Are you looking to generate more leads and improve sales? Then you need to improve your inbound marketing strategy.
If you don’t have an inbound marketing strategy in place or your current plan isn’t seeing results, this article is for you.
Generating inbound leads is one of the most effective ways to increase sales. People do everything online, so meeting them where they’re at is how you’re going to attract them to your business. Cold calling and outbound marketing tactics have their place, but businesses are seeing far more success from inbound marketing.
This strategy allows your target audience to find you and get in touch with you when they’re ready to buy. But how exactly do you generate inbound leads? In this in-depth guide, we’ll show you what inbound marketing is, the benefits of this strategy and how to do it right.
What is Inbound Marketing?
To generate inbound leads means to attract customers by addressing their problems and needs. Marketers offer relevant and valuable content to help customers in every stage of the buyer’s journey. Leads find your content through channels like social media, search engines and blogs.
This differs from outbound marketing in the sense that the customers come to you when they’re ready. Marketers create content that their target audience is looking for, and prospects are then able to find your business when they’re searching for a solution to their problem. Your helpful content allows you to attract inbound leads be building trust and credibility.
Inbound marketing focuses on educating the right consumer rather than broadcasting to all of the consumers. People search online for solutions to their problems and questions. With the right inbound marketing strategy in place, you can show those leads that your product or service is the best solution.
The Benefits of Inbound Leads
Inbound marketing can significantly increase your sales among many other benefits, including:
Qualified Leads
Your content serves to educate your leads, simplifying the sales process. Your sales team won’t have to work as hard to answer questions or persuade people who aren’t ready to purchase. When people consume your content, they learn more about why your product is the solution and they’re ready to get their hands on it.
Converting Customers Becomes Easier
Your company can tailor your content to match your ideal prospect and target audience. When you speak directly to the right consumers – the people who need your product or service – they are more likely to see the value in what you have to offer. The relevance of your content will have more potential to attract prospects, convert them into customers and increase sales.
Boosts Reputation
Your inbound marketing strategy and establish you as a thought leader in your niche or industry. Sharing valuable content across your social media channels can increase your brand awareness and visibility. As a result, you’ll likely generate plenty of referrals and inbound leads.
Shorten the Sales Cycle
You can nurture your inbound leads by segmenting your list. Send your prospects relevant content you know they need to in order to make a decision.
How to Use Inbound Marketing
Now that you know all of the ways inbound marketing can boost your business, it’s time to learn the right way to do it. Here are four ways to increase sales by generating inbound leads.
1. Make Your Website SEO Friendly
As we stated earlier, consumers are researching online before they make a purchase. Because of this, your business’s website needs to show up on the first page of the search engines when they type in their query. This starts with optimizing your website for the search engines.
Everything in your website – pages, meta descriptions and title tags – need to be optimized so that the search engines understand what your website is about. Then, your site’s pages will be the search engines’ first option for people searching for that content.
If you run a storefront, verify your company on Google+ as well. This way, Google Maps will show your location when people are looking for local companies.
2. Create Valuable Content
Secondly, you need to implement a consistent schedule for publishing new content on your company’s website. Create quality content that will serve your target audience and publish new posts routinely. Not only will your content help your prospects, but consistently publishing new content helps your website rank higher in search engines.
Your website’s blog is how you establish credibility and authority with your audience. Consumers will start to see you as an influence in your niche and come to trust your brand.
3. Use the Right Keywords
Optimizing your website and blog posts for relevant keywords can help get your site to the top of the search results. Sticking to a consistent blog publishing schedule will help the search engines to recognize your keywords and rank your site higher as well.
Use relevant keywords in your blog titles, headlines, and content. Place them in your URLs, image alt tags and meta descriptions.
4. Use Enticing Calls to Action
Driving prospects to your website through SEO is just the beginning of inbound marketing. Now that you have people interested in your content, you often have to nurture those inbound leads to increase sales.
Include call-to-action buttons on your website to direct your audience to the next step. You might link to a landing page where people can download an eBook or a white paper. Including forms where consumers enter their name and email address allows you to continue the conversation with email marketing.
Lead Generation Made Simple
Inbound marketing is one of the most effective ways to generate leads and increase sales. By publishing relevant, valuable content consistently, your prospects will be able to find your content easier and recognize your brand as a trusted authority. Then you can segment your leads and maintain relationships through email and personalized content.
While inbound marketing is extremely effective, it can also be overwhelming. Make sales even easier by letting the professionals help you! Check out our lead generation services today!
