How to Make Inbound Marketing Enhance Better Business Practices


Anytime a company or business is looking at strategies to grow, it pays to look at marketing as one of the essentials for better business practice. Inbound marketing can bring customers into their story and generate new leads. The marketing landscape for business has evolved over the past years with the advent of digital marketing. Any company or business that wants to thrive needs to consider how, when, and where they market themselves if they want to stay current and relevant to their existing and potential customers. Find out why inbound marketing is one tool to enhance a business’ marketing strategy.

Inbound vs Outbound Marketing

Inbound marketing does just what it says: drawing people into a business. Outbound marketing, on the other hand, pushes a business outwardly towards potential customers. To better understand why inbound marketing is so effective, it helps to understand the process and how people can get engaged with a company’s story:

  • Media channels: any in-person or online marketplace and avenue for drawing people in that is owned by the company or business will be a draw for customers. Social media content can include video marketing channels, social media, websites, and any place the company decides when and where to publish media marketing to their customers
  • Company gains: any potential wins from customers gained through inbound marketing campaigns can earn a business cache in the marketplace. Through a pointed strategy that draws people in, a company or business will usually find others using their hashtag, posting reviews online, or talking about their company. This is seen as a ‘win,’ or ‘gain’ for the work put into the strategy.

Paid media is one way companies develop their outbound marketing strategy. Even though less companies are moving in this direction, traditional print media still exists as a strategy to attract a certain customer base to a business. Displays and paid email campaigns are also part of this strategy. Social media now has opportunities to pay to ‘boost’ content so more people will see it. Facebook and other platforms are moving more toward paid content to market for their target audience.

Why Go Inbound

A company or business will never thrive by sitting back waiting for customers to walk in their doors or call them up. In a heavily competitive social media landscape, companies must be smarter and more strategic about how they handle their marketing and audiences. If they want to get in the door and win customers, they have a few things to consider:

  • Trust is earned: people mostly shy away from having information shoved under their noses in today’s marketplace. Even door-to-door salesman who used to thrive decades ago now have those doors closed in their faces. Most people won’t engage someone (or a company) they don’t trust first. Inbound marketing presents a brand in a way people can see it as just what they need for that time and place
  • Stay narrow: if you go too broadly, there is a risk of losing audience and customers. Stay focused on the niche and find that pocket of customers who desire and need what is offered
  • Stretch social media: don’t rely on one space or platform to engage customers. They want to see businesses in different places with a bit of a different twist. Broaden the scope of the social media landscape used to bring in different customers

Go Long

Marketing strategies are a long-form game. To get in the field takes time with development and creating spaces and materials to draw people in. Inbound marketing is not going to be successful without considering the long game. It might take a team of people who are outsourced to bring just the right flavor and energy to a campaign. When a company or business puts in the right time and effort into a campaign, they will start to see the overflow from increased traffic on social media to increased customers for their business. Out of that come referrals to others who might need their services. In the end, it’s all about bringing value to customers who will be the ones using the services now and in the future. Make sure to keep them in mind when developing that next inbound marketing campaign.

Read more relevant blog post: Why We Do It

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