Inbound Marketing: Is It a Must for Every Business?

Inbound marketing is a huge buzzword in today's society. It's a vital part of many marketing strategies--but does that make it the right fit for your business? If you need to know whether or not inbound marketing is the right strategy for your business, make sure you're asking these key questions. 

1. What type of content are you planning to create?

Content is the backbone of inbound marketing. Without solid content, you won't be able to bring in customers through this vital strategy. As you create your marketing plan, make sure it includes the type of content that you'll create and the information that your customers need.

For example:

• What type of content are your competitors creating? How can you take it to the next level?
• What can you offer customers that they can't find anywhere else? 
• What information can you provide that will help guide your customers through the buying process and help them learn more about your products and services?

If you aren't able to provide genuinely helpful content to your readers, your marketing plan isn't likely to be as successful as you'd like.

On the other hand, if you provide great content that is of genuine interest and benefit to your customers, you'll be positioned to bring them in through your marketing tactics. 

2. Do you have time and money to invest in your inbound marketing campaign?

Inbound marketing is a great tool, but it is not something that you can do once and never have to look at again. You'll need to budget both time and money in order to create a marketing campaign that will continue to be successful.

Inbound marketing may include a number of time-consuming strategies, including:

• Creating regular social media posts to engage with your customers.
• Creating content, including blogs, infographics, and videos.
• Interacting with customers through social media, in the comments section of your blog, and more. 
• Doing market research to see what your competitors are already creating, what you need to create, and what your customers need.
• Conducting A/B testing to discover what marketing strategies are the most effective.
• Collecting and analyzing the data collected in order to more effectively shape your future inbound efforts. 

3. Who on your team is going to contribute to your inbound marketing strategy?

Ideally, you want every member of the team on board when you implement your inbound marketing strategy.

This will mean that there are plenty of company representatives to interact with customers on social media, discuss blog post and other content ideas, create that content, and monitor discussions online. When your entire company is working together, you'll find that your marketing strategy is much more effective than if you're trying to create it with a one or two person team. 

4. How do you plan to influence customers with the content you're creating?

Today's customers are turning to the internet to research products before they buy them, learn more about the companies and brands they support, and connect with their favorite brands on social media.

Your online presence needs to reinforce positive ideas about your company and influence customers towards buying important products. Before you create a marketing strategy, you need to know how you want to influence customers and what behaviors you want to create. 

Inbound marketing is a valuable strategy for any business. Your customers want to be able to do their own research and learn more about your company, and many of them will go online to either find out that information about your company or to seek a company to handle their needs.

Before you get started, however, you need to know that you're in the right place to create content and that your team is ready to help.

Need more help to get your inbound marketing strategy off the ground?

Contact us today to learn more about how we can offer your business the digital marketing tools it needs.