Inbound Marketing: 4 Reasons Why It’s the Right Thing, Right Now
It’s no secret that we’re in a severe economic crisis in this country. What does this mean for you as a small business owner? It means that you’ll do well to follow the lead of internet business owners who experienced a similar downturn in 2001. At that time they chose to focus on search engine advertising rather than display advertising because search engine advertising allowed them to keep a close eye on who they were marketing to and whether or not their strategies were successful. Businesses now are facing a similar dilemma. They need to spend less on advertising than in the past, and one of the ways to do this is to focus on inbound marketing.
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What is It? Inbound marketing consists of all the steps you take as a business owner to help customers find you. Traditional marketing consists of going out and finding customers through obnoxious television ads, cold calls, mass emails, and junk mail. Not only is traditional marketing generally ineffective relative to the amount of money business owners spend on it, it’s also being quickly replaced by inbound marketing. Some inbound marketing strategies include business blogging, social networking sites, and compelling videos. The three keys to successful inbound marketing are good content, organic search engine optimization, and social media. Good content on your website or business blog attracts customers because they want to hear what you have to say. Organic search engine optimization ensures that customers will have no problem finding your website through search engines, and is managed by getting inbound links to your site and thus increasing your search engine ranking. Social media sites allow you to spread your content to people who will be interested in it.
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Why Use It In a Recession? Inbound marketing is essentially free, which is why it makes sense to focus on it during a financial crisis. Traditional marketing is all about spending money—on print ads, on television ads, on email lists, etc. Inbound marketing doesn’t cost anything except some brain power and some time. Traditional marketing casts a wide net to find customers and typically traps only a few interested parties relative to the number of people it touches through call and advertisements. Inbound marketing allows you to focus your message only on those who self-select themselves to receive it. The third reason that inbound marketing makes sense in a recession is that it’s not an expense. Pay-per-click advertising on search engines loses value as soon as you stop paying for it. And when money is tight, pay-per-click advertising may be one of the first things you need to cut from your budget. Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is a true investment. If you invest time and energy on the front end, creating good content and optimizing your website for search engines, your website will continue to generate traffic and leads, all for free.
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Unlimited Growth. The beauty of inbound marketing is that it levels the playing field between small businesses and multi-million dollar corporations. While huge companies have the ability to spend lots of money on large marketing campaigns, small business owners have the opportunity to create relationships on the internet that engender loyalty among customers and interest in the products and services offered. All you need to be successful is the ability to build relationships and stand by your products and services.
While now may not seem like the right time to invest a lot in marketing your business, remember that inbound marketing costs virtually nothing and is far more effective than traditional marketing approaches. If you need more information about how to make inbound marketing work for you, contact an internet marketing or SEO professional and learn how to make inbound marketing an integral part of your overall marketing strategy.
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