What is Inbound Marketing? [Terminology Tuesday]
Inbound marketing can be broken into three cyclical steps--get found, convert visitors, and measure and analyze. Typically, when people refer to inbound marketing, they are referring to an online process. However, inbound marketing can work well in conjunction with offline marketing as well.
The first step of online marketing--getting found--can be accomplished through SEO (search engine optimization), blogging, PPC, and social media. The second step--converting visitors to leads and then to customers--is accomplished through landing pages, lead nurturing, segmented email marketing, and calls-to-action.
The final step of inbound marketing--measure and analyze--requires a business to look at what calls to actions, which landing pages, what lead nurturing emails, and more carefully to see what works and what doesn't. Then, you know to do more of what worked and less of what did not.
Inbound marketing relies on earning people's interest through providing valuable and educational solutions to their problems. When your business focuses on inbound marketing, you focus more on content creation and education on your site and through other online presences to draw qualified traffic.
Inbound marketing encourages not just the generation of traffic but the very important act of converting that traffic to leads and nurturing those leads to become customers.
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