Today, inbound marketing is viral. The terms “content marketing” and “inbound marketing” refer to the same thing and are often used interchangeably. It is a marketing strategy that uses almost no specific form of advertisement at all. Instead, this method focuses heavily on providing information or content on Internet-based media such as blogs, social media, online forums, and podcasts.
Contents can be in the forms of articles, infographics, videos on websites, or even a short, simple post on social media accounts. There are two crucial factors to consider for inbound marketing to be effective: quality and subtlety. The contents provided must be relevant and interesting
enough to keep the audience engaged. However, there cannot be an apparent sales pitches because they tend to drive the audience away. Inbound marketing is challenging but can also be very useful in the long run as it aims to build a good reputation in the market. The downside is that it takes severe investments of time and effort to produce quality content, and it takes considerable time to begin working.
Why Inbound Marketing is Important
While TV ads are still valid forms of outbound marketing, it is more difficult for companies to hone in on target customers. Email newsletters do a better job for that purpose, but there is always a chance that it ends up in the spam box and gets dismissed without being opened at all.
Internet ads can be quite annoying, too, and people try to avoid them by preventing the ads from appearing in the first place. Direct messaging in social media is probably a friendlier format of a newsletter, but you can always use additional tools to reach out to more people.
By providing relevant information based on people’s search queries, your products are integrated into the contents. The advertisement is indirect, mainly; it is so subtle that the audience doesn’t feel directed to any particular product. Of course, the point of marketing is to generate sales; it seems counterproductive at first, but the absence of sales pitches surprisingly works well.
In today’s competitive market, startups need to find effective methods to deliver their message. Providing quality relevant information in a blog or social media will keep readers and followers engaged in the long run. The unobtrusive nature of inbound marketing helps your company earn a place as an authoritative name in the niche or industry at large.
Major Benefits
Inbound marketing generates leads instead of direct sales. All the content used to launch the marketing effort help establishing a relationship with the audience. This relationship eventually drives traffic to the company’s website and can result in considerable online exposure. The more content you produce, the more significant the exposure you get. The additional benefit is word-of-mouth marketing. If people like your content, chances are they share those contents with friends, families, and colleagues on social media and messaging apps. This relationship is how you solidify your reputation as a trusted brand/company and increase visibility in the market.
