Blogging For Business – 5 Reasons To Apply It To Your Business ASAP

In the past, blogs were considered a rarity within the business world – very niche specific, without much value. Now, this is no longer true – blogging for business has evolved to be the main staple in most business marketing strategies and more specifically, within any inbound marketing strategy.

While blogging can take some time and may even seem slightly daunting, the advantages of having a blog for your business are numerous and hard to ignore.

Blogging for business

Business Blogging Defined

First, it’s important to note that business blogging looks different than other forms of blogging. Perhaps you choose to blog in your free time, or maybe you’re a frequent reader of travel blogs, that’s all great. But with business blogs, you must keep in mind that its main purpose is to be part of a strategic marketing plan.

The length of posts can range drastically, yet what’s important is that you treat the blog as a part of your company’s website, and keep the subject of posts relevant to what you are selling or providing.

The goal of the blog should be to increase online visibility, whether that is through SEO or social media. Use your company’s expertise to share insights of real value with potential customers. Ensure that posts are speaking to your client’s challenges, holding their interest and proving to them that you are established within your specific industry. Showing them the value that your company has to offer simultaneously promotes your service or product, prompting traffic to be converted into leads.

 

Why Blog?

In 2017, a blog for your business has more to offer than ever before. The overhead is low, and the benefits are high. Consider this:

  • Companies that blog have 97% more inbound links
  • 82% of consumers enjoy reading relevant content from brands
  • Websites with a blog have 434% more indexed pages
  • 77% of internet users admit to using blogs

 

Here are five best reasons why we believe blogging for your business is a must:

 

#1. Business Blogging Drives Traffic

This was briefly mentioned above but is important enough to really dig into. Specifically, with Inbound Marketing, driving traffic (instead of being annoying/distracting) truly is key.

Make sure to view your blog as an extension of your website. Hopefully, your website has been kept simple and doesn’t have a lot of pages, yet most likely isn’t updated as frequently as a blog would be updated. Which is perfectly fine, because blog posts are basically just indexed pages on your website.

A statistic from Hubspot notes that 78% of internet users are turning to the internet to do their product research. With frequent blog posts addressing the concerns of your potential consumers, the odds of them stumbling upon those indexed pages are high.

With every blog that you write and post, you are increasing your chances of:

  1. Showing up in search engines (driving traffic)
  2. Increasing your social media presence with your current audience/followers
  3. Expanding the potential of being discovered via social media by new potential leads

Think of it this way – with each blog post you are publishing, you are increasing the odds that your audience will be sharing and re-sharing this post to others. It’s a simple way to build on free marketing, while also building credibility.

All the above examples are working towards your end goal of driving more traffic, resulting in more potential leads. Which brings us to our second reason.

 

#2. Blogging & Building Leads

In short, having a blog for your business is going to generate more leads, it’s as simple as that. The traffic that we mentioned above, some of it is looking specifically for your product or service, and therefore are well-positioned to be converted into leads once discovering your blog. When it comes to converting those leads, the use of ‘call to action’ opportunities within the blog are crucial.

Blogs are a GREAT opportunity to utilize CTA’s. Some simple CTA’s to consider adding to blog posts can range from free fact sheets, webinars, training, even an e-book; any simple value-add that encourages a visitor to exchange their contact information. Without a CTA, it may be little more challenging to ensure that you’re turning blog traffic into leads.

Part of turning your traffic into leads is also developing that relationship. The language or tone that your blog uses may help to connect more with your audience than your actual website does. When writing posts, consider asking questions towards the end to promote comments from your readers; which also will give you a view into the kind of traffic you are seeing come through your blog, and what kind of solutions they may be seeking out.

Along with building relationships with your traffic and/or potential leads comes the perk of also building trust. Or in other words, credibility.

 

#3. Creating Credibility

Stemming directly from the concept of building relationships through your blog now comes the concept of establishing yourself as a credible source of information to your audience; one of authority. The more that you are able to interact with your prospects and answer their questions, the more quickly you can build up that authority.

Perhaps there is confusion around a certain issue, or a visitor is unsure of how to solve a particular problem. If an existing blog post of yours is able to answer a question or solve that problem, you’re able to quickly (and easily) build up that credibility with a visitor, simultaneously increasing the chances of turning them into a lead.

It makes sense; if you’re able to organically utilize a blog to answer questions, the chances of your audience then trusting you and being willing to enter the sales process will be much higher than without. Not to mention the fact that your leads are coming to you more educated because of that blog, which may enable them to actually move through the sales process more quickly than those being established from ground zero.

At the end of the day, you should be striving to create a blog that establishes yourself as the “go-to” resource when it comes to your industry. Provide educational, easy-to-digest knowledge for your blog traffic, and you will build leads that trust you – leading to higher customer conversion rates. It’s as simple as that.

 

#4. Connecting With Clients

A business blog is also a great tool to genuinely connect with your customers, and communicate with one another. Focus on posting content that addresses issues or pain points that they have (and that you can solve), or use posts to further explore areas that may also be of interest to your audience.

It can be a great resource to test new ideas and thoughts on different solutions or products, by posting and then seeing how your audience directly responds. Using the “comment” feature at the bottom of a blog post is a must; end posts by encouraging your readers to respond to it with their thoughts or questions, and then use that direct feedback as some navigation as your business continues to move forward.

Perhaps your readers are choosing to reach out and comment on challenges that you had never even considered before. Just like the use of social media, blogs can be a great opportunity to then use that information that is freely given to you, and explore ideas within your own business, so that you can possibly offer solutions around those pain points being voiced while growing your business over time.

 

#5. In it for the Long-Haul

The last thing to consider when it comes to blogging for your business is that blog posts can help grow your business, forever. If you are writing relevant content for your readers to absorb and utilize, your blog posts will continue to bring traffic to your website for years to come.

Think about it. Once you share a new blog post, the hope is that it gets shared, reshared, read through emails being sent out, social media, and so on. This helps your blog to get ranked in search engines and then sets you up to be found in the future – for the weeks and months to come.

So essentially we are suggesting that a blog is not only a short-term but a long-term investment. As long as posts contain a value, they will continue to offer value as long as they continue to exist out there on the world wide web. Be patient, don’t always expect immediate results, and trust that traffic (and leads) will continue to flow in from your blog, over time.

Hubspot – our marketing platform – actually reported that 70% of their blog traffic per month actually comes from posts that weren’t even published during that month. The traffic came from old posts. Old posts, with great value.

 

It’s Time to Blog for Your Business

When it comes to building your business, blogging can be an extremely relevant, helpful tool, without having to put excessive amounts of time and effort into it. And the best part is, if you don’t know where to start, there are plenty of resources out there to help you launch your business blog and get it underway.

Questions? Comments? Want some help with starting a blog – or your entire marketing campaign? Get in touch with us today!

5 Reasons To Use Hubspot As Your Marketing Platform

Are you still wondering why you should be using Hubspot for your marketing? It’s well known that inbound marketing has proven itself as the most effective option within the marketing world. Yet common hesitations to using inbound marketing can include concerns that too much work needs to go into it, and having to use many different software and/or applications at the same time.

Inbound marketing can be hard work, but that’s why it works. And with the help of Hubspot, it can become very simple and easy to track and act.

 

What is Hubspot?

In short, Hubspot helps you to maximize and simplify your inbound marketing efforts. It is a marketing platform, ranked as the best inbound marketing platform in the world, that serves over 10,000 companies in 65 different countries. The platform scoops up all of your current software, services, support systems, etc., and puts them all into one place, on one platform.

We’re confident that after just a short period of time using Hubspot as a platform, you’ll quickly see the added value it offers, and how it is contributing to your business growth. And while the platform comes at a price, let’s be honest; the use of several marketing applications at once can be JUST as pricey if not more. So instead of juggling several log-ins, software, and having to use four monitors at once just to keep track of it all – keep it simple, and put all of that money into one, easy-to-use platform. Hubspot.

Here are some reasons why Hubspot is the answer to your marketing needs:

 

#1. Centralized, All-in-One Toolset

How often do we find ourselves at work logging into many different software and tools, often having to pull up multiple screens, and jump from window to window to get work done? With Hubspot, it’s one password and one platform; everything you need to get your work done, all in one place.

Anything from your blog, email, landing pages, and forms is all kept and stored within Hubspot. There are even reporting options, and an SEO view, and a handy tool called Social Inbox that syncs your various social media accounts into one place.

That means that you don’t need to constantly be rotating from Twitter to Facebook to Instagram, and so on; it can all be pulled into the Hubspot platform so that you can monitor, respond, and even schedule future posts all from one place.

 

 

More Hubspot Platform tools:
  • Website content management system
  • Blogging platform
  • Social Media platform
  • Analytics software
  • Email marketing platform
  • CRM
  • Landing page & Call To Action tools
  • Excel or Google Sheets

 

#2. Personalization Options

The personalization and attention to detail that goes into your inbound marketing strategy are truly what brings the value. Hubspot offers some mind-blowing personalization option in regards to this.

An example of this is Hubspot’s Smart Call to Actions (Smart CTAs) that can actually be built into your website with their Content Optimization System (COS). The entire system is built around website personalization, responsiveness, and the smart CTAs. Plus, with the use of the HubSpot software, everything is integrated into the platform – even your website!

With the use of Hubspot’s COS, you are able to craft and mold your website’s content for individual visitors based on things like location, language, source, device, or by literally any detail that’s stored in your contact database.

The feedback that you then get from the COS – which is labeled as HubSpot’s smart content insights – allows you to receive all of the information surrounding your website’s visitors, making personalization for your audience easier than ever before.

 

#3. Hubspot Automation

With only so many hours in the day, automating tasks and systems can not only be useful, it’s often quite necessary. Hubspot gets that; automation is their middle name.

Take Workflows for an example, their marketing automation app that can basically automate as much or as little of your marketing efforts as you desire, in a contextual and measurable manner. The best part is Workflows taps into Hubspot’s entire platform, allowing the creation of items like email lists to be built on literally any criteria – from persons to custom lead scores, etc.

It starts with setting the goal of whatever you want your automation to be. So take something simple like sending emails; from there you can choose to build in your contact properties, add them to a list, create and then label the emails. Hubspot can help you to schedule optimal timing while keeping the sales funnel in mind.
Or you may choose a ‘recipe’ that is listed within Workflows, which are automation that already exists, have been tested and proven to work in regards to lead nurturing and business growth. This simple option can speed up your automation process even further.

Other automation examples include:
  • Automating specific tasks
  • Updating contact properties
  • Automating emails sent to leads’ owners when a lead is sales qualified.

 

#4. Simple, Easy to Navigate the Platform

If you haven’t already noticed, Hubspot is all about simplifying your inbound marketing plan. So if it isn’t attractive enough just to know that all of your tools are in one place, how about also knowing that they are in one, easy to navigate software?

Let’s take a look at reporting, a task that a lot of people may dread or be intimidated by. Perhaps you don’t even know where to start when it comes to reporting. The HubSpot platform offers both free reporting, as well as event analysis. There are various reports on your contacts, companies, and attribution reports, or you can choose the route of letting Hubspot walk you through how to easily build your own customizable reports. 

Because inbound marketing is such a new, growing industry with tons of potential, there is the fact that you’ll be seeing constant improvements and additions to your platform. Hubspot does a fantastic job of consistently offering new, easy to use tools that are evolving to meet new demands within the industry, all while being mindful of keeping your life simple.

 

#5. Customer Relationship Management

CRM’s have pretty much become a ‘must have’ when it comes to your set of marketing tools. Guess what? With Hubspot, your CRM is free (and perhaps just this alone justifies the cost).

Of course, the CRM is located within that same platform and pulls from your contact information, helping to inform you on exactly how those leads are interacting with your content. As always, personalization is the name of the game, and the extreme personalization of your Hubspot CRM helps to ensure that you are staying relevant in the sales process.

The Hubspot CRM takes as much information as it’s able to piece together on a lead, and then presents it as a profile for your sales team to use for whatever they may need, from follow-ups and check-ins to pursuing hot leads.

More CRM Perks:
  • Integrates with the Hubspot database seamlessly
  • Timeline feature helps you to stay organized, track and manage details, organize your day.
  • Recording of phone calls/log emails

Last but not least, alongside the CRM tool comes the little brother – Hubspot Sales. HubSpot Sales comes in two versions – a free version, and a $50 option. This feature is similar to having a personal assistant that helps to manage your sales emails and makes sure you know your leads and potential buyers.

More Hubspot Sales Perks:
  • Insights from your email and your browser
  • Notification of when your email is read
  • Helps to schedule timely emails

 

The Wrap Up

To be honest, the list of what Hubspot has to offer as a marketing platform could go on for days; these are just a few of our favorites. At the end of the day, in order to both maximize and simplify your inbound marketing efforts, Hubspot is your one-stop shop. Make your marketing life easier, while continuing to grow your business and delight your customers.

How to use the new Facebook Messenger Ads to drive qualified leads to your business

This past fall, Facebook decided that it was time to change the advertising game with the update of Facebook Messenger Ads. You might jump to the opinion that this ad type will only work best with the more ‘techy’ audiences, or larger companies with a big social media presence, etc. But let’s look at this single statistic:
There are over 1 billion Facebook Messenger users. One. Billion.
All of your potential leads? They’re all on Facebook.


This chart from Business Insider is mind-blowing. At the beginning of 2015, monthly usage of the top four messaging apps surpassed usage of the top four social networks.

Anyone Can Benefit From Facebook Messenger Ads

With the right resources, any business can benefit from Facebook Messenger Ads. 

Here’s another quick stat for you: by the middle of 2015, the monthly usage of the top four messaging apps had surpassed the usage of the top four social media networks.

But let’s take a step back from the numbers. Instead, let’s look at the basic facts of business growth. When it comes to marketing, businesses should join the conversation as a possible resource as early in the game as possible.

Facebook Messenger allows us to enter that conversation much sooner. Your business can be present in the early stages when the customer is still forming opinions and educating themselves. It allows for the ability to be extremely reactive as a business, and hyper aware of the customer’s journey.

So how do Facebook Messenger ads even work? Great question. Let’s take a look.

Facebook Messenger as a Destination

Also known as Destination Ads, Messenger Ads hang out in your leads’ newsfeeds and are seen on both desktop and mobile views. One click and your potential consumers are then taken to a Facebook message to communicate directly with you/your bot.

The advertisement itself looks like any normal Facebook ad, but the exciting new advantage here is the option to start a conversation. Instead of a ‘call to action,’ consider it to be a “call to conversation.”

For many people, this may actually be very appealing. Often when people are searching for solutions or answers to questions, they would rather connect directly with you/your company. Otherwise they are clicking on a hyperlink and are taken away to another website, left searching for the answers to their questions.

The options are open when creating the ad, with the ability to select options like interests, behaviors, different custom audiences and so on.

 

Destination Ads: Audiences to Target

Facebook Messenger Destination Ads can be a great option when it comes to retargeting an audience. It gives the unique opportunity for people to ask the questions that may be holding them back from actually purchasing your product.

Yet another audience to consider are the potential customers that haven’t even heard of your company or solution. Overall, a Destination Ad can help to build awareness around what you have to offer. It allows for a sales conversation to be had at the choice of your potential lead. Running an ad with the right question could potentially prompt a quality conversation, leading to the gain of new customers more quickly.

 

Sponsored Messages

This is the second option for Facebook Messenger Ads, and while it holds more restrictions than the Destination Ads, it has a huge amount of potential.
With this type of ad, a sponsored message is no longer in the newsfeed but is actually sent to the Facebook Messenger inbox. The main difference here is that a conversation/ad can only be sent to someone who your company already has an “open, existing conversation” with. In other words, the lead needs to reach out to you first.

Ad options that can be sent within messenger include opportunities such as sending your lead a special offer, a new product, a free PDF, or even to a new destination (your company’s web page, etc.).

As a company you are charged by impressions; whether or not a customer opens the message. However, there is also the option to use and/or build your own chatbot with this method, which then personally builds a list of subscribers that you can message your advertisement to. The advantage to this is that bots are typically charged on a per month basis, versus a CPM basis with Facebook.

A disadvantage to note with sponsored messages is that the user does have the option to block you from sending messages.

 

Facebook Messenger and Chatbots

Facebook actually does a great job of walking you through the process of creating your Sponsored Message or Ad – check out the Facebook Business page for a very detailed how-to. However, in order to maximize your investment in Facebook Messenger Advertising, you’re most likely going to need a chatbot.

Currently, there is a wide variety of affordable bots out there that offer very high value (at a low price), when it comes to a campaign with Facebook Messenger. If it’s within your budget, there is also the option to create your own bot for a fairly affordable sum, even without basic coding knowledge. All it takes is a little bit of help from the internet.

 

More Business Advantages

Another advantage to using Facebook Messenger for advertising is the ability to incorporate the messenger option into your own website. The ad can lead to your landing page, or the ‘thank you’ page, or both.

This feature is a great way to prompt your buyers with the option to receive messages on Facebook Messenger. Information Regarding shipping updates, purchase confirmations, etc. A perk to this is that if customers do choose to use Messenger as their preferred form of communication, they are then adding themselves to your list of future leads who can receive message advertisements on Facebook down the line. Specific messages could then be sent to this audience around relevant upsells, cross-sells, or free resources.

 

Messengers are the Way of the Future

Let’s be honest; as time goes on, consumers are becoming less and less tolerant to interruptive, time-consuming forms of communication. The more simple, the better.  Messengers are continuing to become the most essential form of communication due to the quick responsiveness and ease of use.

We will leave you with this: Facebook has reported that more than one in two people say they are more likely to shop with a business that they can message, and 67% of people expect to message businesses more within the next two years.
Will you get on board with Facebook Messenger Ads? Don’t get left behind.

Inbound Marketing – The Future of Marketing and Sales

Marketing and sales: is one more important for business growth? It’s an ongoing discussion in the industry. For years sales people have argued they are the most important figures in the business and marketers have claimed that without them sales people are useless.

In 2017, marketing and sales are more competitive (and challenging) than ever. Prospects are tired of aggressive advertising and pushy sales pitches. Poeple are looking to find great products and services that are easy to consume and understand.

Cue: Inbound Marketing. The future of marketing and sales.
Why is Current-State Marketing Broken?

Current marketing, or outbound marketing, is the more common marketing approach of the past. Outbound marketing tends to be aggressive and interruptive, putting ads, billboards, and flyers in the faces of potential leads, and can often be irritating instead of attracting.

Digital marketing is already a very crowded space, and because of this consumers are more likely to get annoyed with ads instead of being drawn to them. Not only this, but they now have the ability to easily block ads, or the propensity to ignore them.

And the cherry on top? Data tells us that outbound marketing is actually less effective, yet more expensive.

Discover Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing focuses on drawing in customers organically – using content that has been designed to solve the needs and questions of your audience. The main principle of inbound marketing is to ‘get found’ by the customer, instead of having to seek them out. When done correctly, your leads will end up on your unique landing page, social media site, etc. – and discover exactly what they’ve been searching for. This method is particularly effective because it helps to quickly build credibility.

How Does Inbound Marketing Work?

The inbound methodology itself is often broken into four marketing actions. We’ll keep it simple:

1. Attract.

More traffic doesn’t necessarily mean good traffic; we are looking for the right traffic. The right traffic can be defined as our ‘buyer personas’ or, people who are already able to relate to your product or service. They may have similar challenges, needs, questions.

This timeframe is also considered the beginning of the Awareness stage, during which consumers first realize that they have a problem that needs to be solved. From there they move into the Consideration stage, which shifts potential personas towards defining and researching solutions to their problem.

The above stages are part of what we refer to as the “Buyer’s Journey”, and the inbound marketing strategy is built specifically around these, ensuring that the right message is being sent at exactly the right time.

2. Convert

Now let’s turn those personas into leads. How? Contact information! Methods such as simple forms, or a call to action on your website to get email addresses in exchange for something free – perhaps a helpful PDF, an ebook, etc. The options truly are endless.

 

3. Close

OK, so you’ve got your leads – now what? Using a variety of tools from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to a series of simple emails, there are plenty of methods to transform your leads into customers. With the inbound marketing methodology you will nurture the leads with more useful content and identify the exact moment they are ready to buy. Only then will you close them as customers without being pushy or aggressive.

4. Delight

In order to keep those happy customers delighted for life, you can’t just forget about them post-purchase. Keep in touch with your audiences through outlets such as surveys asking for feedback, and social media interactions.

Authentic Marketing That Actually Improves Sales

The key to the inbound marketing strategy is that it isn’t just ONE key – it’s a whole bunch that come together to create success. Options range from content marketing, blogs, all forms of social media, organized events, search engine optimization, emails, and so much more. It’s a methodology that earns the attention of potential customers and sets up your company to easily be found – with our help of course.

It’s because of this personalized approach that you then draw in the most likely leads. Odds are that your leads are discovering you because they are already clicking around with questions about your specific industry, or product. This circles back to the concept of ‘earning the attention’ of your customers, instead of screaming at them and begging for attention.

Because let’s be honest, no one likes to be cold-called or approached out of the blue when they’re simply trying to mind their own business. With only 19% of consumers now utilizing salespeople as a resource for their buying decisions, it’s simply an outdated method of the past.

Digital Marketing Is Changing…

And we have the stats to prove it:
– Two billion people are using Facebook to search for content, daily.
– Four billion people are using messenger apps to communicate and search.
– Two out of three adults use social media to keep up on world events.
– Mobile ad blocking has increased 90% year over year.

(Source)

Now, more than ever, the customers have the power over the ads, not the marketers.

Let Inbound Marketing Change The Way You Do Business

The good news is, we have inbound marketing, a more authentic method that addresses those problems and needs that your potential leads are searching for. And it’s not just about using the right data – it’s about pushing it out at the correct time, in the correct place – so that your leads are delighted instead of irritated

Inbound marketing sets up the relative searches to be lead to you – perhaps your blog, or a recent tweet – in a completely natural and less aggressive way, personalized for the consumer.

An added perk: inbound leads cost roughly 61% less than outbound leads gained through the “louder” methods such as mailings, radio/TV ads, etc.

How Does This Apply to Me?

Let’s run through a real life scenario.

You’re leaving your house in the morning, and decide that you want a coffee on your way to work. Coffee shops using traditional marketing (the outbound method) may still be doing things like mailing coupons to your mailbox, or posting an ad to promote their new coffee shop.

This may have worked years ago. However, in our ever-changing, nonstop digital age, people aren’t pausing to check their mailbox on the way to work, and aren’t reading ads in newspapers or magazines. Where are they looking instead? To search engines on their phones, and to social media for recommendations or interesting content on hot new coffee shops.

Consumers today are more empowered than ever. Essentially any need or question they may have can be found by a simple search on Google, Facebook, and other digital media channels.

Marketing That People Love

Need more reasons as to why inbound is the future of marketing? Check it out:

  • Sparks social media sharing
  • Empowers your customers while encouraging brand interaction
  • Generates brand awareness
  • Fosters more leads, for less money
  • Develops and grows your search engine optimization (SEO).

Don’t get left behind – get on the inbound marketing train. It truly is the future of marketing and sales.

get a free marketing assessment

Sources:
https://www.marketo.com/inbound-marketing/ (stats)
https://www.hubspot.com/inbound-marketing (4 actions)
https://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/11-facts-about-inbound-marketing

Content Marketing vs. Inbound Marketing – Can They Be Compared?

When it comes to growing your business, you probably want to know what is more effective – content marketing or inbound marketing. What is the difference between them and where should you invest your time and money?

To understand which may be better for you, we’ve analyzed each one of them, what the differences are, and what we believe will be the main strategy to focus on in your 2017 marketing plan.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing has been around for quite awhile; there’s a good chance you’ve heard of it before. The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

Content marketing is about storytelling, using powerful content, through many different mediums. The three main mediums within content marketing are:

 

  1.  Offline Content.

    Examples: magazines, commercials, newspapers, flyers, billboards, etc.

  2. Online Content.

    Examples: blog posts, news, viral videos, ebooks, infographics, podcasts, etc.

  3. Hybrid Content.

    (Uses both online and offline content together – one drives the other.)
    Example: Live tweeting during a T.V show, events, etc.

When you specifically look at the use of online content – the most popular and broad of the three categories – channels include:

  • Websites – blogs
  • Social Media – Facebook/ Twitter/ LinkedIn/ Pinterest and more
  • Viral Videos – YouTube / Vimeo
Benefits of Content Marketing

Many would argue that because content marketing offers such a wide appeal – across many mediums, to many audiences – that it is the marketing strategy of choice. Additionally, most of the tactics within content marketing are fairly easy to use, and the learning curve is low.

Looking specifically at online content, we know that sharing posts is truly part of the online experience. Over 27 million pieces of content are shared per day, and currently, 70% of B2B marketers plan to create more content in 2017 compared to 2016.

When it comes to content marketing, if you are providing your consumers with content that is useful and customized to them while adding value to their experience, it is likely you can see benefits from the use of this strategy.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Now, keeping in mind the above description of content marketing, let’s take a look at inbound marketing.

The concept surrounding inbound is to ‘get found’ by the customers, instead of aggressively seeking them out. When done correctly, your leads will end up on a unique landing page, social media site, etc. – and discover exactly what they’ve been searching for, without getting pestered, and repeatedly sold to.

The ‘flow’ of the inbound marketing methodology is as follows:

  • Attract
  • Convert
  • Close
  • Delight

These four stages are what inbound marketing uses in order to obtain visitors, leads, customers, and promoters. This method is particularly effective because it helps to quickly build credibility, through the use of various mediums and tactics.

 

 

Benefits of Inbound Marketing

One major benefit to the inbound marketing strategy is that it isn’t just ONE tactic, it’s several. It’s a methodology that earns the attention of potential customers and sets up your company to easily be found.

Because inbound is considered to be a much more personalized approach to marketing, a large benefit is that will you draw in the most likely leads. Your leads are discovering you because they are already out there searching for answers to their questions about your specific industry, or product – and because of this methodology, you already have the content out there to answer those questions.

Now, notice the mention of the word content above. The inbound methodology actually uses content marketing as one of its methods; under its umbrella are ALL of those content methods discussed above (online, offline, hybrid) plus more.

Inbound vs. Content Marketing – Compared

Content marketing is a single tactic, while inbound marketing is a complete methodology that focuses on drawing in customers with multi-channel traffic sources.

While content marketing covers a wide range of tactics and ideas – both online and offline content –  it isn’t the full horsepower behind the inbound marketing machine. Other missing puzzle pieces may include SEO, PPC campaigns, interactive tools, and hosting physical events, which fall outside of the content marketing realm.

A major piece of the inbound methodology puzzle is, in fact, the strategy of content marketing. So if you are asking which is better, it’s our belief that content marketing as a stand-alone strategy is simply not as effective. Yet when it’s utilized in the complete inbound methodology, we often see great business growth.

Business Growth Relies on Both

It’s safe to say, if you are successfully utilizing inbound marketing, you are covering all of your bases.

The world that we live in only continues to provide distractions and get noisier, shoving ‘bigger, flashier’ products in the faces of consumers. With inbound marketing, it’s about taking a step back and creating quality content in a strategic manner.

Stay up to date with your marketing strategy, and get on board with the inbound marketing methodology.