The way businesses and customers are interacting has changed forever. With the shift in how customers are finding products and services, businesses need to shift the way they market themselves and their products.
However, many small business owners are resistant to this change of marketing style. So we’ve created five reason why your local business needs to think about shifting their marketing mindset to inbound marketing.
1. Inbound Marketing Gives a Better Return on Investment
As a small business owner, inbound marketing offers a smarter choice for reaching your customers. Inbound marketing allows customers to come to you naturally. When you integrate inbound marketing techniques like search engine marketing, blogging, and social media marketing etc, and it’s done correctly, it will continue to work for you.
Great inbound marketing content has the power to draw in new leads and if it’s really useful people may share it with their friends and family through social media, providing additional marketing for you. And a recommendation is a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal.
2. Inbound Marketing Helps Keep Current Customers
At some stage, we’ve all probably had that telemarketing call promising to save money on your energy or phone bills. And the majority of people reading this will have never taken up the offer. More often than not, all a cold call has managed to do is annoy you, which puts a negative connotation in our heads whenever we think of that brand.
With inbound marketing, you’re not forcing your product or services down their throats. You’re creating marketing pieces that aim to help them to make a decision. You’re providing them with the exact information that they are looking for to solve their particular problem.
Providing useful content and information not only has the potential to bring in new customers, it also has the power to keep your current ones. This is for one simple reason you’re not always upselling or promoting to them. You’re providing useful information without forcing intrusive sales techniques on them. You provide them with the information they need to make the decision for themselves.
Take the energy discount above, why not create a content piece talking about ‘How you can save money on your energy bill‘ providing tips for how a home can cut down on energy wastage, saving them money on their bills. Now add a call to action that ‘new customers to your service get a certain discount on their energy bills’.
This inbound marketing tactic draws in a targeted audience who are looking to save money on their energy bills. You’re providing them with useful information on how to do they can do that while also letting them know they can save money by using your service. This builds awareness of your brand in a positive way.
This builds a positive connotation in the mind of the customer, even if they didn’t purchase from you at the moment the next time they think of your brand they’ll think of it in a more positive light putting you higher on the list then the company who annoyed them with a cold call in the middle of their dinner.
3. Search Engines and Customers Prefer Inbound Marketing
When it comes down to it, search engines are a tool that allows people to find the information they are specifically looking for. People aren’t looking for your sales ad. They aren’t looking to be bombarded with sales information.
People are looking to solve a problem. So create content that helps them solve that problem or shows how your product or services can help to solve that problem. Without it, it’s extremely unlikely that customers will come across you online through search, which means you’re missing out on a huge pool of potential customers that you could be tapping into for free.
4. The Way Customers Find Businesses Has Changed
Customers are constantly being bombarded with information. It’s becoming harder and harder to get their attention. Online you have 3-5 seconds to grab a reader’s attention. Simply putting an advertisement out there isn’t enough anymore
You need to get to your potential customers through a more targeted approach, and inbound marketing provides the opportunity to get in front of them at the exact moment they are looking for your services or product. This provides your customers the opportunity to learn about your business naturally, with the information for them to make an informed decision, at a moment when they are in the mindset of buying.
Consumers aren’t stupid, so don’t treat them as such. Offer them quality content and services that they are looking for and they’ll honour you with their business over and over.
5. Your Competition Are Already Doing it
If the above points aren’t enough to convince you, remember that your main competition is already doing it and have probably been at it for some time. You’re missing out on the potential to tap into a new group of customers.