Why is Inbound Marketing so dang important? And what does it mean for my business?

We’ll answer that plus more in this article.

What is “inbound” and what does it mean for your business?
How do you market – inbound styles?
And why in the heck does it work [so] well?

What is “inbound marketing”?

So, you may have heard the word around the proverbial water cooler… “Inbound Marketing” is THE marketing thang, and you best get right onto your inbound strategy.

At Bohemia, we like to think that Inbound marketing is the process of putting your customer front and centre in your content and comms strategy so you create informative, entertaining and educational content that makes their lives better, easier and just generally more awesome.

Hubspot says “Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. While outbound marketing interrupts your audience with content they don’t want, inbound marketing forms connections they’re looking for and solves problems they already have”.

There are three customer stages to think about when crafting an inbound marketing strategy:

Attract them with smart content
Engage with them via more smart content, and..
Delight them through (you guessed it) super smart content. 

At each stage you are aiming to provide value, build trust and sincerely assist your customer in providing a solution.

Inbound marketing is best used by brands and individuals who have a crystal clear vision of their ideal customer. That’s because all your content and attraction strategies will be based around your crystal clear vision of your ideal customer. You will know your ideal customer inside out, what makes them tick, what keeps them up at night, what are their innermost fears and desires.

You need this level of intimacy with an ideal customer so that the content created is specific enough for them that it nails the inbound goals (to attract, engage and delight).

As you may know, content that attracts a 9-5, corporate stockbroker will most likely not attract a stay at home mum with two kids under three.

Inbound marketing is not for ‘get rich quick’ type businesses or brands or individuals who have no sense of who their customer is or how they can help or serve them.

Why use inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing is the best way to consistently prove to your ideal customers that your brand or business is trustworthy, expertly qualified, *human* and revolves around helping them and solving their problems. Through the content created and solutions offered you are giving your customer every chance to choose you.

Got it?

Great, now how do you *do* it?

Getting started with inbound marketing

Step #1

Well…

Firstly you need to know who your ideal customer is.

They’re *kind* of a big deal in inbound marketing.

With inbound marketing the goal is to attract, engage and delight. So you need a semblance of a content or ‘editorial’ plan.

That way you know what you’re going to say (and when) to ‘attract’ your ideal customer – happy days 🙂

Step #2

Next…

You will need a vehicle to publish the content (a blog like this one) and a side-car vehicle (like social media) to let peeps know you’ve published some content.

You can also include ads, videos and non-digital methods into your attraction strategy.

Step #3

You need to write (or have us write) the words [aka content].

Great so now you have the content plan + the content. You need to use the content to ‘engage’ with your audience. So you need a method of communicating with your customers.

A mail sending system or CRM is perfect. At this point, a marketing automation system or customer service or sales team of some kind can be really beneficial. This is a crucial step to nail because as consumers we are expecting more and more from our brands and businesses in being accessible 24/7. So plan for this demand.

Step #4

So you have your content, you’ve published it and communicated it with your audience. Now for the special phase; the ‘delight’ phase.

This is where you can really stand out.

Delighting your customers is easy with a planned customer experience. That way you are anticipating your customers needs and planning to exceed them plus give them something special.

Sometimes it’s as easy as a well thought out and executed communication plan (think about the last time you bought something, received the tax invoice via email immediately plus an sms saying “thank you for your business”. Not only are you thinking “damn they are pro-fesh” you are also thinking *subconsciously* “I feel I can trust this brand”.

Personalised messages are SO powerful so at Bohemia we like the good old fashioned phone call, personal email or sms. (If you’ve asked for permission of course).

There are so many ways to delight your customers [we love strategising this phase, can you tell?]

So am I *doing* inbound?

So once you have some simple steps in place + a well conceived content plan (and the content) PLUS you’ve actually planned for your customers to have an EXCELLENT experience – voila you are marketing *inbound style* with the pro’s.

If you’re not yet using inbound marketing – you need to get on the inbound marketing gravy train, coz it’s so worth it.

Here’s some stats for you, number types:

#1 Only 29% of people want to talk to a salesperson to learn more about a product, while 62% will consult a search engine. 
That means you need to be online with quality content! 

#2 Marketers who prioritise blogging efforts are 13x more likely to see positive ROI. (HubSpot, 2019)
Speaks for itself… get writing content for your blog…like NOW.

#3 Inbound marketing generates three times more leads per dollar than traditional methods.
So you want to 3X your revenue? Get onto inbound marketing.

#4 90% of searchers haven’t made their minds up about a brand before starting their search.
What’s interesting about this is that you have the chance to get infront and wow a customer if you put some love into  laying out an information rich path for them to follow.

Take a deep breath, we know…it’s exciting!

For help with your inbound marketing planning and content writing reach out today and let’s get cooking up some wordy goodness for you. FYI we happen to be Inbound Certified that means we know what we are talkin bout y’al.

We are all about wordy solutions and if you need help with any copy or content conundrums we’re here for you!

Because WORDS MATTER.