a four course menu of inbound marketing

To get started, let us first know what exactly is meant by Inbound Marketing without the entire buzz that is usually associated with it. In simple terms, Inbound Marketing is the promotion of a company or a brand. The most common means include promotion through blogs, newsletters and social media marketing.

Some companies take it up a level by promoting via podcasts & video(s) with experts, eBooks, SEO/SEM, offering freebie physical products to new customers, occasional whitepapers and other forms of content marketing which serve to attract customers through the different stages of the purchase funnel. These marketing activities essentially bring visitors in and so is the name.

The opposite of Inbound Marketing is the use of marketing / promotional activities that include buying attention, cold-calling, direct paper mail, radio, TV advertisements, flyers, spam, telemarketing and traditional advertising are considered Outbound Marketing.

So, if you are a marketer planning on to turn strangers into customers, let us first get a clear understanding of the inbound methodology which is made up of four actions - Attract, Convert, Close and Delight. To make it simpler to comprehend, think of the methodology as a menu card at a restaurant; appetizers to attract, starters to convert, main course to close and dessert to delight.

Let’s get started with our yummy delicacies now!

Step 1: Order some appetizers to create hunger

Attract: We don’t want just any traffic to our site, we want the right traffic. Traffic here means the no. of users visiting your website. We want the people who are most likely to become leads and turn into happy customers. We should create awareness about the product or service that is up for sale to the right customer. Your right traffic is the people around whom your whole business is built whether you are a B2B or a B2C company. Blogging, SEO and social media publishing are the easiest yet important tools to attract right users to your site.

Step 2: Some starters now to prepare for the main course

Convert: Once you’ve attracted the right traffic, all we need to do is convert those users into leads by gathering their contact information. Contact info is the Holy Grail for an online marketer. So, you’ll at least need to collect their email addresses. But, for a user to give you that grail willingly, you need to offer them something in return! This is where the marketing content such as eBooks, whitepapers, a free link to download the otherwise premium content, etc would come into play. Specific landing pages and calls-to-action buttons are effective tools for this step and needs to be used wisely at the right time to encourage your users.

Step 3: Time for the exotic main course to satisfy your taste buds

Close: if you’ve got this close, you’re on the right track. You’ve attracted the right traffic and worked your charm to convert them into right leads. You’re now one step away from raking in the moolah. You need to transform those leads into (paying) customers. Marketing automation, effective emails with right content, a proper CRM system combined with analytics are the right marketing tools that will help you close the deal.

Step 4: Delight your senses to the icing on the cake (dessert)

Delight: customer satisfaction is the prime reason for the success of a business. It doesn’t necessarily mean only to existing customers. The Inbound methodology suggests you to provide remarkable content to all your users, whether they are just visitors or leads and existing customers even. You should make it a habit of engaging your users with delight and when this is done correctly, you’ll have the loyalty of your fan base turn into promoters of your services too, even before you realise.