What is Inbound Marketing?

To put it simply, inbound marketing is getting your business found by customers. Instead of you spending thousands of dollars generating leads for cold calling, advertising through TV, sending unwanted emails, and participating on trade shows, inbound marketing is certainly cheaper and a lot more effective. The traditional practices mentioned above are called outbound marketing. Blogging and word-of-mouth recommendation through social media are forms of inbound marketing.

Marketing Facts

Source: Hubspot Marketing Statistics

1. Inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than traditional campaign.
2. 78% of Internet users conduct product research online.
3. Web-based email usage for people below 55 yrs. old has been on the decline. It has dropped significantly to 59% among 12-17 yrs. old in preference to Facebook and Twitter, instant messaging, and text.
4. 200 million Americans have registered on FTC’s “Do not call” list.
5. 91% of email users have unsubscribed from a company email they have previously opted-in
6. 57% of businesses have acquired a customer through their company blog.
7. 41% of B2B companies and 67% of B2C companies have acquired a customer through Facebook.

Inbound Marketing: Transforming How We Do Business Today 

An average consumer is bombarded with hundreds of advertisements each day. Getting interrupted from their daily activities, they have found clever ways to block them. Some of them use spam filters, caller ID, number block, subscribe to TIVO, and a lot of other ways to get rid of unwanted advertisements. This is the very reason why outbound marketing has become less and less effective.

In addition, the Internet has changed the way that consumers purchase products or look for services. They search online; read blogs, go to forum sites, Twitter, and Facebook to check what people are saying about a certain product. Most of them decide base on what they learned from the Internet. Why? It is because they believe that the opinions of these people are untainted, rather than getting it from a salesman.

What are the components of inbound marketing?

1. Website
To get your business be found on the Internet, you need to set up a website with a blog to communicate with your target customers. You are at a liberty whether to set it up where all transactions can be made or just to use it as added value to your customers. A blog is vital to a business as it is where you can build relationship to your existing and potential customer. Consumers now want something more than the product. They are looking for added value services which you can provide through your blog. In addition, search engines prefer blogs than static websites because of its nature.

Click here to learn more about a blog’s importance to businesses.

2. Search Engine Optimization
A website served on the Internet does not guarantee that your business can be found naturally by Internet users. People who search online or use Google to search for a product normally checks the websites they find on the first page of search results. They rarely check beyond the third page. In order for your website be ranked higher by search engine, you need to optimize your website through a process called SEO.

3. Social Media
Nobody can deny the power of Twitter and Facebook. Looking back at our statistics above, 67% of business to consumer has gained customers from Facebook. To learn more about it, check my previous about social media marketing.