Is the Inbound Marketing Methodology For Your Business?

Marketing is just as important now as it’s ever been. If anything, it might be even more important when you consider how the World Wide Web has made the entire planet a lot smaller. These days, you could have competitors from every corner of the globe trying to take your customers. However, finding the best possible marketing plan may require more work than you had anticipated. With so many options for getting the word out about your business, you run the risk of making a costly mistake. Fortunately, inbound marketing is most likely the methodology your company would do best to choose.

Is the Inbound Marketing Methodology For Your Business

Outbound Is Dying

Plain and simple, you probably won’t have a choice soon. The truth is that outbound marketing is quickly going the way of the dinosaurs. One stat that helps prove the point and should send a shiver down the spine of any marketer still relying on the phone is this: more than 200 million Americans have registered with the FTC’s “Do Not Call” list. That means they’re completely invisible to those marketers accustomed to dialing for dollars.

Another scary statistic? Over 90% of email users have asked to be taken off a company’s email list. As with the above, this unsubscribing essentially makes the recipient invisible going forward.

Stabs in the Dark Don’t Work

Compared to inbound marketing, just about every advertising effort looks embarrassing. For example, consider the traditional method of displaying ads on websites. Without inbound marketing, you don’t have the information necessary to know if posting an ad on a certain site is really going to be worth your advertising dollars.

Close to 85% of those between the ages of 25 and 34 have reported that they’ve left a website—and not just any site, one of their favorites—because of advertising they considered irrelevant or intrusive.

Unless you take the time to look into who you’re trying to reach, you’ll most likely be pushing them away.

Social Media

There’s no arguing that social media has had an unrivaled effect on the Internet’s landscape. Most companies have some kind of presence on at least one platform, though that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re taking advantage of it as they should be.

If you’re trying to use social media, but aren’t implementing inbound marketing, expect to keep being frustrated. Social media and inbound marketing were meant for one another. Sites like Facebook and Twitter allow you to engage with your demographic in a way that provides your company with real, valuable information. It works both ways too. This relationship makes it easier for your organization to provide content that will actually help your prospective customers.

Lasting Relationships

With nothing but outbound marketing, your relationship customers are very sporadic. You grab their attention, sell them a product and hope they come back sometime in the future for repeat business.

Inbound marketing is all about building a lasting relationship though, so that even when a customer is done with their transaction, they still remain in your sphere of influence. In this way, your sales funnel becomes longer, more involved and more effective. When your customer is ready to make another purchase, you stand a much better chance of securing their business again.

Repeat Business

Speaking of which, it’s always more cost effective to keep a customer than attempt to go out and find another. With inbound marketing, it’s actually much easier to do both, which will only result in greater income. Due to the relationship you build with your market, it will be much easier to not just bring back customers for a second time, but upsell them with the first purchase as well.

Inbound marketing is the future of advertising waiting for you to begin using it today. No matter what industry you’re in, inbound marketing is a methodology you should be leveraging for all it’s worth.