When finding the right audiences for your product feels like looking for needles in a haystack, things can get a tad discouraging. But spending more money on strategies that don’t give you real results is frustrating beyond belief.
More businesses are connecting with the right customers who love them back, all thanks to inbound marketing tactics. All it takes is knowing the right tools for the inbound marketing elements that matter to your business and getting rid of those you don’t need.
If you review a random list of inbound marketing examples, you’ll find that the most elements center on customer data, social media marketing, and search engine optimization. Performing efficient tactics on these elements will help you present the right content to the right audiences who can be valuable to your brand. That is, if you know which levers you are pulling.
Commonly Used Examples of Inbound Marketing Tools
In this article, we’ll tackle some of the most helpful types, tools, and inbound marketing examples you can review to improve your inbound marketing strategies. From the concepts that HubSpot pioneered specifically for inbound marketing objectives to breakthroughs that push digital marketing to a whole new level, we’ve got it all covered.
1. Email Marketing
Being the team that introduced inbound marketing strategies into the mainstream, HubSpot has developed many tools that attract, engage, and delight customers through the years.
Workflow is probably the best inbound marketing example of a tool that nurtures your potential buyer personas. When it comes to email marketing strategies throughout your Flywheel process, the tool works like magic. Thanks to its user-friendly dashboard, you can easily categorize your leads according to their preferences or purchasing behaviors.
The tool works best when you send out personalized and scheduled emails with the right content for the appropriate set of customers. Workflows can also update your contacts to streamline email tasks and sales cycles conveniently for better conversions.
2. Visual Design
Every element of the content you offer your customers matters, especially when it comes to your overall designs. Whether you opt to use infographics, presentations, or case studies, Canva is a good example of an inbound marketing tool that works for both inbound and outbound marketing strategies. Aside from making it easier to develop professional designs for your visual content, the tool also allows you to produce designs in various formats.
Of course, the difficult part is coming up with the right messages for your customers within the different stages of your Flywheel. Not to worry, as there are many inbound marketing tools for that.
However, once you have structured your messaging for each buyer persona, Canva will provide you with a smorgasbord of assets you can mix and match. And since the assets you can use are free, producing the right visual content for specific customers will be as easy as spelling your brand on paper.
3. Content management
If there are inbound marketing tools for graphic designs, the internet also has content management tools you could use for free or at minimal costs.
GatherContent is one example of an inbound marketing platform that helps you organize and manage your blog posts, ebooks, and copies. The tool lets you avoid sending the wrong messages to the wrong buyer personas or age groups within your Flywheel. It also features convenient functions and visual workflows to organize your content management campaigns.
Then there’s also BuzzSumo. This tool deals with inbound marketing elements that also concern content. It generates insights on trending topics, domains, and website performances.
Say you’d like to determine the online mileage that a specific keyword or link has gained online. BuzzSumo screens the internet and filters the results neatly according to date, content, engagement figures, search intent, and opportunities.
Since it is cloud-based, the tool is conveniently accessible anytime you need it, and when performing inbound marketing, monitoring is very much essential. BuzzSumo makes things a whole lot easier on that front.
4. Social Listening
One tool not many inbound marketers in the country are not yet familiar with is HotJar. The substantial value that this platform gives marketers is how it distinguishes their target’s online behavior and voice. Factors that help you develop more valuable user experiences and content through the feedback you gather from the tool.
Most marketers who perform inbound marketing strategies face the challenge of capturing how users view their brands online. That’s how HotJar gives social listening a whole new meaning. By generating heat map reports, feedback polls, and funnel analytics, the tool can help you gauge how your visitors behave when they are on your site.
This information is beneficial when developing content and offers to your potential customers from an inbound marketing perspective. It’s a tool that is essential throughout your Flywheel efforts to attract, engage, and delight.
While there are more examples of inbound marketing tools out there, HotJar is a one-stop shop of all you need when it comes to getting to know your audiences on a more personal level.
5. Social Media Curation
While HubSpot’s CRM manages how you communicate with your customers on a deeper level, reaching a broader audience calls for the development of social media-centric content.
The ClickToTweet add-on for your brand’s Twitter profile significantly helps in this particular task. By signing up via Twitter, you can easily develop shareable content that your target audiences find relevant.
One excellent inbound marketing example you can use when users visit your website, the tool offers tweetable links that users can share via the platform. When doing so, make sure that you highlight keywords or critical points within your content to gain better promotion for your other channels.
ClickToTweet also generates useful click statistics and detailed analytics to help you improve your content management.
You may ask why we are discussing so many examples of inbound marketing tools for content development. The answer lies in how properly curating your content defines how well you’ll perform on social media and other marketing channels.
StartAFire seems like a bad name for an inbound marketing tool. However, this tool is a blast for your link-building efforts. It’s also a good tool for researching new and relevant content online so you can position your brand as an online authority.
Let’s say you want to share a link to your audiences from a third-party website. StartAFire allows you to add that link to any other links you share in a way that users won’t find intrusive. Use the tool to push valuable content to delight more audiences on social media.
6. Customer Relationship Management
Good customer relationships also call for good examples of inbound marketing tools you can use. HubSpot’s free inbound marketing CRM tool is your best bet when you need to track customer information.
CRM sorts out which stage of the deal you are with specific customers. It then displays the next steps for succeeding tasks and filters your customer database according to the information you need. The tool is handy when you want to develop more valuable content for a specific set of customers or simply get in touch with them.
Integrating your email marketing, lead generation, and CRM efforts into HubSpot Sales completes the job and generates some insights. This tool is your instant solution when personalizing emails or reviewing customers’ click-to-open rates. You can also schedule demos with interested customers in just one click.
7. Marketing Automation
Different tasks deal with various inbound marketing elements, and you’ll surely need a management platform to oversee each one. One tool called Flow helps you and your teams manage different campaigns and projects simultaneously and seamlessly.
From scheduling your email blasts to brainstorming ideas for new content that would appeal to various buyer personas, Flow can integrate with other inbound marketing tools you are using. Its simple drag and drag feature will reduce your work hours and make it less confusing to deal with voluminous customer information.
Flow is somewhat every inbound marketer’s dream in delegating tasks and monitoring progress for each tier of the Flywheel.
8. Attribution Reporting
There are many examples of inbound marketing tools out there that generate attribution reports. However, there are only a few that truly help inbound marketers and sales teams know more about each buyer persona within the Flywheel. One such tool is Ruler Analytics, which helps them determine how to steer potential customers into the conversion point. Not only that, but the tool is also designed to continue with the buying cycle.
Ruler Analytics is a closed-loop marketing tool that provides marketers a good overview of how each key performance indicator ties with the company revenue. By identifying which customers show promising behavior across multiple touchpoints, the tool generates recommendations and next steps that lead to conversion. Each insight is sent directly to your preferred CRM platform so your sales team can develop relevant content they can offer customers.
Another excellent tool for attribution reporting is Adinton which optimizes how you track your marketing spend and customer behavior. Using the tool allows you to make smarter decisions regarding which marketing strategies and channels can gain you better ROI.
Use this tool if you decide to combine your inbound and outbound marketing strategies for better leverage. It has excellent integration features that let you compile cross-channel and offline data, giving you a clearer view of your marketing strategies.
Start Attracting, Engaging, and Delighting
Giving importance to every inbound marketing element and using the right tools to generate helpful insights connects you to audiences more efficiently. These tools attract and keep customers regardless of what trends may come in the digital marketing spectrum. From developing and curating content, managing campaigns, and automating tasks to ensuring that your customers are happy, each one works to complement the other.
So, if you’re ever wondering how tech can help you get all the needles you’re looking for from the chaos of the haystack, you know which magnets to use.
