Pulling quality customers in gives them a more significant role in the buyer’s journey. While it does improve customer relationships, inbound marketing offers more benefits than simply getting them into the play.
You can probably compare today’s brand of digital marketing to a game of basketball. You get a better chance to score when you keep the ball inbound—on the other hand, getting it out of bounds results in a turnover. Arguably, the benefits that inbound marketing offer brands can be more significant than outbound marketing tactics. The key is learning the playbook by heart to keep the ball in your possession.
Digital advertising in the country is fast becoming a vast playing field of inbound marketing strategies run by companies. Brands now consider the customer as a player at center court rather than just an afterthought sitting on the bench. That analogy also shows the difference between inbound and outbound marketing.
With 41 percent of global inbound marketers saying they get better ROI, inbound marketing remains the better alternative over outbound marketing for both businesses and today’s generation of consumers.
Let’s have a play-by-play look at how inbound marketing lets businesses score big in today’s market:
Inbound marketing is more cost-efficient
Nobody can say that outbound marketing will soon be obsolete. However, traditional tactics might have a run for their money with how inbound marketing cuts marketing costs and delivers results.
Old school posters, billboards, and direct mail have lost their powers over inbound marketing elements that establish better relationships with the customer. In other words, the way brands announce a new product and hope that it sticks to those who heard it is a bit cliche for modern advertising practices.
On the other hand, today’s tech allows for the production of organic inbound marketing ads that have more bite than costly television and print ads. Plus, there are more channels and formats to push your inbound marketing strategies front and center.
Another benefit that inbound marketing offers is how less expensive it is to implement lead generation tactics by 61 percent.
Inbound marketing is the preferred method among consumers
Today’s consumer population (the majority of which belongs to the Millennial and Generation Z groups) prefers ads that do not oversell or are intrusive. That’s because internet users see around 10,000 ads online per day, which can be a bit annoying.
According to HubSpot, which pioneered the concept and benefits of inbound marketing via the Flywheel methodology, 86 percent of viewers skip ads, while 44 percent send mailers from brands to the trash. Bounce rates are also high among millennial audiences because of intrusive ads.
Soon, inbound marketing elements that aim to create long-term relationships with customers turned outbound marketing on its head. Customers now look for the brands they like and offer valuable feedback to those they follow.
It’s not surprising how inbound marketing strategies prove to be beneficial when you want to pull on your consumers’ heartstrings. Genuinely hearing out their pain points and offering support and assistance goes a long way—literally.
HubSpot’s Flywheel substitutes the ‘Injured’ Funnel
Since 2018, when HubSpot introduced its Flywheel methodology, businesses have begun rethinking how they approach the buyer’s journey. Instead of focusing on conversion as the end result of the journey, the Flywheel brings the customers back for another cycle.
The motivation for HubSpot’s inbound marketing concept anchors on the fact that delighted customers at the end of their journeys can create more customers for the brand. Providing further support and assistance to customers who have completed their journeys gives your Flywheel more traction. And the inbound marketing benefits continue as the cycle goes on and on.
Compared to the traditional marketing funnel, inbound marketing strategies are more effective in guiding the customers throughout their journeys and even past the buying stage. And this works for both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) campaigns. The way the typical advertising funnel fails to engage more quality audiences renders it an ‘injured’ approach in the eyes of today’s consumer generations.
For B2B campaigns, consider that 80 percent of businesses looking for partners prefer to gain relevant information from blog articles instead of online ads. The customers and businesses that delight in your brand will develop certain degrees of loyalty and ambassadorships as you provide more valuable content. The kind that radiates throughout the digital space and doesn’t go away for a long time.
It works wonders for audience building online visibility
Given the various inbound marketing benefits companies get by attracting, engaging, and delighting customers, loyal followers eventually become brand advocates by the successive cycles of their journeys. Achieving this goal broadens your reach and makes your brand more prominent online.
Here’s how inbound marketing can further benefit your business in that regard. New customers get hooked on your brand via blog posts, the keywords they type on their search bars, and the content they see on social media.
They visit your page and become more engaged with how well you address their concerns and queries. This makes them more willing to give you their two cents and some valuable feedback via forms and surveys or a visit to your landing pages.
On your end, you enter the information they give on your customer database and develop more valuable content to keep them interested in your brand.
After they buy your product, you again ask them what they think via forms, surveys, or chatbots. If they are happy with the product, you can offer them some type of reward or assistance. If not, you can still ask them what they need and improve on what you offer them until they are satisfied.
Once they are delighted with the attention you’ve given them, you can expect more referrals to come in, more shares and likes on social media, and more sales on your sheet. All because the inbound marketing tools and tactics you used were the right combinations that guided every customer throughout the Flywheel.
Inbound marketing pushes the human element at the forefront
As discussed earlier, the main benefit that inbound marketing offers consumers is the genuine support and excellent experiences that brands provide them. A significant factor in achieving this is how you integrate human elements into your inbound marketing strategies. Whether your brand focuses on customer service management, content, or product development, humanizing how you communicate with your target audiences always brings excellent returns.
Remember, you are pulling them into a community that celebrates your brand by engaging them in interactive communication. Since they already consider you as an industry leader, they will expect you to help them understand the gains they’ll have by using your product.
Inbound marketing communication runs on a dynamic two-way street that no outbound marketing tactic can achieve. It’s a ‘give and take’ opportunity that improves as your brand grows. If your customers find more inbound marketing benefits from your brand, you can expect more from them in return.
You get more quality leads
With the right inbound marketing tools, you can generate more quality leads that can offer longer customer lifetime values as you run your campaigns. 54 percent of your new visitors who previous customers had referred to your site have better chances of converting than those drawn to your site by paid ads.
This fact brings us back to how you should develop your content. Reviewing the recent numbers, you’ll find that 93 percent of today’s consumers prefer blog posts and short-form articles. Email marketing ranks the second most preferred by 77 percent of consumers. By crunching these numbers, you can better reach your target audiences and guide them regardless of where they fall on the Flywheel.
Inbound marketing creates a more seamless workflow
Performing multiple inbound marketing processes can run simultaneously with low chances for errors depending on the inbound marketing tools you use. And in any industry, time saved equals more money.
With plenty of online inbound marketing tools available online for email marketing, social media curation, tracking, attribution reports, and project management, you can cover every facet of your inbound marketing strategy without breaking the bank.
Automating your processes also increases your team’s productivity and gives you a more straightforward overview of your performance. While managing your overall inbound marketing campaign can be tedious, mastering how available tools work can help you reach more qualified prospects. You also get to improve how you filter out quality customers from the sea of leads you generate, making it faster to achieve conversions.
You get to measure your performance efficiently
No marketing task is worthwhile without being able to measure your progress. Since the Flywheel intends to be cyclic, you need to keep track of how your efforts are going from all sides.
For inbound marketing strategies, your key performance indicators will usually include content performance, best channels for revenue generation, best formats for conversions, and most of all, staffing performance. Consult your CRM tools and determine which areas need some improvement and if each one aligns with your business goals.
Grow your audience with Inbound Marketing
Setting your goals before you begin your inbound marketing campaigns always helps keep your eye on the ball. Shifting from outbound to inbound marketing is a challenge indeed, but with constant practice, it’s just a matter of time before you become the MVP.
