Does your Torrance or Los Angeles South Bay business have a billboard on Crenshaw or Hawthorne? Of the thousands of cars that drive by Rolling Hills Plaza each day, do you hope a driver interested in your service drives by and sees it? And remembers the phone number and calls you?
Today’s world is about attracting customers vs. hoping the right person sees your ad. And what do DVRs and Caller ID have in common? An easy way to skip advertisements.
Have you heard about inbound marketing and content marketing but are not sure exactly what it is and if it could help your business attract more customers, grow your brand and bottom line? You’re at the right place.
Inbound marketing uses the reach and power of the web to generate traffic and leads. And with the right tools, track leads to customers, and the ROI on the marketing dollars you spend on it.
What is inbound marketing?
Simply put, its sharing information for your target customers that they are looking for, capturing their contact information, and nurturing that relationship by providing education, help, and useful content. It’s not about “selling” them. It’s about being helpful and seeing if there is a mutual fit. Through exploration and sharing, you and your lead will uncover whether your products and services would be a good solution to their problem.
A very positive aspect of inbound marketing is that they are “warm leads” by time they’ve reached you. They wouldn’t have downloaded your content if they weren’t interested in the topic.
How does inbound marketing work? Here are 5 basic steps.
1. Set specific, quantifiable goals with deadlines.
Or how else will you know if you’ve been successful or not.
2. Define who you are targeting and create a persona.
A persona is a fictitious representational of your ideal customer. This should include what they care about, what their challenges are, and where they research answers to their questions.
3. Create a content strategy.
- Determine topics by what your personas want to know. What do they need help with?
- Determine what content is appropriate for each stage of the Buyer’s Journey:
– Awareness – finding out what solutions exist to their problem
– Consideration – Researching pros and cons of each solution
– Decision – Evaluating providers of chosen solution to make buying decision - Research and use keyword string for SEO
4. Launch your campaign!
- Based on your persona’s behaviors, determine where to promote your offer.
Download our free campaign checklist to get started! - Create CTA offer and lead capture forms
- Create promotion content (e.g., landing pages, blog posts)
Download our free inbound marketing campaign checklist.
