Inbound marketing is a new way of doing marketing that helps companies with aggressive sales goals. In recent years it has gained much popularity thanks to the fact that more and more agencies are implementing it, and most of the customers that try it have excellent results. However this is not as wonderful as it sounds, it is not an infallible strategy or something that works by magic, it takes a lot of work and a capable team with knowledge of the methodology so that the strategies are carried out properly.
What is the difference with digital marketing?
When we talk about digital marketing, we think about Facebook (social networks) and Google Adwords, mainly, and then web pages, applications and search engine positioning come to mind. It is normal since all the digital marketing agencies offer these services. Inbound marketing for its part occupies the same tools for its processes, we also use Facebook (and social networks), Google Adwords, websites and search engine positioning. Even content marketing instead of being a strategy, inbound marketing is a tool. So the main difference is that Inbound Marketing is seen as a holistic strategy that occupies all the tools of digital marketing like that: TOOLS that are used in the entire Inbound process. Not to mention that the Inbound not only stays in the publicity but also supports the companies in the closing process of clients and even until much later.
The Methodology
Although inbound marketing could be defined as CLIENT ATTRACTION strategies (since it is translated as Attraction Marketing), not every attraction strategy is considered Inbound Marketing. Inbound Marketing is a methodology, and let me repeat, it is a formal Marketing Methodology that accompanies people throughout the sales process, from strangers to loyal customers.
The first step of the process is to attract, it’s about turning strangers who do not know your business into visitors to your website or microsite. Normally for the traditional advertising and marketing agencies this is where their work comes from, they announce you by some means and measure the impact of their ad and until then, you do not know at the end if the investment was good or not. This does not happen with Inbound Marketing, since the above is only 10% of the process.
The next step is to convert that visit or impact into a prospect or «lead«, in this way we already have their data and the context in which they left them, which means that we can contact them and start the sales process already knowing first-hand what It was what interested them. Normally the websites of companies have only one form in their contact section and this is not necessarily the best, think about it, if in each product there was a contact form, your client could leave your data in the product that most interests him. In exchange for sending you more information about that specific product, and then you would know specifically which product interested him, depending on where they left their data.
The next step is where many people have problems, it is about closing prospects and turning them into customers. Many companies, especially if they have a sales team, have problems in tracking their prospects. They can send many quotes but have fewer closures than they could have, and this is mainly due to the fact that the sellers do not follow the prospects adequately; but it is not the fault of the sellers, this becomes a very complicated task when you have up to 20 prospects to keep talking and helping in their decision making, so the most important thing here is to focus and occupy your time in the prospects that is more likely to buy. «But what about all the others? Should I ignore them? «Not at all, you should only spend less time and for this you must automate what you can of your follow-up process. There are marketing automation tools that allow you to do this in a very simple way, programming tracking mails in certain days after your prospects have the first contact with your company; You can also track when they open your emails, when they click, and detonate other actions from this, such as: notify your sellers so they can upload it in priority and call at that time.
Finally comes the most important step and where most companies do not have a process and believe that they finished attending to a client once they sold him but forget about the process of Delight. The Delight is to create a unique experience for each client, provide an excellent post-purchase service and suggest a next step to follow with our company, which may include the purchase of more product or other complementary service. The best companies perfectly master this step and is the most important in the growth of any company. It is much easier to sell to a customer than to a stranger; if you are already your client, it means that you have already trusted and that you are likely to do it again in the future, take advantage of this, do not lose contact with your clients and offer them an excellent service after their purchase and offer them to buy even more. TIP: You can also use marketing automation tools for this.
The Tools you can use
Marketing automation
A simple tool to create your complete automation, you need some experience in web pages to use, because it requires you to install a code on your site, from there on out it is extremely easy to use and free because it is very new, they’ll probably start charging soon.
Web pages and microsites
You will create pages made to sell, it is the easiest market for design and does not require you to know absolutely nothing about programming, it has several templates that will help you to have a professional page in a short time and have a free trial.
CRM for the follow up
http://www.hubspot.com/products/crm
The CRM with the best cost benefits, for me, is Hubspot; is completely free and meets the needs of any company, especially B2B, allows you to send emails from their site and even track when and where they open the emails you send, a very useful tool to know when someone is interested in your proposal. And it has many other advanced features that any sales team can exploit.
The results and statistics
Inbound marketing, compared to Outbound Marketing, (TV, Radio, Spectacular etc ..) generates 54% more prospects by investing the same amount, plus the cost of acquiring a prospect costs 61% less than with other media.
These strategies are especially effective for the financial services, insurance, real estate, tourism, health, education and technology industries. If your company is in one of these industries, you are missing a great strategy that is driving the growth of companies that are already betting on this new, more comprehensive way of doing marketing.