Why Inbound and Content Marketing is Wise for a Firm to Invest In
Inbound Marketing
The definition of inbound marketing is the creation of lasting relationships with website visitors that will have a positive impact on the website's brand. Considering this definition speaks on lasting relationships, it is important that marketers focus their attention on consumer behaviors and what meets the consumer’s personal needs. So given this definition and idea, it makes sense to market to people who are actually interested in your brand and company rather than on a broader scale to those that are not.
So one might ask themselves "Why should my business worry about inbound marketing?" Well, heres why:
The implementation of inbound marketing will allow marketers to act as a guide in order to build trust with the consumer. In order to do this, the marketer must understand the audience to take the right actions in correctly analyzing and shifting focuses on consumer's wants and needs. This being said, it would be wise for a firm to invest in developing relative content that the consumer will personally connect with, which is another way to go about building trust with visitors.
There are 5 key fundamentals to inbound marketing:
- Contacts - these are real people with relationships to be made (also the most important fundamental)
- Buyer Personas - in simple terms, this refers to the ideal customer (contact)
- Buyer's Journey - a customer's path to purchase
- Content - the toolkit of what the marketer creates
- Goals - what the marketer wishes to achieve
Content Marketing
Content marketing is the process that distributes relevant content to a specific audience and drives profitable customer action. Content marketing can be sometimes confused with inbound marketing but the two are different by content marketing fueling an inbound engine that inbound marketing reveals itself as a valuable counterpart. They are similar by focusing on the trust built with the consumer to create a positive experience that will drive profit.
Rather than firms marketing on a broad scale through mediums such as billboards, commercials, they focus their marketing attention on more personalized content such as blogs, case studies, and videos. Firms should invest in content marketing because with the technology dependent society we live in, consumers will be way more exposed if content marketing is used in this online version. More consumers will be exposed and then (hopefully) turned into loyal customers of the firm's brand.
B2C Content Marketing
The watch brand MVMT has created a direct business to consumer model that uses influencers to market their products by posting blogs and videos about their day to day, seemingly adventurous lives. This brand is quite different from Hubspot Academy by not being a "how-to" in the terms of contend and inbound marketing strategies - it is more of an example of how those tools can be used and the brand's image enhanced. However, both platforms use digital content marketing to attract and maintain customer relationships.
Finishing Thoughts
As a firm, it would be important to implement these marketing strategies in order to create better customer relationships which will in turn drive profits up and provide a better experience for both the consumer as well as the firm that is targeting those consumers.