All you want is to get enquiries from qualified leads which have a very high probability of converting into customers.
After you have put much thought on your product and other operational matters , the whole trick of the business is to be where your customers are, to get noticed and subsequently become a preferred brand of the customer. There are two ways of reaching out to customers and these are inbound marketing and outbound marketing. Inbound marketing is to attract potential customers through various strategies that would result in relevant enquiries. Outbound marketing on the contrary is when you establish a direct contact with the customer to seek business which could be via a personal meeting or direct phone calls etc.
Finding customers is an uphill task. The market is occupied by large number of competitors who have similar products as yours and equally high are the number of products of all kinds, trying to grab the consumer’s limited attention. All are vying for the same customer’s Mindspace. There must be a strong reason for the buyer to notice your marketing communication, after all customers have limited attention span and they too prioritize what to see and what to ignore. Let me talk about a very simple and yet prudent method of finding those people out of the crowd, who will most likely buy your products, also called your target customer.
Attracting Strategies
Inbound marketing strategies that attract your target audience and buyer personas are tied to content creation and development. When using inbound strategies to engage your audience, ensure you’re communicating and dealing with leads and customers in a way that makes them want to build long-term relationships with you. Remember that a hard sales pitch is felt intrusive by your customers. They are looking for a solution each time they are buying a product or service. For example, consider furniture as your product. The customer is looking for a solution for comfort and aesthetics. Therefore, you need to address these issues in your communication. It is the needs of the customer that have to be put on top of everything. This is where the content plays a major role.
Content constitutes everything that you say to the customer via websites, brochures, blogs, whitepapers etc. If your content focusses truly on the aspirations and needs of your customer and tries to offer a solution or a helping hand rather than hard selling your products, chances are that the customer will herself come to you and consider your products while making a purchase decision. In other words, it is the customer engagement that matters. For example, if you are a home décor company, a blog will be a great tool for you to engage customers. You can write about various facts about beautifying homes without giving any reference to your products and engage the customers in a discussion via the blog. There are chances that after reading couple of your blogs, which I assume will provide interesting information, the customer will herself visit your website and make an enquiry about your products.
Website content is your first introduction to your customers. The first page has to convey maximum in few words. Remember the customer attention span is too short and therefore you need to be very clear about your Unique selling proposition (USP) which must be on top of your homepage. You must be very choosy about what aspects of your product/ service you need to put there and the words you choose. You must be able to peep into the customers mind and that of the competitor’s and then decide what you must communicate to the customer so that it resonates with their aspirations or needs. For example , a company producing high-end tea, instead of putting up the pictures of different teas along with their benefits on the home page might as well write content which connects with the target customer’s lifestyle because it is an expensive tea, which is not a need but can be a much sought-after product if linked with lifestyle. These are some things which a marketing agency can think for you.
Improving the quality of your content is pivotal to the success of your marketing campaigns. The quality of your content is relative to your audience’s profile. With a better understanding of your customer’s needs, you can offer content with higher resonance.
Typically, inbound marketing strategies are more cost effective and will generate a higher rate of return in the long term. These strategies include attracting qualified prospects, offering a more targeted approach and using helpful, relevant interactions and content to generate leads. According to Search Engine Journal, inbound leads cost 61% less than outbound leads. When asked which marketing tactic generates higher quality leads for the sales team, 59% of marketers surveyed replied inbound, 16% replied outbound and 26% accounted for self-sourced leads.
According to a HubSpot report, 53% of marketers say that creating blog content is their top inbound marketing priority. Without useful and valuable content, there is no way to keep and convert your leads. Your content needs to stand out and break through the clutter. Don’t just produce content to have something on your website – make sure it has a purpose.
To attract your audience members on a deeper level through inbound marketing, optimize all of this content with an SEO strategy. An SEO strategy will require you to target specific keywords and phrases related to your products or services, the challenges you solve for customers, and the ways you help target audience members. A content marketing agency uses various tools to identify the keywords and write an SEO friendly content. This will allow your content and information to organically appear on the search engine results page (SERP) for your target customers.
If you want to future-proof you’re marketing you should focus on two things: creating an incredible online presence that focuses on creating your own audience and providing them with an engaging content to convert them into your customers.