In the last couple of years, digital marketers have changed the way they approach marketing. In the past, they would create ads and post them on social media. Then, they would wait for people to click on the ads and eventually visit their websites. While this method still works, it’s definitely not the best route anymore. Nowadays, marketers are experimenting with new ways to attract potential customers.
One of the most popular strategies is called “inbound marketing.” This strategy focuses on attracting and engaging customers rather than pushing products at them. Inbound marketing is all about creating authentic connections with potential customers. To learn more, I interviewed Nilofer Merchant, owner of Spontaneous Innovations and an expert in inbound marketing.
What is Inbound Marketing?
“Inbound marketing is all about attracting and engaging customers rather than pushing products at them,” said Merchant. “I like to compare it to ‘leaning into the wind’ rather than just trying to keep your head above water. Instead of fighting the wind, you join it and ride it all the way to your destination.”
Merchant said that inbound marketing is a combination of several things:
- Attracting: drawing in your potential customers with content that is valuable to them
- Engaging: creating an experience that draws people in and keeps them coming back for more
- Inspiring: providing ideas and strategies that excite, motivate, and inspire people to act
- Consisting of several tactics: search engine optimization (SEO), content strategy, social media marketing, email marketing, and more
This article will go over how you can use several tactics within the inbound marketing framework to create online marketing success. You will learn about key considerations, including keyword research, content planning, and creating leads to ultimately convert them into customers.
Choosing The Right Keywords
One of the most important things to consider when creating an online marketing plan is choosing the right keywords. You don’t want to choose keywords that are too broad or obscure; you need to find that sweet spot where your target audience is searching for information yet you don’t appear in the top results of their search queries. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some effective tips for choosing the right keywords.
Focus On Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are all the rage these days. A lot of people are starting to understand the value of keywords such as “marketing advice” or “how to do marketing” rather than just “marketing.” In other words, they are starting to understand that not every word or phrase has the same weight, and that taking the time to find the right ones can really pay off.
These keywords are typically three to four words. They are usually found at the end of a short paragraph or in the first few lines of an article. The idea is to create long-tail keywords that are relevant to your business and that people are likely to enter into a search query to find your content.
Create Keyword-rich Copy
When someone is searching for information about your product or service, they will click on the first three results in the SERP – unless they are ‘tricked’ by an ad. After that, things get a little bit fuzzy, and the closer you get to the top, the more likely it is that the visitor is going to click on a random result just to continue browsing.
You should put the time into creating the perfect copy for your website. Take a look at the results of a search query for “lawyer camden county” – there are over 20,000 results, and most of them are individual websites with outdated information and little to no content. When someone clicks on one of these sites, they are going to be disappointed because they were hoping to discover local legal assistance.
However, if you are the first website to appear in the results for “camden county lawyer” and you have valuable information about the county’s lawyers, then you may get a chance at establishing a relationship with the potential customer. This is why it’s important to create content that is both valuable and relevant to the customer’s needs – if they are looking for information about local lawyers, then your content should include local lawyers, shouldn’t it?
Create Killer Online Marketing Campaigns
What is the best way to attract potential customers to your online store? You can use several methods, but one of the most effective strategies is called a “guerilla marketing” campaign. This is when you approach potential customers without being paid to be there – you want to catch them while they are still searching for information about your product or service.
For example, if you are selling handmade goods, you could create a listing for the items you are selling and include a couple of links to other websites that are in the same niche. If someone clicks on one of these links, they may become curious enough about your product to continue browsing your website. In some cases, they may make a purchase without even realizing it. Guerilla marketing is simply about getting out there and being seen – it doesn’t have to be expensive; you can do this through the use of free tools like Google Adwords or Facebook’s Ads. You can also use tools like Google Analytics to track the results of your campaigns and see which methods are most effective.
Establishing A Linkworthy Curriculum
As an SEO expert, I get asked frequently about creating a linkworthy curriculum. Basically, this means creating content that is interesting and valuable to your target audience and engaging enough to keep them coming back for more. But how do I go about creating linkworthy content? The answer is simple – I look at my target audience, understand their wants and needs, and then I create content that is valuable to them. In other words, I take the inbound marketing approach and let the content tell me what to create.
For example, if you are trying to create content for a luxury goods company, you may want to look at the type of people searching for luxury goods – women between the ages of 25 and 54. If you can become their go-to source for information about luxury goods and show them how to effectively navigate the online portals that sell these products, then you may get the opportunity to pitch your services to this target audience.
The important thing to remember about linkworthy content is that it has to be valuable to the person reading it. If you can create content that is worth enough to keep them coming back for more, then you are on your way to establishing yourself as an authoritative source on your topic. The better your content is, the more likely it is to become linkworthy. As a general rule, the easier it is for someone to find information about your business or product, the more valuable the content is. Keep that in mind when you are brainstorming ideas for your next campaign.
Planning Your Content Strategy
One of the most important things to consider when creating an online marketing plan is content strategy. You need to be able to stand back and look at your content from a distance – as in, not just from the perspective of a few weeks (or months) later. This is where planning ahead comes in – you want to be able to view your content strategy from the point-of-view of a year from now or even five years from now.
To put it simply, every piece of content that you create for the web should have a purpose. Why are you writing this content? Is there a particular audience that you are targeting with this content? Is there a particular piece of information that you are trying to pass on to your audience?
The answers to these questions should guide the content that you produce. If you are producing content to promote your product or service, then your answers should be connected to an appropriate marketing campaign. This way, everything that you do relates back to the big picture – the goal of creating an effective online marketing campaign.
Diversify Your Backlinks
One of the primary ways that Google determines the quality of a site is through its link profile – the number and quality of inbound links that a site has. The better your link profile, the higher the search rankings that your site will achieve.