What is Inbound Marketing?

What is inbound marketing

Inbound marketing (also known as attraction marketing or attraction marketing) is a practice that consists of, through combinations of marketing and advertising techniques, attracting people with useful and valuable content who are at the beginning of a purchase process of a product. particular product or service. From there, what is sought is to accompany those contacted users until the final transaction to later retain them.

Some of the digital marketing actions that Inbound Marketing combines are SEM, SEO, content marketing, web analytics, content on different social networks, etc.
 

How and why did it arise in Inbound Marketing?

The term Inbound Marketing emerged in 2005, and was raised as an alternative to traditional marketing (Outbound marketing), which was beginning to become obsolete.

The advantages that inbound marketing has compared to its counterpart, outbound marketing, is that it not only aims to attract the attention of users, but it must also make both your brand and website easy to find on the Internet. Apart from that it is not so intrusive.

Inbound marketing arises due to changes in people's purchasing processes and also, to changes that have occurred in the market.

These processes represent the purchasing cycle of consumers, which go from when the person is aware of their need, to the purchase of a product or service.

Purchasing processes in Inbound Marketing

The 6 purchasing processes are very important for us to understand our inbound marketing strategy:

Sleeping: The consumer still does not know that he needs something or that need is already latent.

Thinking: The consumer is already aware of their need, it may be because they have viewed an advertisement or because a friend has told them about a certain product or service. During this phase, the mass media are the ones that help identify opportunities.

Learning: In this stage, the client begins to look for information in all the means at his disposal. Google is one of the star media, although others are also involved in this phase.

Comparing: The consumer already has some information and knowledge of the new product and, perhaps, has chosen several to compare them. In this phase, Google and review websites are once again a powerful influence.

Buying: Finally, the client has already decided and it is time to negotiate and close.

Selling : The consumer is proud of his purchase and, if it really brings benefits, he will become the best brand ambassador.

How does inbound marketing work?

Inbound marketing is based on the following 5 phases of a purchasing process:
  1. capture traffic
  2. Transform anonymous users into leads.
  3. Transform leads into sales.
  4. Convert sales into higher-margin repeat purchases.
  5. Evaluate the process to improve it.

1. Capture traffic (attraction)

Through various marketing and advertising techniques, such as content marketing, email marketing, social networks, search engine advertising (SEM), among others, we will try to attract the maximum amount of traffic possible to a useful web page for users.

In order to attract this traffic, it is important to have a clear inbound marketing strategy, which is based on attracting those who are likely to convert with the (relevant) content of our website.

2. Transform anonymous users into leads (Conversion)

After capturing traffic, it is time to convert all these people into leads, in a way that is most convenient for them (according to the theme of our website), which is usually through registration through forms or messages. The objective is to have your data in the database of our company.

When we have already achieved this attraction and conversion of our visitors, we must offer them more content of interest (for example ebooks) to be able to continue with that communication.

3. Turn leads into sales

After having converted them into leads and having their data in our company database, through email marketing users receive emails that will help us transform them into sales. At this point, companies use automation techniques such as lead scoring and lead nurturing.

Lead scoring (or lead classification) is an automated marketing technique that allows you to qualify leads to find out how close they are to making a purchase, the ideal time to convert them into a customer, and how much they resemble our buyer persona. ideal).

Lead nurturing allows us to create an automated content flow that is tailored to the user's buying cycle and behavior.

4. Convert sales into higher-margin repeat purchases. (Close and loyalty)

In the closing stage, it is where you have to have satisfied customers to be able to retain them and make them buy again. We are going to do this by offering them information that may be useful to them, mainly by E-mail.

We must also take into account those records that, although they have not become customers, are still aware of our brand, so they may one day make a purchase.

5. Evaluate the process to improve it

Finally, we have to analyze what worked and what things can be improved in our inbound marketing strategy. There are various analysis tools and metrics that can help us in this process.

Through web analytics, we can obtain more accurate conclusions to establish strategies based on the data obtained.

Remember that for everything to work, we must have our strategy well planned and organized.

Conclusion

In conclusion, attraction marketing is a powerful way to attract potential customers who can make a certain conversion on our website. It is an important and broad strategy that covers many processes, from the person knowing that they have a need to the purchase of a product, which is why it is important to know our buyer personas and how they behave.
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