“Money makes the world go round.” That adage is especially true for businesses; it would be nigh impossible for companies to continually achieve their business goals without some sort of funding. Creating products and offering services requires money in order to be done; such is the way of business.
Most businesses have a sales department to help bring home the bacon. Traditional sales tactics would mostly have companies rely on overt marketing strategies like print ads, radio and television commercials, and endorsers to help push the product or service. But with an increasingly digital purchasing public, it forces companies to rethink their marketing strategies.
Below are a few inbound marketing tactics to consider adopting in an increasingly self-reliant and digital consumer age.
Search engine optimization
First off, let me begin by saying that the next few points would be pointless without search engine optimization. Seriously, no matter how great your adaptations for the following strategies may be, they won’t be as effective if your audience can’t even find you on the Internet.
The inbound marketing funnel has changed largely with the rise of the Internet. People already have an idea of what they are looking for, they just need to find the right information. Search engine optimization helps your business attract more traffic by helping your site rank on the first few pages of search results. A high-ranking website is perceived to be more credible than, say, other sites that can be found further back in the search results. Because of this, sites that rank high tend to receive more traffic. Higher traffic also means that you have a higher number of prospective leads.
Adding a blog to your site
Inbound marketing is all about letting your target market come to you, not the other way around. Outbound marketing — of which hard selling is a part of — is all about getting what you offer in a “Buy me!” or “Pick me!” kind of way.
Add a blog to your site where you can post content that is relevant and interesting to your audience. This allows you to showcase how your product or service works without overtly pushing the product in your readers’ faces.
Present numbers in an interesting way
Some of the techniques that companies use to entice customers into choosing their product or service is to show them statistics. For example, say that you are trying to show how using your company’s customer relationship management software would raise profits for its users over time. It’s more interesting to present those changes in an infographic than to talk about it extensively in a 1,000-word article.
Plus, given the fast-paced world we now live in, people want to try and absorb all the information they need all at once, rather than to have to go over each piece one by one. Infographics like graphs and charts can help make the absorption of information more efficient. This also helps you convert your prospects into actual sales much faster too.
Again, the goal of inbound marketing is to have your target market do the legwork for you, since they are already doing it anyway. It’s important for businesses to grow, change, and innovate in order to continue their operations for as long as they can. Marketing, whether inbound or outbound, involves a lot of trial and error. These tactics may work for you, or they may not. Remember to find and develop techniques that will work for the line of business you operate in.
