Inbound Marketing: understand what it is and how to use it in 2021
Inbound Marketing is an aspect of marketing that focuses on attracting, converting and delighting customers. It avoids traditional marketing, which makes use of billboards, TV, newspapers, etc.
Inbound has 3 main pillars:
- Content Marketing;
- IF THE;
- Social networks.
Marketing has always focused on interrupting people to promote a product or service. One of the most used strategies is commercials in the middle of a TV program or video on YouTube.
When you're watching your favorite soap opera, and that commercial for a product comes on. Or you're watching an interesting video on YouTube and an ad interrupts you.
But times are different now. With the advancement of technology and the internet being increasingly consumed, new ways of catching and holding a person's attention have emerged.
However, companies felt the need for changes in marketing. Therefore, it was in this pain that Inbound Marketing emerged.
Many companies are using this strategy and achieving excellent results. However, many still have doubts about it.
With this in mind, we prepared this content to resolve your doubts. So, continue reading and check out:
After all, what is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound Marketing is nothing more than marketing strategies that combine the creation and sharing of certain content for a specific target audience.
Therefore, this action seeks the customer's consent to communicate directly. Thus, a relationship begins.
In short, Inbound Marketing is marketing in which the public reaches your business through your content. This makes it easier to present your services and make them customers.
Therefore, Inbound is also popularly known as the “new marketing”.
So, to make your knowledge easier, check out the video below on the topic:
The history of Inbound Marketing
Firstly, do you know where Inbound Marketing came from? When was it created and popularized? If not, don't worry, we will explain it to you.
Unconsciously, Inbound Marketing has been used by marketing professionals for many years.
Strategies that aim to generate connections, relevant content, and valuable posts for your potential customers can be considered as Inbound Marketing.
This term was first used by Brian Haligan, the co-founder of the company Hubspot.
But, according to Peter Druker, an American guru, the pillars of Inbound have been used for many years with the main concept of Seth Godin, in his famous book “Permission Marketing”, released in 1999.
This book covers the main parts of Inbound Marketing and, for those who want to delve deeper into the subject, it is a great recommendation.
If we went deeper into this concept, we can notice that it appears together with Digital Marketing and the consumer's relationship with online advertising.
Furthermore, in the past, consumers did not have many options for consuming content. Only TV and printed newspapers.
So now he can decide what he wants to see and when over the internet. Channels, how to consume, content, etc.
Therefore, you need the consumer to choose to consume your content.
So, from then on, strategic planning and actions focused on conversions become increasingly important. And the Inbound strategy focuses on this, attracting people through your content.
What are the differences between Outbound Marketing and Inbound Marketing?
Outbound is the marketing that we are most used to seeing since we were little. These are billboards, leaflets, phone calls, etc.
Therefore, most of the time, the cost of these strategies is high and you cannot measure their results. So, you don't know for sure how many people were converted from this.
On the other hand, Inbound, because it uses internet channels such as emails, blogs, social networks, has a much lower cost. Furthermore, you can measure your results accurately and quickly.
Characteristics of Inbound Marketing
Inbound offers content to answer people's doubts and solve their pain. Furthermore, a closer relationship with your audience is built as well.
So, we have separated the main characteristics of Inbound:
- Greater interaction and engagement with consumers;
- Continuous messages and content;
- Improved relationships with consumers.
Characteristics of Outbound Marketing
Outbound is marketing that focuses more on advertisements aimed at newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. In addition to social networks and blogs.
So, we have separated the main characteristics of Outbound:
- Direct communication;
- Interruption;
- Less engagement.
However, now that you have seen the main characteristics of each one, we will show you the benefits of Inbound Marketing.
So, continue reading and see:
Inbound Marketing and its benefits
A question for many who are beginning to understand Inbound Marketing is: is it worth investing in it?
So, with that in mind, let's show you some reasons and benefits that this strategy can offer your company.
Regardless of the size of your business, whether B2B or B2C, producing relevant content brings several benefits.
Therefore, if you are looking to strengthen your brand and increase sales, this strategy is the most recommended.
In Inbound Marketing, the public likes, comments, shares and engages a lot with your content. So, see the reasons that cause these benefits:
Reach your ideal audience
Firstly, one of the advantages of Inbound is the reach of a larger audience. But not just any audience, but a specific audience that has a certain interest in a product or service from your company.
According to research carried out by Rock Content, companies that use Content Marketing reach 2,2 times more visits than companies that don't use it.
Therefore, instead of reaching any audience, it focuses on a specific audience that can become future customers.
Furthermore, companies that produce a lot of content, around 13 or more per month, can receive up to 4,2 more visits than their competitors.
But, we know that this reach is worthless if the audience reached is not your target audience. Inbound focuses precisely on the ideal, on the people who are interested.
The same research by Rock Content also proves that: businesses that use content marketing manage to generate leads 3,2 times more than those that do not use this strategy.
Closest customers
In Inbound, because the persona is looking for your product or service, and it is not forced to them, the relationship with them becomes more trustworthy.
Therefore, your customers will be willing to listen to your tips, information and content.
According to the company HubSpot, which is one of the largest in the world in the field of Inbound Marketing, most people when they go to buy something, prefer to research it on the internet rather than talking to a salesperson.
Furthermore, another important point is that Inbound focuses a lot on open communication and interaction with people. Feedback is essential, knowing the persona’s opinion regarding the content they are consuming.
Improved persuasion
For sellers, persuasion is a fundamental element. When a buyer has doubts at the time of purchase, after-sales can be quite complicated.
At this point, Inbound can help you. He uses concrete arguments, which improves the conviction of sellers that is built over time.
Throughout the Inbound Marketing process, your persona will receive relevant content that interests them. This is content that she needs and will continue to want to know more about this topic.
Therefore, when the time comes for a direct conversation with your leads, to show the qualities of your product or service, all historical information and content will be taken into account.
In short, all the effort and time you spent producing content will be the differentiating and decisive factor at the time of purchase.
Shorter sales cycle
The sales cycle is the time spent by your company on the purchasing journey, from the first contact to the sale.
The more time you spend turning your customers into leads, the higher the cost becomes. Therefore, marketing strategies are important, they can reduce your CAC (customer acquisition cost).
Reducing the time it takes to take someone to make a purchase is one of the best uses of Inbound Marketing.
This time reduction happens because the persona consumes more relevant content that speeds up the process. This way, they enter the purchase decision stage earlier.
According to a survey carried out by Martech in 2017, more than half of companies that use Inbound Marketing have a sales cycle of less than 30 days.
On the other hand, only 30% of people who use Outboun Marketing have this same result.
So, with the shorter cycle time, you increase your sales and reduce expenses.
Cost reduction
In addition to reducing the cost of acquiring customers, Inbound Marketing is also a cheaper solution overall than traditional methods.
This is due to the fact that cheaper means of communication are used. More traditional methods such as TV, billboards, among others, end up having a high cost.
Furthermore, the quality of service is not compromised. Contrary to this, investment becomes more efficient.
In other words, you invest your money in strategies that really work. You don’t take a “shot in the dark”.
Real-time analysis of results
Measuring results is fundamental for marketing. You need to monitor the results to see if your strategies are positive or not.
In a HubSpot survey, it was reported that more than 70% of companies that calculate their ROI (return on investment) say that their marketing strategies are effective.
It is very important that you are aware of the results of your actions. Inbound provides this analysis in real time, so make constant use of it.
Highest average ticket
All the content that is sent to your leads, in a way, is a way of educating them. Therefore, they feel more confident in making the purchase.
Therefore, a higher average ticket is generated when compared to those that did not go through the process.
With Inbound Marketing, you have all the tools necessary to nurture these leads and follow up until you offer your product or service.
Furthermore, you don't lose money by trying to sell before your lead actually wants to. Because, you will be following it and will be more precise at the ideal time for the offer.
Real statistics about Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing is a consolidated method. So, we’re going to show you some statistics that prove its efficiency.
According to E-commerce Trends:
- E-commerces that use SEO (tool used in Inbound) in their strategy have 13,2 times more visits and 5,7 times the greater number of customers compared to those that do not use it;
- 69,4% of people who arrive at your online store did so through social media;
- 58,7% of people have already made a purchase because of an email.
According to IDC:
- Buyers who use social media have 84% more budget than those who don't.
According to Econsultancy:
- More than 70% of companies say that emails have a return on investment (ROI) classified as “good” and/or “excellent”.
According to Social Media Examiner:
- More than 90% of marketing professionals agree that working with social media increases exposure and visibility for their businesses.
According to EduTrends:
- More than 94% of educational institutions use social media posts as one of their main investments in Digital Marketing.
With all these statistics, you no longer have any doubts about the efficiency of Inbound Marketing, right?
However, of course, to get these results, you need to plan and execute it correctly.
The Inbound Marketing process
The Inbound Marketing process has 4 fundamental steps: attract, convert, sell and delight. So, understand a little about each of them below:
- Attraction: The first step is to attract your audience. In other words, make people become frequent visitors, through your produced content.
- Conversion: here, is the step in which you turn these visitors into leads. In other words, in sales opportunities.
- Sell: after nurturing the leads, you will evaluate them and see who is at the ideal time to purchase and make the sale.
- Enchantment: At this stage, you will have to delight the customer after the sale. With this, you turn him into a loyal customer and defender of your brand.
Inbound is the best method to get your content to the right audience, at the right time.
Inbound Marketing and the Sales Journey
Now, let's talk about each stage of the sales funnel in Inbound Marketing. This process will strengthen your relationship and generate sales.
The purchasing journey is the path that the customer takes from the time they realize they have a problem, to when they realize that the solution is one of your products or services.
To show you how this journey works, we will explain the sales funnel, which can be applied to your business's marketing strategy.
As the name suggests, the sales funnel resembles a common funnel. Where the majority is concentrated at its top and then smaller parts are concentrated towards its bottom.
It is made up of 3 parts: top, middle and bottom. So, continue reading and learn about each of them:
top of the funnel
Here is the stage of discovery and learning. At the beginning, the persona doesn’t yet know that they need your product or service. She's just wanting to know more about some problem she's having.
For example, when you feel some symptoms of an illness, but you still don't know exactly what the illness is. Therefore, you will try to find out more about it.
At this moment, the person runs after information that can clarify their doubts. She will also discover that there is a deeper universe than this simple superficial research.
Therefore, the best content to work on at this stage are:
- Blog posts;
- Posts on social networks;
- Videos;
- Infographics.
This content is easy to consume and also share. This makes the lead education process easier.
Remember that at this stage, you should not yet mention your business and its solution. The person is just wanting to know more about this topic and is not ready to purchase yet.
Middle of the Funnel
This step is responsible for consideration and intent. Here, the persona already understands their problem and is looking for the best solution.
The person is not yet at the best time to buy, but if the work is done well at this stage, they will be very close to it.
You can go deeper into your topics too, since your audience is engaged with your blog and social media content. As a result, your relationship will also become closer.
So, to produce this more advanced content, try to do:
- More advanced Blog Posts;
- Rich materials;
- Ebooks;
- Whitepapers;
- webinars;
- Segmented emails.
To turn these visitors into leads, try to offer these materials in exchange for some data. For example, for a person to access your e-book, they need to provide their email.
Information like this will be important for the customer journey and qualifying your leads.
To help you, try using landing pages. This way, conversions will be optimized and more efficient in generating leads.
But the process doesn't end there. You always need to be nurturing these leads with relevant content, until they arrive at the time of purchase.
Bottom of the Funnel
At this stage, evaluation and decision take place. After all the work of presenting the problem to people, turning them into leads and nurturing them, they need to discover the best company to serve them.
This step is crucial in the sales funnel. Even though you have nurtured the lead, if the work is not done well here, they may opt for the competition. This way, someone else can benefit from your nurtured lead.
Here, you must work hard on customer persuasion. Present everything that your business can offer, its benefits.
Furthermore, use concrete evidence, such as your success stories. The lead needs to feel confident that they are in good hands.
How to do good Inbound Marketing
We have already mentioned the 4 fundamental stages of Inbound here in the text. However, now let's delve deeper into each of them.
So, stay with us and check it out:
Attraction
Would you like to attract someone to your company who has no desire to purchase? I do not think so. This would not be to your advantage and would only waste your time.
In the digital environment this is also valid. You don't need to attract a lot of customers, but your ideal customers. These customers are called qualified traffic who, in the future, may purchase a product or service from you.
This way, we will show you the content channels that most attract people likely to become your future leads:
- Content Marketing: present throughout the customer's purchasing journey, content is an extremely important factor in Inbound. He is responsible for attracting, converting and delighting his customers. In this strategy, you create your personas, keywords, communication channels, among other factors;
- Blog: The blog is the main content tool in Inbound Marketing. The content created always ends up on the blog;
- Website: As the blog is responsible for offering its content, it is on the website that the customer actually finds your product. The leads and visitors who are consuming your content will naturally be interested in seeing what your business offers;
- Social media: they are an essential tool for promoting your content and, consequently, strengthening your brand;
- SEO: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is responsible for keeping your content at the top of Google searches. So, when someone searches for a service or product that you offer, they will come across your company.
Conversion
After attracting people and turning them into readers of your content and followers on social media, now you need them to become leads as quickly as possible.
For this to happen, you need to strengthen your relationship with these people. Continue using content production, but with more use of persuasion.
So, to help you with this, we have listed some very effective tools:
- Landing page: they are made to get conversions. Generally, when you make an e-book or rich material available, the person will need to provide their email to receive it;
- Form: the form is the place on the landing page where the person fills in their data. Therefore, it is important to be careful when creating it, to attract people;
- Call to Action (CTA): Translating into Portuguese, a CTA is a call to someone’s action. That is, a call to fill out the form on the landing page. Remember to make it stand out with a prominent color;
- CRM: CRM is customer relationship management. With it, you have access to all the information and data of your contacts. This way, lead nurturing becomes easier, knowing what each one needs;
- CRO: CRO is conversion rate optimization. It is the guarantee that your conversions will continue to increase. It is important that you carry out continuous actions, using the data collected and tests already carried out.
Sell
Now that you've attracted people, turned them into leads, it's time to make them customers. This step is crucial for the entire process to be successful.
Therefore, here are some tools that are important at this stage:
- Marketing Automation: These automation tools allow you to have a closer relationship with your leads and guide them through the sales funnel;
- Email Marketing: Email marketing is the perfect tool to encourage your leads to continue consuming your content. This way, you also strengthen your relationship with them and show that you care;
- Lead Nurturing: Lead nurturing is based on a sequence of emails that will bring them closer to purchasing. There, you can send new products or services, promotions, discounts, among others;
- Lead Scoring: lead scoring is a tool that segments your leads. It gives a score according to the maturity of your lead, whether they have just become one or whether they are closer to purchasing. This will make your sales team easier.
Enchantment
After the sale is complete, you should celebrate. But the work doesn't end there. Now you need to turn this customer into a permanent customer and advocate for your brand.
With well-done after-sales work, you keep customers continually consuming your product or service. In addition, they become word-of-mouth marketing for your business, recommending it to friends, family and acquaintances.
Therefore, we have listed below useful practices for you to delight your customers:
- Customer Success: if your customer is successful with your product or service, that is, if it really solves their problem, they will look for your company more often;
- Active Relationship: so that your customers don't forget you, keep the relationship always active. You can do this by sending emails and also with content on social networks, as mentioned in the text;
- Advanced Content: As your customers are already at an advanced stage of the sales funnel, try to send more specific and advanced content. They don’t need generic content like top-of-the-funnel content.
Inbound Marketing and Measuring Results
Measuring results is one of the main advantages of online strategies. With it, you can have data-based analysis.
This Inbound Marketing benefit, on the other hand, is also one of the biggest responsibilities of people who work in the world of digital strategies. Measuring results continuously is a challenge.
By not following your strategies, you are not sure what works and what doesn't. Furthermore, the adjustment and optimization processes end up taking much longer, which can cost more money.
Therefore, digital marketing has KPIs. They are key indicators and metrics that evaluate your results accurately, quickly and cheaply.
Working based on this updated data makes the strategy and its evolutionary process easier, with lower costs and helps it to achieve metrics.
Discover now the main metrics of Inbound Marketing
First of all, you need to be careful not to analyze too many metrics or analyze the wrong indicators.
Due to the high number of parameters, you may end up getting lost in so much data and leaving the most important ones aside.
So, with that in mind, we prepared a list of the most important Inbound Marketing metrics:
ROI – Return on investment
ROI (return on investment) is the main marketing metric that you should track. He is the one who will tell you whether marketing is bringing losses or profits to your business.
This calculation is very easy, you just need to add up your marketing investments and compare them with your results over a given time.
Therefore, you must take into account the leads generated, reduction in the sales cycle, new purchases by active customers, in addition to the increase in the number of sales.
Conversion rate
This metric will show you whether your business is managing to convince people. You need to analyze how many visitors are becoming leads, and how many leads are becoming your customers.
This assessment is essential for marketing work. There are no real results without sales cycle conversions.
Sales Funnel Conversions
Apart from the final conversion rate of the sales funnel, you need to analyze each stage individually to see if there are any problems at a certain stage.
With this analysis, you avoid possible problems and make them easier to resolve. This way, you end up saving time and money.
Ratio between CAC and CLV
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), better known as Acquisition Cost per Customer, shows you the amount spent by the business to acquire each customer.
CLV (Customer Lifetime Value), better known as Customer Lifetime Value, shows you, on average, how long your customers stay with your business.
For your company to be healthy, it is essential that the CAC is much lower than your CLV. If the situation is the other way around, you could spend too much to get customers and lose money.
NPS – Net Promoter Score
This metric will show you the level of satisfaction your current customers have with your company. This can be done directly and simply, with just one question:
“On a scale of 0 to 10, how much would you recommend this product or service to someone you know?”
Therefore, based on this data, you can analyze what needs to be improved and receive more attention.
Inbound Marketing in different markets
Many people are unsure whether Inbound Marketing works for their business. This answer is simple, yes it works.
The attraction process fits all types of business, whether small or large.
So, here are some examples of businesses that Inbound Marketing can help:
Real Estate Agencies
First, let's talk about marketing agencies.
Agencies, to be able to sell marketing, need marketing. Therefore, with Inbound Marketing applied, the agency can attract customers and use its own success story.
Furthermore, it gets all the benefits that Inbound offers, as you have already seen throughout this text.
SMEs
Many small businesses are unsure whether Inbound Marketing is for them.
Due to a smaller marketing budget, lack of time and other factors, this doubt ends up arising.
But this issue is easy to resolve. Inbound Marketing works very well for small businesses, due to its cost-benefit, the possibility of quickly scaling your business and monitoring its performance closely.
Industry
More and more industries are noticing how Inbound Marketing can be advantageous for them.
In addition to strengthening your brand in the market, you can attract more customers and achieve more sales.
Therefore, to better understand how Inbound will help your industry, check out the video below:
Educational Institutions
Educational institutions can benefit greatly from Inbound Marketing, as it is a strategy that is based on creating values and educating their audience.
You can attract more students by implementing the right processes and sharing content and knowledge.
E-commerce
It is essential for a E-commerce, so that consumers have access to information about the business before making a purchase.
This way, with Inbound Marketing, you can create a blog and strengthen your presence on social media.
With this, you will have more power of influence and, above all, more sales for your e-commerce.
Inbound Marketing and its Tools
To make Inbound Marketing easier, there are some tools to help you.
However, there are many tools, many free, that will make your work easier. So, we mention some of them below:
Blog tools
For you to write content for blog in an organized way, there is an excellent tool for this called WordPress.
This tool is free and maintained by the user community. Furthermore, it has an excellent structure for corporate blogs and very professional themes.
Email marketing and automation tools
Throughout the text, it was possible to see why email marketing and automation tools play a very important role in Inbound Marketing.
One of the best tools for this is RD Station. It was created and developed by the company Resultados Digitais and has become the best-known automation tool in Brazil.
However, this software is complete and supports all types of plans for any company, regardless of its size.
Tools for SEO
For you to optimize the SEO of your blog and website, you will need a tool that meets your needs.
Therefore, SEMrush is a kit of tools linked to marketing. With this platform, you can analyze your website traffic, research and analyze key words, see your social media engagement and more.
Tools for Metric Analysis
As most searches are carried out through Google, the best tool to analyze your metrics is the Google Analytics.
It is a completely free, complete tool and serves very well from businesses that are just starting out to the most established ones.
Did you like to know more about Inbound Marketing? So, be sure to follow our blog to stay up to date with everything about this universe.