Stop wasting time on prospects that don’t want what you offer. It’s time to say goodbye to ad blasting the masses and adopt a more precise approach to gain the right customers.

It’s called inbound marketing, and it starts with identifying strangers – the ones that want your products/services.

Simply put, inbound marketing is the process of attracting customers toward specific products or services through valuable content, then refining the process to improve results. It’s a pull rather than push method of marketing, drawing in customers who are so interested in your brand, they actually give you permission to market to them. The ultimate goal of inbound marketing is to earn and retain your audience’s interest which, if done right, can be highly effective in establishing repeat customers.

Inbound marketing can be understood through the following steps:

1. Attract: grab a stranger’s attention
2. Convert: get them to provide info that helps you stay connected
3. Close: nurture their interest into action
4. Delight: build trust by keeping them interested and engaged
5. Analyze: collect data to analyze the success of your campaign
6. Improve: refine processes based on the results of your analysis

Attract

Step one is the most involved step and will require an investment of your time for success. In this stage, you’ll identify what content to deliver, where to place it, and who to target. Valuable content your brand produces may include maintaining a blog, optimizing web pages for SEO, managing social media platforms, or creating retargeting ads. Whatever you choose, the goal is to offer appealing information that will catch a stranger’s attention and lead them to further engagement.

Convert

After you turn some digital heads with your intriguing content, the next step is to convert those strangers into leads. Here your goal is to gain any information they’re willing to share so you can stay in touch. One of the most successful methods of lead generation is web forms that require a visitor’s email address in exchange for your content. Social media channels also provide an easy open door to communicate with prospective customers and collect contact info.

Close

With the ability to stay in touch with people who have opted into hearing more from your brand, you can continue to impress with exclusive content. Here you can nurture their initial interest into action with friendly reminders of your products and services. You have the power to stay fresh on your leads’ minds with retargeting efforts, email campaigns, direct sales, and killer CTAs. Your aim in this stage is to make your products irresistible, clear the path, and close the sale.

Delight

Closing the sale doesn’t mean the job is done. In fact, it’s just beginning. The purpose of inbound marketing is to obtain loyal customers, not just one-time purchases. This stage is where you over-deliver and blow your customers away with delightful engagement and top-of-the-line customer service. Educate, inform, and reward to build trust. As customers realize you care and are aiming to provide value to their lives, they’ll become ambassadors, built-in promoters, and evangelists for your brand. Your marketing is done for you.

Analyze

Throughout the implementation of any inbound marketing strategies you deploy, you should be tracking analytics to gauge their success. In this stage, you rely on tools like Google Analytics to give you insight on audience, acquisition, user behavior, and conversions to identify which methods are most effective and which need to be adjusted. You determine your own metric of success as you track ROI for all your inbound efforts.

Improve

Now that the data has been collected and analyzed, it’s time to make improvements. This last stage is where you adjust your efforts and refine marketing processes to create the ultimate customer buying journey. Amp up marketing strategies that are performing well and abandon ones that are failing to deliver results. Unleash your creativity and watch loyalty and engagement levels grow. With knowledge and experience, your brand can become an expert in its field, positioned to inspire consumers and disrupt your industry.

Your Army of Ambassadors

Congratulations! You just succeeded in grabbing a stranger’s attention, collecting their contact info, intriguing them with your products and services, and gaining them as a customer who is delighted with their experience and enthusiastic about evangelizing your brand to others. You now have brand ambassadors who will not only be repeat customers but will bring their friends and family with them.

The power of inbound marketing goes beyond what you probably ever considered. It’s the opportunity to become a credible brand that builds trust with consumers. It’s showing you’re about more than just sales – that you truly want to bring value to people’s lives. It’s providing a personal touch that leaves people – even strangers – feeling special. And it’s building up an army of ambassadors for your brand.

Continue the Chat

For details on each step of the inbound marketing process and specific tips on how to get started, download our free eBook. (See what we did there?) We caught your attention with this blog. You made it to the end, so clearly you’re interested. Now here’s where you give us a chance to further engage and continue delighting you with content we’re confident will bring value to your brand and marketing practices.

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