For international business development and export managers the internet provides an easily accessible platform for promoting your brand and products in different parts of the world. Getting it right for the target markets is a different matter. Inbound marketing helps you do so.
Inbound Marketing: you should care and this is why
The internet has changed the way we act and interact as people, and Google has changed how we find information. The traditional method of marketing by segmenting people by age, gender, location, income, job title and education gives us a reasonable chance of identifying, in broad terms, who might be interested in buying our products. It does not tell us when they are ready to buy. The internet has changed this process; the prospective client chooses where they are found, through memberships to online communities and through information on their online profiles. At the same time, Google allows you to be found by prospects as and when they are looking for your product or service.
Inbound Marketing is about finding the best online communities in which to place your marketing information, so that people looking for your product or service can find it easily and quickly and come to you. The business driver behind this shift in thinking is that your ratio of marketing spend, lead generation, prospects, clients and sales is significantly reduced. Therefore your return on investment is higher, your sales increase and your company becomes more profitable.
Inbound Methodology, what it is all about.
Those who are advocates for Inbound Marketing, and I am one, say that it is “The best way to turn strangers into customers and promoters of your business.” Having owned and run an SME, building it up over years working at the coal-faces of sales, marketing, customer satisfaction and everything else an SME owner has to do, my belief in Inbound Marketing is based on hard earned experience, sweat and tears, and the belief that there must be a better way of finding customers. That is not to say that Inbound Marketing is easy. It is not. It is time consuming, requires energy and commitment but it does bring the rewards and significantly higher ROI than other methods I have tried.
The inbound methodology is, as Hubspot puts it, “Sharing is caring and Inbound Marketing is about creating and sharing content with the world. By creating content specifically designed to appeal to your dream customers, inbound attracts qualified prospects to your business and keeps them coming back for more.”
Hubspot is a leading inbound marketing platform, and our software of choice. Below is a diagram from their website that shows the four different stages that an inbound marketer thinks about and the tools used at each stage.
The five major theses that form the basis of an effective inbound marketing program are outlined below:
-
Content Creation - You create targeted content that answers your customer's basic questions and needs, and you share that content far and wide
-
Lifecycle Marketing - You recognize that people go through stages as they interact with your company, and that each stage requires different marketing actions
-
Personalization - As you learn more about your leads over time, you can better personalize your messages to their specific needs.
-
Multi-channel - Inbound marketing is multi-channel by nature because it approaches people where they are, in the channel where they want to interact with you
-
Integration - Your publishing and analytics tools all work together like a well-oiled machine, allowing you to focus on publishing the right content in the right place at the right time
As with any blog there is always a lot more behind the information provided. Here I have only outlined the basic principles. If you would like to find out more and know if Inbound Marketing is right for you then click on the button below, send me your questions and I would be happy to discuss with you. Keep up to date with our latest blogs by subscribing for updates.
