A successful inbound marketing strategy results in the creation of a long-term relationship between the company and customers: the focus is on developing lasting relationships, rather than on concluding a single sale.
In this article, we analyze together some best practices to give a change to your corporate inbound strategy.
Read on to learn more!
Inbound marketing success: before you start
In order to create a successful inbound marketing strategy, it’s important to understand the three stages potential customers go through.
1. Phase of attraction
At this stage, the goal is to draw the attention of the target audience to your site.
Your content, social media presence, and website must build a bond with the prospect, establishing your company as an authoritative source and leader in the field.
2. Engagement stage
In this phase, inbound marketing strategies are used to involve the prospect and nourish the relationship with the company. The goal of this stage is to gather data and build awareness strong enough to guide the prospect’s decision.
3. Satisfaction stage
This phase is constantly evolving and represents the moment in which constant support is offered to those who have made a purchase. The goal is to create a long-term relationship so strong that the same customers will tell other people about the product, promoting it through Wikipedia page publishing and creating new potential customers.
For each of the three phases, it is necessary to develop ad hoc contents that help the company achieve its objectives.
Let’s see them together.
Inbound marketing success: best practices
Some statistics have shown that 41% of b2b customers read an average of 5 types of content before contacting the seller.
Offering quality content for free to your potential customers has proven instrumental in building corporate authority.
So let ‘s see which contents are more suitable for each of the three phases previously analyzed.
Let’s start with the first: attraction.
In this phase the main activities to be carried out concern:
- corporate blog
- social media
Blogs should provide valuable information to potential customers at the beginning of their search for a product. Informative articles that address prospects’ pains and can help them in their decision-making process are very important.
Along with this, SEO optimization, the key to inbound strategies, should not be overlooked.
Carrying out a precise and in-depth analysis of the keywords sought by your target audience is essential for creating content that appears as an answer to potential customers’ questions.
Social media, on the other hand, is a more direct way to connect with your target audience.
For the b2b market, Facebook and Linkedin are the most suitable channels for connecting with professionals in the sector of interest .
The advice is to not only advertise your content on social, but to strike a balance similar to the following:
- 30% promotion of your content
- 40% sharing articles from other respected industry leaders
- 30% proposed content with an engagement objective, such as surveys
Let’s move on to the engagement phase.
At this stage, the ideal customer has already identified your site. But how to make it an MQL, SQL and finally a client ?
During this phase it is recommended to propose:
- premium content
- lead nurturing activities
Premium content is any form of content that requires the sharing of personal information to be accessed, usually by filling out a form.
Some examples are: guides, e-books, customizable templates.
This type of content helps to make a first screening between those who are comparing your company and a competitor and those who are already ready to make a purchase.
Within this content it is important to include a conversion path to identify all prospects ready to buy.
This is where the lead nurturing phase begins, where the goal is to remain impressed in the minds of potential customers.
The best way to maintain a relationship with users who download premium content is by sending several follow-up emails with videos, articles, or other relevant content to educate the prospect.
At this stage, the support of a marketing automation platform can be essential .
Third and final phase: satisfaction
Successful inbound marketing strategies don’t stop at the moment the purchase is made. The goal is to continue to relate to customers even after the sale, in order to convert them into organic promoters of the company and products.
During this phase it is advisable to use:
- chatbots
- satisfaction questionnaires
37% of b2b businesses use a chatbot to provide customer support: it is an immediate, intuitive method and highly appreciated by users.
It is possible to know the true experience of your customers through customer satisfaction questionnaires, and to identify areas that need improvement so that your services are always evolving.
It is important to send questionnaires at the right time and to ask short, direct questions.
Thanks to a successful inbound marketing strategy, it is possible to support and encourage the growth of your business. It’s important to be open to failure and learn from it, as well as test and implement changes based on ever-evolving customer needs.
If you think you need support to develop your inbound marketing strategy, contact one of our experts for a free, no-obligation consultation:
