Inbound Marketing Strategy and Concrete Example

Inbound marketing. You see this term more and more, and everywhere. You are a little perplexed, you hesitate. New miracle marketing concept? Umpteenth way for agencies to invoice their services at high prices? Let’s see things differently. Rather, inbound marketing is a way to build a relationship with your community. The principle? Provide quality content adapted to the needs of your targets. You will gradually become essential and convert them into customers. It does not require a colossal budget, unlike traditional marketing, but requires more time. What exactly is an inbound marketing strategy? What if we saw all this together more closely with a concrete example?

What is inbound marketing?

Definition of inbound marketing

If we do a literal translation, “inbound marketing” means incoming marketing. It is an approach centered on the community of a brand, its audience. The objective is to create a link with her by bringing her quality content to capture her attention. The brand will thus help her to solve the problems she encounters on a daily basis. Implicitly, we aspire to make ourselves indispensable (or in any case unavoidable) in her eyes to convert her into a client. The company becomes a kind of media for its audience to whom it provides relevant content, via its website and/or blog, social networks, e-mails, YouTube channel, mobile application(s), etc.

The particularity of inbound marketing is that it only exists thanks to the permission of the consumer, who himself comes to seek the information. We are talking about permission marketing, as mentioned by Seth Godin already in 1995. Nothing new then. Inbound, as we talk about it today, comes from the founders of Hub spot, Brian Halligan and Dharma’s Shah. They didn’t invent anything but “simply” adapted it to the digital age and to the screens that punctuate our lives.

Basically, with this strategy, you will naturally boost your traffic, better position your site or blog in search engines, get to know your community better (and therefore your potential customers), attract a more qualified audience, demonstrate all your expertise and your know-how to search the bright and economical ebook writing service and gain notoriety.

Do not rejoice too quickly, converting your audience into customers takes time. It’s cheaper than traditional outbound marketing, but takes longer.

Inbound marketing vs outbound marketing

To help you better understand all this, we will compare inbound and outbound marketing. The first, we have just seen the basics. The second, you know it and are exposed to it on a daily basis. It is quite simply the traditional marketing that we are “confronted” with every day. The outbound comes to seek the consumer with intrusive methods while the inbound attracts him to make him come by himself, naturally.

Today, traditional marketing is frowned upon. Advertisements here and there exasperate Internet users. Ad blockers are legion and spam filters have become our best friends. The modern consumer no longer wants these old ways. He wants us to take an interest in him and stop wasting his time. The relationship is completely reversed thanks to the Internet. We no longer only talk about the brand but we help the consumer, we make ourselves useful. How to do? With a relevant and effective content strategy.

The importance of content

In an inbound marketing strategy, we seek to become a medium, in the long term. We aim to inform an audience, by providing them with quality content to capture their attention. We make sure to answer their questions and solve their problems. And to optimize all the efforts made to produce this content, here are some tips to follow:

Unfailing regularity

As we have just seen, with inbound marketing, we focus on the long term. You also have to be regular, whether on social networks, your website and/or blog, your emails, etc. We make sure to maximize our presence, to stay in the spirit of our community and make ourselves essential.

A good SEO strategy

Who says content, necessarily says SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Writing relevant content is good, but it still has to be visible! If you can’t find it in Google, it’s useless (or almost). We then put in place a natural referencing strategy by optimizing the content of our website and blog. We target the key queries typed by our audience and we produce content that matches them. The Internet user who searches on a particular theme will be reassured to find you in the first results of the engines and will place his trust in you.

A small gift before leaving 

You have successfully attracted new readers to your site. Congratulation! It would be a shame to part like that, don’t you think? So why not give her a little present before leaving? This is one of the main principles of inbound marketing. You want to know more?

The main principles of inbound marketing

You have understood that content is important in an inbound marketing strategy. Only you wonder how to take concrete action. Let’s see together the main principles to follow.

Know your audience well: the definition of personae

The key when producing content is knowing who you are talking to. We are thus better able to provide adequate content. You will thus define your personae, a kind of robot portraits of your typical customers. Do not neglect this step, it will really allow you to share relevant content and thus better convince your audience.

Create relevant content

Whether on your website and/or your blog, your various social networks, your YouTube channel or your e-mails, you must stand out by producing content with high added value. Think that you must help your audience first and foremost. Publish articles by placing the right keywords, cover your entire industry. In summary, use your expertise to be useful to your readers.

Offer the right lead magnet

Once your readers are on your site, you have to offer them the right lead magnet that will make them want to leave their email address to download it. What is a lead magnet? It’s a kind of “honeypot” that will allow you to receive new subscribers. You offer free content in exchange for an email address. You will demonstrate your expertise through this tool. Concretely, this can take the form of an eBook (this is the most common format that we find. You can also have our talents write an e-book in less than a week), a workbook, a checklist, a white paper, a printable file, a quiz, an action plan or a challenge, etc. It is important to spend time on choosing the best lead magnet according to your objective.

Get organized

Your lead magnet is in place and you are monitoring the returns. In the meantime, don’t rest on your laurels. Think ahead. Define an email chain to send to your new subscribers. Don’t send too many emails, or at too close intervals. You risk discouraging the reader and breaking trust. He will feel harassed and then want to unsubscribe. You would thus fall back into the trap of outbound marketing. Don’t forget to update your social networks, your blog and your site. Get organized by establishing an editorial schedule and continue to promote your different content.

Accustomed to reading your content, your target may want to take action and buy your products or services. The reader is reassured by your content, your expertise and this makes him want to buy. If his purchase gives him as much satisfaction, he could become one of your ambassadors. And the loop will be closed.

Don’t forget the stats

Measure your different actions to draw conclusions, define the ROI (return on investment) and possibly make adjustments.

To summarize, the idea is:

1. to attract visitors to generate targeted traffic;
2. to convert them into leads (when they leave their email address to download your lead magnet);
3. then into customers who will buy your products or services;
4. And become your ambassadors thanks to your loyalty strategy which will encourage them to recommend you.

Can we see all this with a concrete example of inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing: concrete example with the cosmetics brand Solution

I suggest you study the case of a French natural cosmetics brand, Solution.

Quality content on the brand’s website and blog

Solution offers quality content on their website. Their blog Solution explains the world of cosmetics to better consume and take care of your skin. Let’s take some examples proposed on the articles of the blog: How to recognize truly natural cosmetics? How to choose a cosmetic oil? How to choose the right body moisturizer? We help and guide the consumer and lead her into a movement, that of #positive beauty (Solution has also created its manifesto).

Consumers at the heart of social networks

On social networks and especially Instagram, Solution highlights its customers through portraits and shares its expertise via its “CosmetoCoach” posts. There are obviously publications promoting the products. The balance is good, the tone is fresh and dynamic. It makes you want to follow and inspires confidence to buy. On Facebook, we find most of the posts offered on Instagram and the highlighting of product reviews.

An original and useful lead magnet: the choice of the quiz

Solution has chosen an original lead magnet totally adapted to its activity. Indeed, the brand invites you to discover your skin type in 2 minutes. A quick quiz with a few questions to get to know your skin well. At the end of the quiz, you enter your email address to receive the results. You then receive an email with the diagnosis, some tips for taking care of your skin and recommendations for suitable products. Subsequently, we receive a few e-mails presenting the brand and its history.

Solution could optimize its strategy by sending more emails following the lead magnet. We remain a little on our hunger and it’s a shame. The overall content deserves to be more valued and the consumer accompanied a little more closely via this channel. The brand could also offer more facilities on The Tiny Tech, including tutorials. That said, the base is good and of high quality. A good inbound marketing strategy is not built in a day and the brand has already laid down some great milestones.

Finally and in summary, inbound marketing is for you if you already have a blog and publish articles regularly. This also concerns you if you intend to do so or if you have a real defined e-mailing strategy. In this case, all you have to do is take action!

On the other hand, inbound marketing is not for you if you don’t want to spend time or budget on a blog and if you send emails every three months without a goal. But who knows, my article may allow you to consider things from a new angle and change your mind?

In both cases, if you are looking for an SEO web editor, do not hesitate to contact us, our talents will allow you to share quality content, the first step in a successful inbound marketing strategy!