You’ve been hearing about inbound marketing for some time now, right? And you’ve never really wanted to admit that you don’t fully understand exactly what it means and how it works? Fear not—we’ve all been there at some point. So here’s the skinny on all things IM – the top 7 questions you need to have answered, but didn’t want to ask. 
Q1: What Is “Inbound” Marketing Exactly and Where Did It Start?
A: Inbound marketing is, quite literally, the practice of marketing inwards instead of outwards. Sound crazy? It’s not, if you think about it. The idea behind it is to get your ideal customers to come looking for you, instead of you going looking for them. It’s a method of promoting your business to build a relationship with your current and prospective customers that makes you their first choice of vendor, rather than buying their attention through traditional advertising methods.
Although the term itself is a relatively new one with roots that go back only to the origin of the Internet, the practice itself has been going on for longer. Back in the 1960s, for example, General Motors began doing research to identify what customers needed and wanted to be able to provide it. In the 1990s it was referred to as relationship marketing, which worked the same way but had less of an online component. In the early 21st century Seth Godin started calling it permission marketing, but with the increased capability of the digital environment the science of inbound marketing developed.
Q2: How Does It Work?
A: Ok, it sounds great in theory but exactly how do you make customers come looking for you? You do it by using digital tools to compile all the data you can gather and creating a comprehensive picture or customer persona of the ideal client, his wants and needs, and the methods he uses to fulfill them. Once you know those things, it’s an easy step to providing him with material that is useful to him, such as:
- Informative content, in the form of blog posts, video clips, podcasts, press releases and newsletters
- Engagement opportunities on social media sites, through mobile applications and at virtual or live events
- Educational resources, including eBooks, white papers, webinars and articles
These methods help you to position yourself where your target customer is going to find you when he looks in his search engine results pages, in his email box, in his newsfeed and on his social media profiles. When he sees your company everywhere he looks, he becomes interested in you, starts following you and signs up for your communications.
He begins to reveal what he is interested in and where he is in the buying cycle by the pages he views on your websites, the content he downloads and consumes and the emails he opens or links he clicks on. All of which you’re tracking, of course, and tweaking according to what you learn about him to nurture his interest along until you think he’s a hot lead ready to buy. That’s how it works.
Q3: What Do I Have to Do?
A: As great as this all sounds, it doesn’t happen by itself. You have to create the infrastructure for inbound marketing, which includes:
- A dynamic website that’s optimized for search engine indexing
- Regularly updated content using a range of media types, e.g. written text, photos, infographics, research reports, slide shows, video and audio
- Active social media profiles that promote your content and attract new visitors and followers
- Internal and external links that connect you to other related sites
- News and information on what’s happening in your industry in general
- Email marketing that sends follow-ups on a regular basis without requiring your time or input
Once you set everything up, you have to manage it. The returns, however, are far more worthwhile than spending your time prospecting on a one-by-one basis through telesales or cold calling.
Q4: How Much Does It Cost?
A: Ok, as with everything the cost depends on what you actually do. What we can tell you, however, is that most companies who switched from active traditional marketing to inbound experienced very little difference in their actual marketing expenditure.
You’ll incur the majority of the costs when you first start out. How much these will be depends on the foundational work you need to do. What is the current state of your website? Will your website need a complete redevelopment, or can it be revamped to optimize it properly for search? How much content do you have currently, and how much will you need to create before you start seeing results? Do you have social media profiles or do you need to create them from scratch? Once you get everything set up much of the nurturing process can be automated, which will be less costly and time-intensive.
Q5: When Will I See Results?
A: If you apply the principles in a concerted fashion, you should start seeing some results within three months. If you have to build a new website, you’ll have to wait until it’s up and running and being indexed by Google before you see progress. During that time you can fast-track it by running a few AdWords to get seen in search results before you appear there organically. You can do the same in social media to kick-start building your following, but in all areas of inbound marketing it’s ongoing effort that delivers results.
Q6: How Do I Get Started?
A: It’s critical that you start by developing a comprehensive action plan and a timeframe for implementation. Don’t try to do everything: identify your primary marketing objectives and align your inbound marketing strategy to achieve those. Do your market research to determine who your perfect customer is and formulate a persona, so you know who you are targeting in everything you do. Identify which activities you are qualified to do yourself, and which marketing activities you’ll need help with. For example, don’t try designing your own website using pre-built templates if you don’t know the first thing about SEO.
Q7: Where Can I Get Help?
A: Once you know what you need help with, start looking for service providers who know something about your challenges. Choose a website designer who has experience in inbound marketing, preferably in your industry. Identify writers or agencies that can produce the necessary content on time and within your budget. Look for social media practitioners who can manage your profiles, if that’s not an area you feel comfortable with. Don’t hand it over to your marketing intern or teenage nephew to do! Inbound marketing is the way of the future, and few businesses will survive into the next decade without embracing it as an alternative to the old methods. Consumers are tired of being sold to; they are far more discerning and educated than ever before, and they have the digital tools to access the information they need and make informed choices. Your job is simply to get them to find you.
