What is Inbound Methodology? Explained “Inbound Methodology Stages”

Inbound Methodology is a process of turning visitors into customers and promoters of the business. In this era of the internet, this marketing method is becoming a successful and effective tool to ensure business growth and creating a solid online presence. It has become possible due to the shift in how people are using the internet as their main source to get the information they need.

It is all about drawing people to your business naturally and organically. The great difference between traditional marketing methods and inbound marketing is- in a first way, you need to involve buying attention through ads or by using other promotional materials but when it comes to inbound marketing, all your marketing activities should round on achieving your audience’s interest.

The Rise of Inbound Methodology in Marketing

More Pulling and Less Pushing

It has been noticed that a lot of buyers now do not respond to many companies’ aggressive outbound marketing strategies. Now customers want to get agency and control over the buying process. Customers now want to feel that they have purchased an item because they sought it out not because a commercial ad has told them they needed it. Actually, customers do not want to feel ‘sold’ anymore.

Increase in the Search Engine Use

Customers are becoming smarter day by day. Now only commercial ads cannot hit the call to action button. Today, most customers are using search engines at every stage of the buying process, researching products, checking reviews, and compare the products with other available alternatives.  It has been noticed that buyers who do their research they consult at least twelve sources before committing a purchase. Today, your brand needs to be on those twelve places to be your customer’s first preference. The rise of search engine optimization has also helped at a great level to put your content to the top of the search engine. Google search results are an important part of today’s inbound marketing.

The Rise of Social Media

It has a great contribution here. According to a study, the average U.S adults spend more than two hours a day on social media platforms and messaging services. Even nowadays, it is a common situation that most adults are just glued to their smartphones. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social networks have just made it super easier for companies to connect with their customers. At the same time, brands also can know what their customers actually feel about them.

By considering these modern changes, marketers felt that now they should better understand how prospects are working through the sales pipeline, so they can make smooth the road.

There are Three Stages in Inbound Methodology:

• Attract: In Attract stage, a business uses its expertise to create content and conversations that start meaningful relationships with the right people.
• Engage: In Engage stage, a business builds lasting relationships with people by providing insights and solutions that align with their roadblocks and goals.
• Delight: In Delight stage, a business provides an outstanding experience that adds real value, empowers people to reach their goals, and become promoters of your company.

Here, we are going to figure out how to serve the potential customers at each of these important steps and turning the visitors into leads and leading leads into clients is the sole goal of inbound marketing. And yes, in each stage every department (Marketing, Sales and Service) have their distinct involvements.

Inbound is a method of Attracting, Engaging and Delighting the people to grow your business that provides value and build trust among your audience…

Attract

This is the first step in Inbound Methodology. Here you need to attract your potential customers. These potential customers or buyer personas are at the heart of your inbound marketing efforts. Actually, when a person picks up your marketing material then you have just thirty seconds or less to convince that person. Your strategy needs to best perform at that time. A focused inbound marketing strategy starts with quality content creation. The content should attract visitors as well as compel them to the transition to the next step.

There are four simple ways that you can try to attract your buyer personas –

• You can start with blogging. Here you can easily share something informative, crisp, and something special easily to your buyer personas.
• You can create several social media accounts (one account = one platform) to share more details about your company and products.
• You can make the content more useful by using the right keywords.
• Along with these, you need to properly optimize your webpages so that people can visit your site smoothly.

Engage

After attracting your buyer personas, in Engage stage you have to convert them into qualified leads and with your lead nurturing behaviour, you will get those leads closed as your happy customers.

Let’s understand, how the actual process works!

To collect the qualified leads, you will have to collect their contact information. Contact information is a key player here. To get contact details, you need to offer something valuable to them so that without hesitation they share their contact details with your system. These valuable things can be whitepapers, blog posts, eBooks, and webinars, and so on.

Okay, so using which elements you will ask the contact details from website visitors? Here are they…

• Calls-to-action
• Landing pages
• Contact tracking

Let’s assume that you got a pretty bunch of contact details with your efforts. The next step is closing the leads and converting them into happy customers. This goal is consumer-focused. This step is actually a joint sales and marketing effort. Here your leads need to become ‘sales-qualified’ and ready to purchase by the end of this step.

Below steps can help you in leading them into customers:

• Lead scoring
• Email
• Marketing automation
• Closed-loop reporting

Delight

Your duty does not end just after your customer makes a purchase. Your goal is to make brand loyalty. And to make that possible, you need to show that you still value them. You can continue social media interaction, try email, and marketing automation to keep them connected. It also helps in getting more customers via your existing customers.

It no doubt adds competitive advantages and that’s why an e-business owner should start inbound marketing today!