannot wait to tell you what they can do for you. Even though they do not care what it is you need, they just want you to buy what they are selling. This type of marketing relies on convincing sales prospects to buy, what the company is trying to sell.
The types of marketing approaches associated with outbound marketing are:
- Cold Calling/Telemarketing
- Print Ads in Trade Magazines
- Mass Market Direct Mail
- Trade Shows
These types of marketing approaches also are relatively expensive to employ. Why are they expensive? Because success in outbound marketing is a numbers game, so to achieve success you must be able to reach large numbers of sales prospects and that makes this type of marketing costly.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is a relatively new concept and is a result of the power the Internet has put in the hands of your potential customers. The Internet allows your prospective customers to go to the Internet to find information and seek solutions to their business problems, before some company tells them they need to buy a product/service for a problem they do not have.
Some of us recognize inbound marketing as customer-centric B2B marketing. Customer centric marketing, as its name says; centers on the needs and wants of the customer, and not about what the person doing the selling wants you to buy.
It recognizes the sale is the natural result of creating a solid relationship built on listening and problem solving, not forcing someone to buy. It begins with building customer rapport and ends with a lasting business relationship that generates continuing sales.
Inbound marketing is this same principle taking advantage of the Internet to communicate marketing messages that are relevant and of high quality in helping sales prospects find solutions to their business problems.
How Does Inbound Marketing Work
The internet plays a key role in the concept that makes it both, accessible and more affordable than outbound marketing. You can reach both large markets and niche markets with the power of the Internet.
Small business inbound marketing can be accomplished via a strong dose of content marketing and applying social media tactics. The types of marketing communications tools for conducting inbound marketing are as follows:
- Your Website
- A Company Blog
- Relevant & Quality Content
- White papers
- Case studies
- Application stories
- Customer profiles
- SEO press releases
- Social Media
- Lead Nurturing
Internet search engines reward your web pages with increased traffic because prospective customers flock to this content while performing web searches. When your sales prospects perform a search looking for information about your type of product or service, and they come across your information they are already inclined to want to know more about your company. Now when you reach out to a prospect, you have already built some initial rapport with your content that makes the sales prospect more receptive to engaging in a dialogue.
Inbound marketing still requires effort and expertise. The content you use to attract B2B sales leads must be relevant and with a customer-centric focus. Sales prospects are perceptive and can quickly recognize the difference between a blog that is relevant and helpful as opposed to one that is self-promoting and loaded up with SEO terms.
If your target audience is searching for information, educate them with up-to-date information, solid statistics and compelling reasons to dig a little deeper.
If small business inbound marketing sounds like a good fit for your marketing needs, do your research and create a plan to ensure its success. It is all about your ability to share and help that will draw sales prospects to your website.
Be sure your website features:
- fresh content that is relevant and customer-centric
- easy navigation
- search engine optimized pages
- a blog to attract visitors
- call-to-actions
- effective landing pages
- analytical reports to help you maximize success
Consider outsourcing inbound marketing services if you do not have someone on staff that can do it right.
Takeaway
Small Business B2B Inbound Marketing in perfect harmony with the way your B2B customer wants to buy, it builds upfront rapport, is less costly and more efficient than traditional outbound marketing.
Related Information
5 Things Lead Generation Websites Have In Common New eBook
5 Free Ways to Drive Small Business Website Traffic
Small Business Blogging Insights
Customer Centric Marketing 9 Tips
