Inbound and outbound marketing are terms that are pretty frequently tossed around. Are they important and do we need to know the difference? What do we need to focus on in the marketing world today?
Understanding what inbound marketing and outbound marketing are will help you understand marketing in general and help you navigate through marketing strategies for your business.
Outbound marketing is marketing that is directed outwards from the business or marketer. Some have recently referred to it as the “old” way of marketing. Outbound marketing includes advertisements, television commercials, cold calling and even spam techniques. Outbound marketing tries to grab the attention of a customer who may or may not be actively searching for your product or services currently. There are times and places when this is effective and when it is less effective.
The more popular approach lately is inbound marketing, which inolves attracting customers and clients through methods such as search engine optimization, and creating quality content online. It’s about bringing customers in by creating valuable content that they want to read and actually seek out. Through content creation, you position your company as an expert resource on the subject by creating proof with blogs, videos, white papers, free resources, etc. When customers are finally ready to make a purchase, they think only of your business.
(photo from Stray Media Group)
Inbound marketing may look like focusing on a weekly blog post or sharing business tips through a podcast. An infographic from Stray Media Group helps distinguish between inbound and outbound marketing. While more people are using inbound marketing, we don’t want to completely toss outbound tactics out the window. They both have different focuses and ways of communicating your businesses’ brand to the public. When used correctly, both methods can be extremely powerful.
Why is inbound marketing important?
Inbound marketing has some great benefits. While you focus on bringing in customers or clients through inbound marketing, you are able to simultaneously create a digital presence and establish your brand identity. We consider inbound marketing separate from search engine optimization (SEO) but a valuable tactic within our SEO strategy.
Improve Brand Identity
Focusing on inbound marketing techniques will change the way people perceive your business, and if you’re doing it effectively – for the better. Your brand identity is what sells your business and builds trust between you and your clientele. An article from Business 2 Community notes, “In a digital landscape, branding and inbound marketing go hand in hand.” Take a look at their article for more tactics on building your brand identity.
So if you’re using a method of marketing your business by creating engaging and informational blog posts, you’re not only marketing but also building your brand. Your customers and potential customers get to discover your business’s’ voice and tone, your company values, and what you’re all about. Inbound marketing is about expressing all of that through content tailored to your audience. It’s a win-win.
Landing Pages
The first part of inbound marketing is to gain traffic to your site (much like SEO). The second part is to turn those visitors into business leads! This is where landing pages come in – they are pages designed to convert traffic into leads. Landing pages are a particular page that exists on your site for a certain amount of time. It can be a page where people are directed to from another site or promotional material. They need to have a clear call to action and action that they can take immediately, such as downloading an extremely useful white paper.
For an effective landing page, make it worth the visit.
You can do this by creating content that has a promotion or special offer. Any information that is included needs to be beneficial to the user. What’s interesting? Think of your niche market and what they want to know. It can be statistics about your field that people may not know. You could include updates or new information about your business. Make it fun and engaging! That brings us to the next point.
Don’t leave people hanging.
Including a call to action is a must on a landing page! This is how you effectively market, by encouraging visitors on your site to take action. You can direct them to a certain page on your website, such as your services page or contact page. Businesses often include a contact form on a landing page. If you mainly do business on the phone, having your phone number in large, clear text will bring in that business.
Keep it simple.
Landing pages need to grab attention and do it quickly! Keep the text on your page fairly short and to the point.
Landing pages are a way to bring traffic to your website that is very successful. We have created unique landing pages for many of our clients and boosted their business through that avenue! If you’re feeling stuck, we can help you develop content specific to your business and what goals you want to meet.
(photo from Shopify’s Free Trial)
Shopify’s website is a great example of the perfect landing page. At the top you find their goal in creating this page – to have others sign up to have an ecommerce site with them. Below, Shopify gives you reason to do business with them, they are “trusted by over 175,000 businesses worldwide.” The statistic is simple, to the point, and builds their reputation.
The call to action is concise, and nicely accented by two bars (above and below) as a simple design element. This makes it easy for visitors to get started, creating those desired leads. The landing page also contains an engaging photograph and more facts about their business on the left. Shopify’s doing it right, so take notes guys.
There are various ways to approach inbound marketing. A great aspect of inbound marketing is that you can get creative with it! Have you found a marketing technique that works for you? Contact us today to brainstorm inbound marketing ideas for your business!
