By Nico Prins . Posted on January 4, 2023All business owners aim to attract potential customers, retain existing ones and outdo the competition. Roughly 20% of new businesses don’t make it past the first 2 years; 45% don’t go past the first 5 years, 65% don’t go past the first decade, and only 25% make it past the 15-year mark. With such lean survival rates, businesses must adopt innovative inbound marketing strategies to remain competitive.
Lead generation generates interest in people, while an inbound marketing strategy helps potential clients find your business and the services you provide. Inbound marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing strategies, yet for each dollar spent on inbound marketing, it generates 3x as many leads.
Generally, a solid inbound marketing plan equals better lead generation results. Here are 6 inbound marketing strategies to get you more leads from the many strategies you could pick.
1. Create A Relevant Blog
Not all consumers are the same. First, you’ll need to know your ideal customer by creating a customer persona. You can’t treat them all the same because each customer has different needs and is at different stages of their buyer’s journey.
A good example is a blog by Databox, which focuses on B2B business analytics and statistics. Everything about the page and blog site screams business insights, which appeal to and resonates with business owners.
Source: Databox
A good e-commerce website builds authority through content with actionable insights. It also scales content creation to help the brand consistently interact with customers and generate more leads.
Content builds authority, so you’re ignoring a key growth factor in your business and lead generation without your blog’s relevant and high-quality content. One way to structure relevant posts is to identify 3-5 questions your ideal customer or prospects might have.
As a rule of thumb, aim to do at least 2,000 words or a longer blog post than what your competitors have published. Lastly, optimize a blog post after it has gone live.
2. Follow Search Engine Optimization Best Practices
Google processes billions of searches daily, and since 93% of online experiences start with a search engine, businesses that appear at the top benefit the most. Overall, the number 1 result on Google’s organic search results gets a 31.7% CTR on average.
Source: Backlinko
With SEO-rich sensational content, you can use organic ranking to direct the ever-increasing traffic to your site. This gives you better chances of conversion from viewers into consumers.
Best practices in SEO strategy for search engine rankings include:
- Use the relevant keywords in the headline, introduction, and conclusion
- Anchor texts shouldn’t always match the keywords or be over-optimized
- Sprinkle the secondary keywords on your post while using relevant images after every 100-200 words
- Use topic clusters and competitive keyword research strategies
- Regularly audit and optimize the content on your site for SEO
To truly leverage SEO and SERP rankings, your potential customer should be at the center of your inbound strategy. It’s also important to use SEO tools, including keyword trackers and backlink checkers, to help you discover what your competitors’ high-ranking pages are ranking for.
3. Write Guest Blogs
Getting more inbound traffic will require you to diversify your traffic sources, which includes guest blogging. So, yes, you can have your cake while eating it.
A good example is Bamidele Onibalusi, a B2B blogger who contributed to Hubspot as a guest blogger.
Source: Hubspot
Typically the three main goals for a good guest posting strategy are to position yourself as an authority, get exposure and traffic back to your site, and acquire backlinks. Note that getting backlinks shouldn’t be your main focus since Google frowns on it. Make sure to utilize content writing as a way to lead more traffic to your website.
Here’s an effective guest blogging guideline you can use:
- Map out your guest blogging goals to help determine the relevant blog sites you can submit to
- Find guest blogging opportunities that;
- Use search terms and content that’s focused on your niche or industry
- Your kind of target audience
- Has a highly interactive blog and an engaged readership
- Has a blog owner that’s as active on social media
- Pitch your guest blogging post
- Once everything is set out, prepare your guest blog post
The best guest post is editorial and not advertorial while still having your target audience in mind. Remember to promote your guest blog posts on your own social media networks. It’s a win-win.
4. Retarget Your Past Audience
Retargeting, also termed remarketing, is one of the most effective inbound marketing strategies around. It helps you re-engage the visitors who’ve visited your site without making any purchases. It also helps spread brand awareness.
It works by using a retargeting cookie that tags someone who has visited your site and left. By strategically placing your ads on other websites, you automatically redirect customers back to your site to help them complete the purchase they seemed interested in. Retargeting is particularly important in a sales strategy since it helps increase the site’s conversion and click-through rates.
For buyers who are already familiar with your brand and have shown interest in your product, create personalized and irresistible messages to reignite that interest. For instance, here’s a retargeting ad by Noodle.ai promoting an e-book for supply chain management:
Source: Noodle.ai
Noodle.ai registered 3 times ROI from this than other marketing strategies. In addition, its CTR went 3 times higher than paid content and obtained 40% qualified leads.
Retargeting also helps increase and sustain the brand awareness of your product by reminding your target audience that your brand is still active. Great retargeting ideas include video retargeting ads, Google Ads Search Network, etc.
5. Use Social Media for User Engagement
The cost of running ads is ever-increasing, and getting users to pay attention to your brand is proving harder than ever before. However, social media channels are proving cheaper and more effective in building relationships with customers.
Understanding your target audience is critical in creating a healthy and effective inbound marketing program. Look through your current marketing strategy, create the right buyer personas, and set up proper social media channels that engage with them best.
Source: Deloitte
For example, Deloitte’s audience consists of decision-makers, executives, and professionals. Thus, its content should be relatable to its audience. In the Twitter post above, Deloitte asks a question – and gives an answer.
At times, even asking research questions to the users gives you clarity on what they are seeking. Thus, helps you build your strategies around it.
As social media trends change, reviewing and keeping up to date helps make your inbound marketing strategies efficient. Here are various ways to go about it;
From your insights, choose social media platforms where your target audience hangs out most. For instance, LinkedIn has 810M+ members, so you can never run short of prospects to interact with, especially if you’re a B2B brand.
First, share the content that you publish on your blog, look at their responses and then tweak future social media posts to answer the concerns. You can also create native content for each social media platform. These types of content actually perform better than repurposed content. Alongside the content, you can share links going to your website or your digital business card, where customers can learn more about your brand.
This will increase your brand awareness and help position your site as an authority. LinkedIn also has one of the best outreach and engagement tools, the Reply for sales automation. It pulls contact data and creates a drip-style outreach campaign.
Beyond LinkedIn, you can also use other social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. The goal is to go after all or at least the top social channels where your target audience hangs out. Over time, your strategy will help you acquire more followers on Instagram, Twitter, and other channels you use. More importantly, you’ll raise brand awareness and generate more leads for your business.
6. Run PPC Campaigns
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is another essential tool in inbound marketing. It’s a comprehensive search engine optimization strategy. For example, if you have an E-commerce store, you need to ensure that the search engine optimization is done so that your store gets enough visibility when the right keywords are tapped on.
It is easy to execute and brings immediate results. However, it does need some planning.
Here’s an effective guideline you can use:
- Optimize your website. Take a step back to address your site’s landing pages that work in conjunction with ads. Always include clear and compelling calls-to-action (CTAs), simple designs with a lot of white space, attention-grabbing headlines, etc.
- Select the best bidding strategy. You can choose the right ones depending on factors such as your budget, experience with PPC, and business goals.
- Set a budget. The best part about PPC advertising is that you can do it on a limited budget.
- Research and choose relevant keywords wisely.
- Create the killer advert. Keep it short and always add a call-to-action (CTA).
To ensure efficiency and performance, always test your ads once they are up and running. Ensure that you also keep up with the latest trends for relevance.
Conclusion
If you’re struggling to generate leads due to a lack of resources, remember that you’ll always have to create time to invest in marketing activities. You can start by identifying and choosing 1 marketing strategy that will give you the quickest wins. Then, commit to that for at least 90 days, measure and evaluate the results, and improve on them.
Numbers never lie. Rankings and consumer insights are great ways to help you evaluate whether your inbound marketing strategies are working. Also, keep yourself up-to-date with Google updates and industry trends that affect your choice of strategy. Remember that you’re not limited to just one strategy, so find your perfect blend.
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