Founder & CEO at Millennial Services, a dedicated call-center services provider.
Inbound customer campaign strategies focus on building relationships with potential and established customers. Relationships are built on honesty and respect. For an inbound marketing campaign to work and create a positive emotional experience for prospects, strategies must be formed on the potential for satisfying what a customer wants. It must also respect a customer’s time and show up where a customer frequents.
An effective inbound campaign should:
• Give valuable information.
• Address customer concerns.
• Offer solutions to problems.
• Provide follow-up support once the customer makes the purchase.
While inbound strategies can be powerful, know that they take time to execute, especially as businesses grow. If you’re not careful, it can actually begin to dominate your business model. Follow-up becomes challenging as your customer base increases.
How Inbound Marketing Differs From Traditional Marketing
Outbound marketing uses traditional advertising methods to win customers. These unsolicited strategies can appear in the following forms:
• Television and radio commercials.
• Print ads in newspapers and magazines.
• Billboards.
• Online advertising and pop-up ads.
• Email campaigns.
• Telemarketing cold calls.
These advertising methods represent a numbers game in that the percentage of people who become customers due to outbound marketing is often small. A telemarketer may make 100 calls or more before making a sale. Mass email campaigns resulting in a positive response of 2% are often considered successful.
Traditional advertising methods often go unnoticed and are intentionally ignored or even challenged through tools such as spam filtering and ad blocking. They can also be expensive, and not every business can afford the hefty price tag.
Accordingly, companies have turned to inbound marketing strategies. Over time, many have found inbound marketing to be remarkably effective and affordable, and it can result in powerful word-of-mouth advertising.
Why Choose Inbound?
You provide information and opportunities for people already interested—either directly or indirectly—in your product or service. Though inbound marketing may work with a smaller base of potential customers, the rewards come in the way of direct financial gains and other benefits. Some reasons to invest inbound customer strategies include the following.
1. Efficient use of advertising and marketing funds: Rather than spending money on mass mailings, a company can employ a marketing expert or a content writer.
2. Improved reputation and trustworthiness: Providing a product or service that people need, along with supporting information can lend itself to positive name recognition.
3. Quality leads: Referrals from loyal customers can represent a productive lead source.
4. Opportunities to solicit customer ideas: Customer feedback retrieved through direct communication or social media often results in ways to improve and create new products.
Getting Started With Inbound Customer Campaigns
As our communication methods continue to grow and evolve, so do our opportunities for inbound marketing. So, what defines a successful marketing strategy?
The goal of a profit-driven company involves increasing the bottom line. When implementing an inbound marketing strategy, putting the method through the following four steps can help bring about success.
1. Attracting visitors to your content.
2. Converting interested prospects into leads.
3. Retaining the customer by providing support for the product or service.
4. Exceeding the customer’s expectations to the point where they become a voluntary spokesperson.
Since consumers use and respond to different forms of media, companies frequently use multiple forms of inbound marketing strategies to attract customers. Often, investing in specific marketing strategies makes more sense depending on the media usage of their targeted demographic.
Here are six forms of inbound marketing strategies.
1. Content Writing
Companies may employ writers internally or hire freelance writers to produce appropriate content, such as the following.
• Blog posts or regularly posted informative articles.
• Webpage content that draws the customer in to learn more about your product or service.
• Articles in commercial and trade magazines.
• E-books.
• White papers or industry expert accounts.
2. Social Media Posts
Your social media presence provides a way for customers to interact with and contribute information to the company. Often companies will adjust their commitment to social media involvement based on the usage of their client base. Consider platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.
3. Texts And Emails
Communicating with customers through text and email offers a way to notify existing customers about new products and sales. Make sure to obtain permission from the customer before using this method.
4. Phone Calls
Courtesy phone calls still provide a preferred method of communication for many customers. Following up on a problem and making sure of the customer’s satisfaction can help with retention and growth.
These calls differ from outbound cold calling in that they are part of a transaction initiated by the customer. Follow-up by phone helps them feel valued. With outbound calling, your efforts are more like searching for a needle in a haystack. You aren’t necessarily sure your message is getting in front of the right person at the right time.
5. Podcasts
Podcasts can inform and entertain customers while they are driving or doing other tasks where reading isn’t an option.
6. SEO
SEO or search engine optimization provides an invaluable tool for attracting new customers. SEO experts know how to provide the verbiage that will lead customers to your webpage and other content. SEO strategies also affect where a company will appear on a Google search and, therefore, the number of visitors led to your webpage.
Putting It All Together
Customer feedback and marketing analysis enable companies to determine which inbound strategies make the most sense when allocating the marketing budget. One advantage of inbound marketing strategies involves cross-selling or leading your customers to other content forms as they explore another. For example, a white paper or e-book could contain links inviting readers to join the Facebook group or visit the webpage and blog.
Overall, attracting interested clients and retaining them by providing engaging and applicable content and customer service offers a valuable and pleasant experience for the customer, which can result in a healthier profit for the business.
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