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Attract, Engage, and Delight: Using Inbound Marketing to Grow Your Business

We’re pretty sure you’ve noticed that consumer behavior has changed over the last few decades. Not only do consumers have different expectations when it comes to things like customer service and the number of choices offered to them, but they also want to be marketed to in a different way. And it seems like these two sides of the consumer coin are completely in opposition: while consumers want more service and more choices, they want less traditional marketing.

Think about how you feel about TV commercials now that media consumption has changed so much. They annoy you, right? And you’d prefer to skip right past them; maybe you even feel less inclined to buy from a business that interrupts your video with their intrusive ad! That’s pretty much how a lot of consumers feel about any kind of “outbound marketing” these days, or marketing that seeks them out and gets in their faces. Cold calling, email blasts, and direct mail are turning consumers off to an ever-greater extent, meaning you’ve got to find other ways to attract customers to you. That’s where “inbound marketing,” or marketing that “attracts, engages, and delights” your customers comes in.

What Is Inbound Marketing?

person's hands on a laptop keyboard with a graph on a screen — *Inbound marketing methodology has the customer at its core, and is designed to meet their specific wants, desires, and needs through relevant content and resources.*

As we’ve pointed out, consumers are much less likely to be tempted by traditional, outbound marketing these days. Instead, they seem to increasingly prefer doing research online to choose companies and products that meet their needs. They want to feel in control of the whole process, and feel like they sought out the right product or service for them.

So that means your business needs to be there and ready when they come looking. Not necessarily ready to sell to them, but ready to help them and eventually become their go-to in your industry, so they are ready to buy from you. While outbound marketing is marketing geared towards reaching as many people as possible, inbound marketing is geared towards reaching the right people.

To break it down, inbound marketing methodology has the customer at its core, and is designed to meet their specific wants, desires, and needs through relevant content and resources, such as blogging, social media, ebooks, guides, and more. This content is created to answer common questions, speak to pain points, and offer solutions to your customers’ problems, in order to create a more seamless buying experience.

How do you do all that? It all comes down to attracting, engaging, and delighting your customers.

Attract, Engage, Delight

You can boil inbound marketing strategies down to these three little verbs: attract, engage, and delight. These are basically the three stages that you’ll need to guide your customers through to make this method successful for you – and remember, the whole goal is to pull them, not push them!

Attract – This first stage has also been called the “stranger” stage: your customer doesn’t know you, and you don’t know them, so you’ll need to draw them in with valuable content and conversations that will make them want to engage with you, and that will earn their trust. For your part, you also want to make sure that you’re using this stage to attract the right customers.

Engage – If you’ve attracted a stranger, you’re now at the point where you’ve got a lead. You’ll need to offer solutions and insights that speak to their pain points and help them towards their goals so they are more likely to buy from you.
Delight – Once you’ve succeeded in engaging a lead, you’ll probably end up with a customer! But don’t stop now: you have to keep working actively to make sure people are completely satisfied with the services they receive from you, so that they stay loyal and continue to buy from you.

Sounds so easy when you break it down into those snazzy little verbs, right? But how do you get to the stage of having some new, delighted customers?

Inbound Marketing Strategies

1. Content, Content, Content

Inbound marketing is all about offering solutions and being a trustworthy source, so the most important way to get started is by creating valuable content. For example:

Start a blog on your website, and post articles that display your expertise, as well as educate, inform, or entertain, depending on your audience.
Offer a free downloadable guide that is directly related to your business – again, you want to attract the right customers.
Post customer testimonials, so leads will know that you’re the right business for them.
Use landing pages to tempt leads to exchange their contact information for additional helpful content or relevant offers with a compelling call to action.
Create some infographics with tips and supporting statistics to both grab attention, and show your knowledge.
Shoot some videos: some of the best marketing methods for capturing the attention of prospects include explainer videos, customer testimonials and other types of visual media.

Whatever content you decide is right for your business, remember to have a strategy behind it, produce it continuously, update it often, and always be answering your customers’ top questions: “What’s in it for me?” and “Why you?”

2. Go with SEO!

So how are you actually going to attract people to all this great content (and to your business)? That’s where a solid SEO game comes in: remember, 81% of consumers do research on the internet before they settle on a product or service, so you’ve got to be at the top of the search engine heap. If you’re using the right keywords, you can get your content (websites, blog articles, etc.) to the top of the Google search results and in the hands of the right potential buyers.

You can focus on multiple keywords to try and gain traffic, but some experts suggest focusing on a few keywords that are valuable, and creating specific pages on your website that are for those keywords specifically.

3. Get Social

It probably comes as no surprise to you that the average adult in the U.S. spends around 2 hours a day on social media, so guess what? You’ve got to be there, too! That’s where your customers are, and even if you aren’t there, they still could be talking about you – so take control of the conversation by:

Sharing your blog posts on social media platforms, so you can both showcase your expertise AND drive traffic back to your website.
Engaging with others on social media to humanize your brand. Get into the mix and post, comment, like, share, and follow so you can connect with your customers and leads.
Offering extra support by being available to answer questions via various platforms.

“Listening” to and interacting with your customers on social media is a great way to meet them wherever they are in their buyer’s journey: you’re making things easy and convenient for them, and you’re learning a whole lot about them in the process.

4. Expand Your Offerings

After you’ve attracted some customers, you should also consider getting deeper into things in the engagement phase in order to convert leads into customers. You can offer them something of value in return for their conversion, like:

Premium content
Consultations
Subscriptions
Newsletters

To get leads to this point, always include a compelling call-to-action in your content, so they know exactly what they should do next to get to your special offers! And remember, at this stage, you’re still selling solutions, so focus on how you’re handling your interactions with interested parties.

5. Keep Delighting

Delighted customers are the best! They themselves can be a source of continuous revenue AND they can help bring in revenue by singing your praises to others. That means it’s important not to neglect them, and not to leave them out of your content creation – even after becoming your customer, people still want to consume valuable content. Consider creating both:

Product-focused content, which includes information on how to get the most out of their purchase. This can include user guides, tips and tricks, or how-to/tutorial videos.

AND

Company-focused content, which keeps customers engaged with your business as a whole. Play around with live videos on social media, or offering meetups or other events.

6. Ask Away

Finally, if you want to turn your delighted customers into brand ambassadors who are singing your praises, you have to know what’s on their minds, and make sure they’re satisfied. Ask for feedback, maybe by giving surveys (with incentives, if necessary) – this way, you’ll have a better idea of how to keep your customers AND how to attract more leads at the top of your sales funnel. Integrating the feedback you get from customers will allow you to create a friction-free sales experience throughout your whole cycle of attracting, engaging, and delighting.

There might still be a time and a place for outbound marketing, but in a lot of cases, it feels a bit like a thing of the past. These days, you need to be more creative to attract, engage, and delight people, and turn them into loyal customers. Maybe it feels a little daunting to rely on customers finding you, instead of you going out and pursuing them, but trust us: you can pull them in, instead of pushing them away, with some of the techniques laid out above. Let us know how your inbound marketing journey goes!

A Sea of “C”s: Some of the Best Ways to Focus Your Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing is nothing new. Brands have been telling their stories to customers for hundreds of years; in fact, did you know that one of the first known examples of content marketing is Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, which he published annually starting in 1732 in order to promote his printing business? So, business owners have known for centuries that telling their brand’s story in a compelling way can boost growth; in fact, according to the Content Marketing Institute, 70% of B2B marketers and 86% of B2C marketers surveyed use content marketing in some form or other.

And it’s no wonder that content marketing is so popular: when used correctly, it can help you cut through the “noise” of traditional marketing, which most consumers are now able to completely disregard, and build brand awareness and gain loyal customers. But in order to get to this point, you need to know how to create content that is engaging and that calls potential customers to action! Marketing experts offer a variety of “C” words to keep in mind when creating your content; these “C”s can help focus you and keep your content marketing strategy on track, so which are the best ones for your brand?

Content Marketing by the Numbers

Content marketing is important: it engages your audience and answers their questions, and can deliver resounding success for your business. Take a look at these statistics, which were compiled from research done by Coshedule:

Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing
Content marketing converts 6 times more often than other marketing methods
61% of online consumers have made a purchase after reading recommendations on a blog
Content marketing produces 3 times more leads per dollar spent than other marketing methods
Businesses that publish 16 or more blog posts a month can see 3.5 times more traffic than those that publish 0-4 posts a month

Why the impressive numbers? Because content marketing packs an impressive punch! Its benefits include:

It captures your audience’s attention and compels them to keep coming back for more
It can help you gain traction on social media, and make the most of the followers you do have
It helps you interact with your potential customers and build a relationship with them
It can generate leads, especially if you place strong calls-to-action in your content
It can improve conversions even more if it is original content; for example, using original images rather than stock photos can mean a 35% increase in conversions
It will make your business more visible online and help you rank higher in search engines, thus boosting your SEO efforts
It can make your audience see you as an expert in your field
It will build brand awareness, and help you gain loyal brand fans

So how do you do content marketing right, get on the radar of your target audience, and reap all of the above benefits? Well, marketing experts agree that you need a well thought-out strategy, but many of them offer different buzzwords to guide you in the right direction; funnily enough, they all begin with the letter “C.” Let’s take a look at three of these strategies, and how they can get you to your goals.

The First Four “C”s

Old school marketing experts sometimes point to the four “P”s of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion, but newer schools of thought, which take into account our hyper-digital, social media-driven world, focus less on the product and more on the consumer themselves. Those who focus on the consumer-centric model suggest that you take these four “C”s into account when planning your content marketing strategy:

Consumer – There is no one single content audience out there, and so no cookie-cutter content marketing strategy will work! You’ll need to tailor your content to your specific target audience, as well as constantly adapt it as trends, tastes, or your audience itself changes.

Cost – You can use content marketing to get your customers interacting with your brand, which will help you shape how your customers perceive the value of your product/service. Once you do this, you can truly price it with the consumer in mind.

Convenience – When it comes to your product or service, you know that your customers are always looking for convenience, and the same goes for content. You need to deliver content to them in a way that fits their lives; after all, most customers won’t go out of their way to find your content – you have to bring it to them!

Communication – Targeting your content and making sure you’re choosing the right mode of communication, channel, and style, will open up the lines of communication with your audience, and will build a consumer confidence that will boost your sales.

The Second Four “C”s

Other marketing experts that work with content marketing strategy focus their four “C”s on the content itself, and suggest that you make sure everything your target audience is seeing is:

Clear – Know exactly what you want to say and how you want to say it! Don’t be afraid to make a detailed outline before you create your final product, and always remember to check your facts – there’s nothing that will make you lose your customers’ trust faster than shaky, inaccurate information.

Compelling – Your audience needs content that is geared towards them, but you can’t stop there – you need to compel them to act once you’ve got their attention! Give them a benefit over your competition, and get them to call, click, or seek more information.

Concise – Did you know that the average attention span has fallen from 12 seconds in 2000 to around 8 seconds today? In comparison, scientists believe that goldfish have an attention span of 9 seconds! That means you don’t have a lot of time to hook your audience, so get to the point with punchy tweets, headlines, bullet points, and brief press releases; once you’ve got their attention, they’re more likely to want to find out more.

Consistent – A consistent message across social media platforms reinforces your brand: the more your audience sees your message, the more ingrained it becomes. Not only that, but delivering a similar content message in multiple ways also supports SEO.

The Third Four “C”s

different conversation bubbles — *People are more interested in conversational and interesting headlines.*

Finally, some marketing experts are adamant that content marketing should take into account the way that we have become used to consuming content, and zero in more on our fast-paced, diverse, and often youth-focused world with the following “C”s:

Conversation – We know that you need to hook your audience quickly with effective headlines, but what are considered the best headlines to do that these days? Well, it turns out that headlines that are considered “conversational” in style tend to get the most clicks, so try interacting with your audience in this way. Some of the most effective headlines are:

The Best of…

Why X People Do X (i.e. “Why the Healthiest People Don’t Follow These Trends”)

The Scientific Fact (i.e. “Sex Can Help You Live Longer, and We’ve Got the Studies to Back it Up”)

The Listicle (i.e. “10 90s TV Shows You Completely Forgot About”)

The Open-Ended Question (i.e. “So You Think You Know What Success Looks Like?”)

The Promise (i.e. “You’re Guaranteed to Go Crazy Over These Skateboarding Dogs”)

Community – In this world of digitized everything, people actually crave seeing or hearing from real people, even if they’re paid influencers. Getting an influencer on board with your brand and content can make all the difference in getting it seen.

Change – While you do need to be careful in this area, supporting causes that are important to your target audience can help you to make a deeper connection with them.

Culture – Know the pop culture references of your target audience, and sprinkle some light-hearted, humorous, eccentric, or nostalgic gifs, memes, videos, or stories into your content, if it’s appropriate to your brand.

Content marketing is all about optimizing your brand, and it takes more than just posting to social media now and then. You need a clear plan, and that plan should include checkpoints like the “C”s above, which can help you step back and really think about what you’re creating and posting. Using these checkpoints to find your target audience, your voice, your style, and your message can make all the difference in getting your brand recognized, and getting your business growing!