Inbound Marketing: Step-by-Step Guide and Methodology

The benefits of an Inbound strategy

Companies that employ inbound marketing as their core strategy gain the following benefits:

• Increase your leadsThe data indicate that in the first year registrations are multiplied by 3.8 and in two years by 9.8.
• Increasing Qualified Marketing Contactsin the first year alone, contacts are multiplied by a factor of 7.3.
• Increase traffic to your websiteThe number of visits to your website multiplied by 4.7 in the first 12 months and multiplied by 24 in two years.

With this data, it is undeniable the success of applying inbound marketing in your business. But these are not the only assets you can receive from this methodology.

The assets it generates

All the money you use in inbound marketing is an investment that will give you very good results. We are not only talking about the benefits mentioned above, because by having an inbound strategy, everything you do will be present on your website.

The elements that stand out as assets of this strategy are the following:

• DatabaseThanks to the strategies of attracting customers to your website, you can convert a large part of them into data. The important thing is that this will be a qualified database, with a higher conversion rate.
• Greater reachBy optimising your content, it has a wider reach. The impact it has on people means that you can create a community around your brand. This will give your company increased value and visibility.
• BrandingAnother asset that inbound marketing generates is improving your company's image. Having more interaction and visibility makes you a recognised brand in your sector.
• Marketing automationThis is one of the most difficult assets to achieve. It is not achieved until you have gone through marketing automation, which is fundamental in inbound. This ensures that you get qualified leads or customers directly.

Every asset generated by Inbound Marketing will remain with your company over time. This is why this type of strategy is the most efficient when launching a campaign.

The keys to Inbound Marketing

We can say that the keys to this methodology are 4, and they are:

Content creation

The first and key step is to create content that attracts your customers. With this you must respond to the needs of your prospects. It should not only be texts, content refers to everything you can send to your users such as videos, advertisements, among others.

Personalisation

Everyone goes through different stages when interacting with your business. At each stage, different marketing actions are needed for each one. With the information you gather from each customer, you need to personalise your messages to create more effective communication.

Viralisation

Using social media is vital in an inbound marketing strategy. In the networks you have direct contact with potential customers, and what you are looking for is that the content is shared on other channels. Achieving this is not easy, but with good segmentation and quality content you can do it.

The metrics

What cannot be measured cannot be scaled. That applies to everything you do in your business. After doing all of the above, you need to know if your efforts have paid off, and metrics will tell you that. In addition, the data obtained will allow you to increase conversions.

How does Inbound Marketing work?

As we mentioned at the beginning, the way in which people consume leads to the need for change. In fact, the very origin of inbound marketing was given to adapt to the new ways of buying.

But with the inbound methodology not only focus efforts on the process of how we buy. In this case it is necessary to go much further, it is to study the entire process prior to the purchase phase. The customer must be accompanied from the point at which he identifies his need until he manages to buy the product or service that satisfies it.

Nowadays the buying process is very much internet based. Users use social networks, blogs, apps and ecommerce to research, make a decision and buy. Therefore, companies must use the same media to deliver the information that the customer requires at each stage of the purchase.

This is where we return to the 3 stages of inbound marketing, attraction, interaction and delight. For the customer research phase, content must be generated that attracts the customer and satisfies their need for information, leading to the next phase.

Before we go any further, it is necessary to define each of these phases and see how they are correctly applied in marketing.

Attraction

At this stage you should focus your efforts on attracting the right people. Not everyone needs to come to your website, only those who have the highest chance of converting into sales and satisfied customers.

In order to do that (attract the right customers) you must generate content that is of value to them. This means that you must satisfy their needs at the very moment they are looking for it.

The best thing to do is to use Content Strategies, these will help you to have authority on the web and will show you in search results related to your business. You must create an SEO strategy in order to be successful.

In addition, you must attack all possible media where your ideal customers are. Publish videos on networks, use advertisements and all the mechanisms that can help you reach your target. You should always measure all the strategies you use, and know if they work or if they need to be improved.

The Interaction

Once you have successfully engaged your target audience, the next step is to interact with them. Ideally, you should use tools that make it easier to have a conversation with them and build a long-term relationship.

The means of interaction are varied and you can opt for bots, live chat, email, messaging, among others. However, it is also advisable to use conversion tools at this stage. These work very well to capture data from users who visit your website.

All the information you get from your prospects should be used to personalise their experience with your brand. This gives you the possibility to strengthen business ties and create loyalty with your customers.

You can choose whatever means of connection gives you the best results and suits your company's needs.

The Delight

To delight your prospects you need to use some of the conversational tools mentioned above. The idea is to offer information that is relevant to each person. Give what they need, to the people who need it, when they need it.

That's the way to delight using inbound marketing. It's worth noting that much of the content being consumed today is video, so try to deliver interesting videos that your audience can share.

The results that Inbound Marketing generates

Now that you know how each stage of inbound marketing works, it's time to find out what results you get when you apply it to your business.

When you use inbound marketing you get on average 11 leads for every 200 visits, of which 1 will be a qualified marketing lead.

By applying an inbound strategy, organic and direct channels will be responsible for the best results. These account for 53% of qualified marketing leads, 65% of visits and 52% of registrations.

An inbound project is applicable to any company and in any sector. In the case of B2B companies, they benefit from a greater increase in visits and registrations. On the other hand, B2C companies increase their cumulative visits.

There is no doubt that inbound marketing is the best option to achieve the best results.

How to develop an inbound marketing strategy

Nowadays, all companies must be well prepared and anticipate their customers' requirements. In order to improve results, it is necessary to stop focusing on sales. Now you have to worry about providing value to your customers and prospects.

You already know that inbound marketing is closely related to SEO, and its techniques are non-intrusive. You can attract customers and build customer loyalty by simply providing them with valuable information through a variety of channels.

In order to design your strategy and know how to use inbound marketing for your brand, pay attention to the following steps.

Identify your ideal customer (Buyer Persona)

The key part of the inbound strategy is the customer idea or buyer persona. You must be able to create the image of the person your product or service is aimed at. You need to create a fictitious persona, you can even give it a name and add socio-demographic variables.

This includes; age, purchasing power, search preferences, hobbies, consumption habits, their behaviour, among others. To do this you can use interviews of existing customers and observation. This is very important, it is the cornerstone of inbound marketing.

Purchase cycle or conversion funnel

In the inbound methodology, the conversion funnel scheme is not usually used. Instead, the buying cycle is used, which is the way to form a wheel that will drive the growth of your business.

Users must go through the three stages of the buying cycle, and depending on the stage they are in, they will demand different things. This cycle allows you to know what each prospect needs, so that you can offer them the best to keep them on their journey.

It is very important that you are aware of the importance of the buying cycle of each customer, understanding it is what will give you the ability to convert them into final customers.

Attracting qualified traffic

The next step is to be able to guide your buyer persona through the conversion cycle. You should try to make sure that all the traffic you attract to your site is as qualified as possible. Keep in mind that you don't want everyone to visit your site, only those who are most likely to convert.

Doing so successfully will mark the success of your cycle, and you should bear in mind the following aspects:

• Publish content that solves your users' search intent.
• Communicate in the right tone and with the right message on the networks to reach more people.
• Make a study of keywords related to your business to gain visibility in search engines. Here it is very important to combine with SEO strategy.

Being able to attract your ideal customers will increase your conversion, so this point is vital. The attraction phase must be done in all media and with all types of content, appropriate to each stage of the purchase intention.

Identifying leads

When you attract a prospect, the ideal is to take them to the next stage of the cycle, which in this case would be the interaction and subsequent sale of the product or service. But you should know that not all leads are the same.

It all depends on where they are in the cycle. Opportunities vary according to each phase, and you must manage the client's needs depending on their qualifications.

With inbound marketing you will have access to two great tools that allow you to assess and qualify the opportunities of each lead.

Lead ScoringWith this tool you can create a system for each business opportunity and give it a score. This ranks the conversion rate for the sales department.

Lead NurturingThe aim is to be able to offer content to the customer based on the stage of the cycle they are in. The aim is to build a bond of trust that can lead to a higher convertibility rate.

As you have seen, inbound marketing is about delivering the best experience to every customer you can bring into the conversion cycle. This can only be achieved if the customer sees you as a trusted source of advice.

Inbound marketing: The best strategy for reaching people

Throughout the article we have detailed what inbound marketing is, how you can use it, the phases in which it divides its cycle and how you can develop a strategy. You will have noticed that this method has a great relationship with SEO positioning.

This is because it focuses on creating content that is optimised for people. All potential customers are treated with great care, offering only quality information at the right time.

So, we can say that inbound marketing is the best way to reach people. But, you may ask, why? It's very easy, with this methodology the aim is to understand, guide and help your ideal client in the buying process from the moment the need is detected.

This method or strategy can be summarised as marketing where the person is at the centre of everything. The importance of the prospect is total and satisfying their needs at every stage is what it seeks, always trying not to be intrusive and adding constant value.