As more and more businesses seek to improve their online presence with digital marketing channels, so does the need to bring on board experts to plan and implement inbound marketing strategies to help them realize this vision.
Digital marketing used to be outbound until recently.
Businesses were only concerned about flooding customers’ inboxes with generic emails, employing black hat SEO tactics to see their product pages rank high in search results, and pushing “annoying” digital advertisements to customers.
These tactics resulted in a poor experience for customers as some of these marketing messages were not welcomed or relevant to them.
The rapid rise in popularity of inbound marketing strategies is a result of its extraordinary nature of providing helpful, relevant & personalized experiences for customers.
Inbound marketing is not only a strategy; It’s a philosophy that seeks to help people by providing extraordinary experiences for customers.
For a business to execute its inbound marketing strategies correctly, they need an inbound Marketing strategist who will plan and implement the said strategies that are likely to present the highest returns for your business.
To understand why your business needs to hire inbound marketing specialists, you need to audit your current digital marketing strategies to see whether it provides a helpful experience for customers.
What is inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is a business methodology of helping people by delivering relevant & personalized content that turns total strangers into prospects, prospects into leads, and leads to long-lasting customers.
By going inbound, a business can make a positive impression on its audiences by delivering relevant content to customers when they need it and how they want it.
For example, a business’s marketing tactics are inbound when it develops blog content that matches the search intent of customers; the blog contains helpful resources that solve customers’ problems.
They later receive ebooks via emails or relevant social media ads from your business concerning some actions they took on your website. They will proceed to reward your efforts with a purchase because they realised you could help solve their challenges.
Why should businesses choose inbound marketing?
- 94% of consumers have discontinued communication with a company because of irrelevant promotional messages.
- 74% of people are more likely to switch brands if they find out purchasing process is too difficult
- 51% will never do business with that company again after a negative experience
- 93% of consumers said they’re more likely to be repeat customers at companies with remarkable services
- 77% of customers share positive experiences with their friends on social media and review sites.
Data: Hubspot Academy/ Inbound marketing course
What are the inbound marketing processes?
There are three(3) stages of the inbound marketing strategy. It illustrates how your inbound marketing strategist will create and maintain relationships with people by providing excellent experiences for prospects & customers.
Attract stage
Attract stage is where businesses focus on attracting prospects and customers through relevant and helpful content.
A business in the attract stage focuses its marketing efforts on attracting people they have identified with their business’sbuyer personasas leads or prospects.
In other words, they can target the right audiences with the right information that establishes their status as an authority in their industry by exhibiting they have the quality to provide solutions.
Engage stage
The engage stage begins when a lead or customer starts a relationship with you. For example, when a prospect takes an action on your website.
Some actions a lead may take include: reading your blog posts, subscribing to your newsletters, or visiting specific pages on your site.
You may want to present yourself as a trusted adviser who provides solutions that align with their pain points. This makes them want to build long-term relationships with you.
At this stage, you also want to include lead forms that capture customer information for retargeting and remarketing purposes.
Delight stage
At this stage, you want to provide an awesome experience for your customers as they interact with your business.
You can do that by exceeding their expectations so much that they would want to share or tell their family and friends about your business.
Excellent purchasing process, Swift customer support, Email marketing automation, video content, coupons, surveys, and any content your customers prefer to keep their relationship with you going is encouraged.
A business with an inbound marketing strategist will facilitate and implement inbound marketing strategies that are effective at any of these stages.
What is the role of an Inbound Marketing Strategist at your company?
An inbound marketing strategist is an in-house or contracted third party hired by a business to implement its inbound marketing strategies.
Someone identified as an inbound marketing expert should have experience planning and implementing inbound marketing strategies at previous organizations they’ve worked.
Here are some day-to-day activities of an inbound marketing strategist
- Educate key stakeholders of your business on the best inbound marketing principles and provides recommendations
- Uses CRM and Email marketing automation tools to keep up with customer journey statuses.
- Develops buyer personas and lead flow maps for attracting quality leads for your business
- Develop helpful content marketing strategies for your business
- Builds a long-lasting relationship with your clients
- Create, optimize and launch marketing campaigns across several digital marketing channels.
Conclusions
Inbound marketing experts are an absolute must-have for every business of any size. They help businesses achieve their long-term goals of maximizing returns whiles building lasting relationships with customers.
Consumer buying behavior keeps changing and evolving making inbound marketing techniques bound to change. However, the inbound philosophy will always remain true.
By being helpful and relevant, you will make customers feel valued and continue to do business with you.
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