Inbound Marketing: What’s That?

Everytime I meet a client who is new to organic marketing or content marketing (and there are many who aren’t that new, but they still don’t do much), I can’t help but feel the pain of losing so much and the opportunity cost of not starting, of not having a blog, of no social presence, of no email marketing (and not building a list), and you can forget about paid advertising completely.

When I ask why is it that they didn’t get started yet, I hear the following:

• Inbound marketing? What’s that? [ There’s nothing I can do but help educate if you give me an hour or so ]
  Oh, Content Marketing. You mean, SEO? [ You just don’t get it.Blame the rampant build up of crap, thanks to those SEO guys]
• We are contemplating, thinking, ruminating, dreaming, and then wondering. We were also looking to hire some help, we didn’t get any. [No, you won’t get any help since you don’t know what you are looking for in the first place ]
• We are still working on our website. We’ve been working on it for the last 6 months (or one year or whatever). Heard of DIY website tools? Heard of WordPress? Is this even an excuse?
• Our CEO is very particular about the language we need to use for our content, our blog, and what goes out on social media. [Sorry, but your CEO is wasting time. This isn’t academic writing]

So, they don’t start a thing. Many businesses never even bother to do anything with content marketing. Heck, most businesses I know don’t even have a website yet.

You are reading this, but I don’t know where you are in the digital marketing spectrum.

You could just be getting started.

You might be on your 195th blog post. Unless you are an established influencer, a marketing pro, a blogging ninja, or someone that big (awesome, and thanks for reading), you suffer content marketing bottlenecks and you’d need to do something about it.

Here’s some help for your Inbound Marketing:

Stop questioning If Blogging Generate Leads?

Blogging regularly gets you traffic. That’s why you need a cohesive blog content strategy. Those visitors turn into regular visitors and then they start looking around to see if you offer a solution to their problem.

Because they read what you write, they trust you. If you have something free to offer, they’d sign up. If you have something to sell, they’d eventually buy.

Blogging directly generates leads. It’s just that you don’t know when they start signing up

As you blog, you start making offers. Not all offers have to be “sales pitches”.

As Marcus Ho of Social Media Examiner points out, you could grant access to exclusive content, make a few perks available, create customer surveys, roll out quizzes, recommend products, and do a lot more.

Blogging is the starting point for your content marketing.

Without a blog, you are dead.

You’d want to seriously consider optimizing blog posts to generate leads.

Social… Keeps you Social

No, social media won’t get you leads. At least, it wasn’t built to get you leads the way you are accustomed to.

You don’t sell on social media. If you thought you could, you got your social media strategy all wrong

Instead, you connect. You build relationships.

You let people see what you are made of, what ignites you, what you are passionate about, and your point of view on things that your business relates to.

That’s it. There are only so many ways you can use social media, and I sure hope that you are using social media the right way.

Go ahead and milk social media for all its worth

Read:

How to Twitter Helps Your Business

How to Go Live on LinkedIn (+ 8 Hot Ideas)

Email marketing helps build your pipeline

Since most people don’t buy immediately, you’d benefit from a list of subscribers who’d signup because you offer something valuable (related to your business) — be it a checklist, a free PDF of something valuable, a free trial, or whatever (that’s your opt-in bribe).

1. Get Traffic to your website by blogging (and other content marketing methods such as by using Infographics, slide decks, or whatever)
2. Use tools like OptinMonster to deploy Pop-ups, and other methods to start building your list.
3. Nurture your subscribers with automated email sequences by using Mailchimp or Drip.

Subscribers sign up when you make a valuable offer that’s worth their time. Then, you’d start nurturing these subscribers with an automated sequence of emails to keep that relationship on.

That’s all there is to organic marketing: Start blogging, go social, and build your email list.

That’s it.

How complicated does your Inbound marketing “Strategy” get?