Inbound marketing- Making marketing a noble profession

Brands can always be impactful; in fact they are always meant to be one, only it takes a bit of patience, persistence, coordination and setting right the objective that your brand is aiming for. We can see many startups with great vision fail sometimes due to wrong crafting and wrong implementation. Unlike our Hindi movies where a Dhaba wala outplays a Five Star hotel’s business in a single blow, here in the real sense it becomes really tough for a new entrant to beat the giant players who have been serving the people from decades. The problem in Today’s world is that the market has become like “The battle of Panipat”, there is no space for breathing, and it’s even tougher if you are a fresh breed. And to beat the competition they are misleading people but the question is- Is this only about one time sells for them?

Marketing strategies of the most companies nowadays give more emphasis on speaking at people, but it should rather be more like speaking to the people to win their trust and give them an assurance of your brand that this brand speaks for the people. Companies are choosing a goal over a cause, and they are underestimating the cause and not understanding this cause stands for their cause only, goals can backfire but causes can’t!

The difference between marketing and sales hardly exists in recent times. The worst marketing is when you speak more but listen less. Outbound marketing shouts at people through interrupting television ads, direct mailers, Banner ads but inbound marketing talks with people through their engaging content.

 Presently the situation of the market is that- The giant cash-cows are investing money all over the map and force branding is making humans cripple to opt for something new. TV/ radio ads, cold-calls, email marketing are getting on the nerves of the people but nothing seems wrong to these companies as taking leads is the widest section of their purchase funnel. But the question left out of it is, What about their brand reputation!

For an organic handcrafted cream manufacturer startup it is way too hard to come out from the niche segment they are serving and become an everyday true FMCG product. The reason is giant FMCG giants have made people hamstrung with their over the years of continuous advertisements. Every TV slots and mass media channels are bought by them and it becomes very tough for a startup to get visibility. But still smart minds with strategic approach can beat it, if they strike at the right place in the right time.

The weakness of these big brands can be your strength, these big giants often spends lot of money on mass media advertisements like billboards ads, Podcast ads, irritating Banner ads, which doesn’t yield them anything but lowers down their brand value. Tell me will anyone like to be interrupted by a customer care personnel while struggling to start a conversation on their first date.

And that’s where startups can move ahead by making their customers their friends through inbound marketing. Rather than becoming the traditional horn you can become the new magnet in the town.

Every company is trying to push their customers to buy their products through offers, cold-calls, emails, pop-ups but they are not realizing that they are pissing them off. You need to know that you can’t force people to buy you. The entire sales process should be oriented to build a relationship not a single time sales. Customers will remember you when you give them a reason to remember you, trust me bad rotten tomatoes are everywhere but the good ones are only remembered.

If you want to be a brand which people proudly talks about then you need to come out from the over-used interruptive push strategies to inbound ways. This needs to be noted that in order to give your audience a euphoric feel about you; you have to turn out to be like some guardian angel and a breath of fresh air to them. People like to get educated than to be sold. Blogs are effective tool in doing so. You need to know that these days’ customers know what to do during a need and you need to be the information regarding that need. Your blogs should be available to solve their problems by helping and educating them.

The next thing to do is to maintain a data base of different buyer’s personas and then profiling. Every Buyer’s journey needs to be tracked. You don’t need to bombard them with ads but to be quick in solving problems when they approach you. So your primary concern should be in knowing the customer’s needs and problems. And the second subset to the primary goal is to increase the number of ways customer can reach you.

Now I will come to my favorite part of inbound marketing which is social branding. According to a recent survey companies have 63% increases in their marketing effectiveness when they use social media. Unlike a universal brand like Nike which is widely recognized simply says, “Just do it”. However it will be tough for you to communicate in that way before building a trust and a brand, though “just do it” is the purest form of inbound marketing one can say, but when you are a new entrant you need to blend smart ways with inbound marketing to attract people without interrupting.

If you are starting up a new fashion apparel brand and even if you have venture capitalist to fund your business to open an eye catchy store, it won’t be enough to bring footprints. While buying clothing brands people hesitate to try new and especially when they don’t know what the brand stands for, here Social media branding can step in a big way and can change the tide for you; it helps you to communicate the soul of your brand to the people. When you see a pair of jeans hanging in a multi brand store, you will only come to know the price through the price tag but not the story behind the brand and without a story hardly anything gets sold these days. Your social media profile, posts, contents shared blogs depicts your story. Only by candid humanly approach you can make people choose you over others. Make your social media page your asset.

So the question now is to know how to make them love you and how not to make them hate you. I will answer the second question first. You don’t do anything deceptive; don’t approach them at wrong place. And try not to be the false alarm of an early Sunday morning.

The idea is to get into a deep involvement with the customers. And before that we need to realize that every company has its own set of audience and so there is no point in shouting to the crowd who don’t come under your TA through mass media channels. Shouting can do two harmful things, first people may term you as a hungry sales oriented company and the second they won’t choose you in future if there would be a need. Every company should develop a customer centric business.

Moreover if a customer don’t respond to a specially crafted message and there is no point in using outbound activities to make them respond. You need to realize that everyone can’t be your customer and so profitable will be to follow your TA only.

Crafted content and professional website are the keys to success. Economy of India has changed and disposable income has changed. Elasticity of price is losing its importance. People are looking for value. To name a few of the markets where notable changes have encountered from the consume outlook are-Food to Health cautions diet, Products to brands. Cars to High breed vehicles. Skin care to Organic products. People are also becoming socially responsible, be active with good contents through blogs and social media. Premium designer leather purse brands are losing their revenues due to organizations like Peta.

Be honest and remember most likely friends introduce you (Brand) to other friends, customer hardly introduce you to others if you fall shortly on your reputation, for example a regular user of a product out of compulsion or scarcity will never introduce it to his social circle, but a proud owner will always introduce because it will add up to his either social status or smart choices. Word of mouth is the old wine in the new bottle nowadays. Treat your customers as they wanted to.

And inbound marketing is for all the sectors, whether it’s B2B or B2C. In B2B no one can wait for a sales person to knock their door during a need. Unlike earlier times when the thing call Google didn’t exist, people used to rely on sales person. Now businessman searches for the supplier directly in internet. And 69% of people have already decided whether to buy the product or not before approaching a supplier. So it’s very important to have a reliable image over internet. So your marketing shouldn’t be towards transactions and cold calls but for loyalty and content.

Impressions are important, but engagement holds the survival. And I was talking about fashion brands, so for a startup how to market it through inbound marketing. Hypothetically consider if your brand stands for youth empowerment, for that rather than calling people and advertisements, you can hit them in internet space but through inbound way. Communicate how your brand wants to be the part of revolutionary steps. Share contents how great leaders changed the world. People will recognize you by the things you share. As a marketer the primary thing is to communicate with people where they are in the right way. And these days your potential customers are found in internet space and the right way is inbound way.

The last important thing is to create visibility and for which SEO and SEM are important. Make your content to be in the top of the Google search list, trend them on Twitter, Facebook. In inbound marketing every post, article, blogs are termed to be creative, because there is lot of creative minds behind it. So to make their hard work appreciated by people around the world, you need to ensure visibility for their content. Opt for SEO, SEM and landing page tactics. Don’t go and bang customer’s door but be there with good content when they call for you. Customers are smart and they will judge you in every way. 

And lastly for the inbound marketers, please use the traditional marketing concepts like The Four p’s, Five forces model, Brand identity prism in your inbound processes because brands like Apple became the most valuable brand only after the cult television commercial 1984 and print ad think different.

Be a lovable brand and make marketing a noble profession, as it was always meat for satisfying customers. And if I was bad in explaining on inbound marketing. Startups ask yourself how many times the brand Apple called you with offers and how many times you searched for it in Google.

So think, shift and grow… it is never late to start a good thing.

Picture taken from Lola Cupcakes.