5 tips for creating a successful inbound marketing program

Inbound marketing programs work

Outbound marketing is also called interruption or push marketing and is used to refer to traditional advertising like passing out flyers, cold calling, and television advertising. Inbound marketing or pull marketing has become more popular as social media has gone mainstream and brands of all sizes have hopped on board. Additionally, inbound marketing is referred to as “earned” as it attracts consumers and only keeps their attention or coverts them to buyers if the brand has earned it.

You probably already have an inbound marketing program without knowing it – do you have a blog? Do you have a website? Boom, inbound marketing. But how do you create a successful program? Start from the beginning.

5 beginner tips for creating success

Jake Athey, Marketing Manager at Widen offers five tips to implement right away to create a successful inbound marketing program, noting that “Together, the efforts add up and that’s where you start to build your empire. Suddenly you are everywhere and the people you want to attract are reaching out to you, instead of you cold calling them. To get started, there are some simple things you can put in place and grow over time.”

While it sounds glamorous and magical, it’s really just the result of a lot of hard work. Even if you have a program, review it with the following tips, and if you’re just getting started, Athey offers the following tips:

1. Identify your advocates. Those customers who follow your social networks, who engage with you, who show added interest, who refer business to you.
2. Keyword research. Do the research to see what terms people really use when looking for your service. Use the Google keyword tool + analytics. Look at your Google Analytics at least once a week to see who went there, what pages they visited and where they came from.
3. Be social. If you don’t have an account yet with every major social tool, get one and play around. It doesn’t have to be some big social strategy right away. Have fun! And, be true to each social channel. For example, don’t be all serious business on Facebook. You’re reaching people when they want to get away from business.
4. Create content for a web page. Build content to meet the keywords people are searching for, so Google will find it and point people there. Repurpose it across your social channels. If you’re going to invest time in creating content, repurpose it in all relevant forms and share it across other channels. You can become a thought leader just by sharing relevant information on LinkedIn and Twitter once a day.
5. Just do it. Start with one thing and keep going. You’ll make mistakes along the way and that’s okay, but don’t be afraid. Jump in today.

We would add that becoming a thought leader or attracting customers is about their needs, and meeting them where they want to be met. Inbound marketing has made it okay not to shout at consumers on the tv, and has made it appealing to be human, so be those things and continue to push forward. Growth will be slow unless you are an enterprise level brand, so stick with it and continually groom your efforts.