StartUp or well established, your business will fail if you’re not doing modern day marketing
Marketing is crucial whether your business is a startup or well established one. Marketing has evolved significantly over time and businesses cannot survive in the current market if they continue to use outdated, ineffective marketing techniques. The goal of marketing is to make your brand more visible to a wider audience.
Marketing methods include direct TV ads, mail marketing and radio spots. All these can still get you results, but your focus should be getting buyers to come to you, not you going in search of them. The desire to attract more customers has led marketers to a continuous search for new methods to grab the attention of new customers. Since the new modes of marketing have moved away greatly from the traditional methods, how can you take advantage of the current marketing techniques?
Current Mistrust of Companies and Advertising
The average consumer has developed some level of mistrust for companies and advertising. The constant bombardment of more and more advertisements by businesses with the desired intention of getting consumers to buy something, have added to their distrust. Consumers feel that these new, faceless companies have hidden agendas and they are not interested in what is best for them; the consumers. The result is a decline in the returns on the traditional ways of marketing and advertising.
Enthusiastic Buyers
Consumers today can access information more readily and easily than before. With only a click on Google, all information on different brands and the products and services you need are readily available. The advantage with this availability is that the average consumer can now “pick, choose and refuse” before making a final decision. More and more consumers are conducting online searches before they buy anything. Consequently, the traditional ways of marketing and advertising are now ineffective because users are searching this information for themselves, making the new, inbound method more effective.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is very different from the traditional marketing method. The aim is to maximize you brand’s reputation and visibility so much, so that customers can find you easily when they start their online search to buy anything.
The Different types of Inbound Marketing
How then, can you make yourself more accessible and visible to consumers without making it too obvious? There are several ways to do this, but all will combine to create stronger, mutually useful links.
- Content marketing. This is one of the best mainstay in your inbound marketing strategy. Content marketing provides the opportunity for you to develop a continuous series of videos, whitepapers, articles, podcasts, eBooks, webinars and other types of content to engage your clients. Be aware though that your subject matter must address the needs of your customers. If you can do this, you will build a great reputation in the industry and your content can assist in providing visibility in other areas like social media and SEO.
- SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a pool of approaches intended to help you get a higher ranking for related queries in search engines. Because your users are searching for information related to your product, you need to use this approach to help them find you. Although SEO is challenging, when combined with content marketing, it is a great place to begin.
- Social media marketing. This is a great way to build an audience. Here you can engage with new people by updating your content regularly and interacting with influencers. Eventually, you will attract more attention and you will be able to organize your content and post them to attract more viewers.
The Benefits
When compared to an outbound approach the inbound approach is a better strategy because of the distinct benefits it brings:
- Increased trust. Once you allow your users to find you naturally instead of you forcing your message on them, they will obviously develop a trust in you. How will this affect you? Your initial conversion rates will increase and most likely will lead to the beginning of confident, trusting consumer-brand bonding that will help strengthen your ability to retain your customers as time goes on.
- Lower costs. Inbound marketing promotions are likely to be less costly than their outbound equivalents.
- Long-term development. Although inbound marketing does not deliver a big remuneration initially, it eventually compounds in value as your reputation progresses. The reward eventually is a ROI that becomes so extensive that nearly no direct ad promotion can compete with it.
Nevertheless, if you message, timing and selection of medium are fitting for your audience, outboard promotion and marketing can be effective. However, you can improve an effectual outboard approach with a corresponding inboard arm. It is likely that inboard marketing will continue to evolve, however, the central principle will not change; if you provide your customers with what they need, they will certainly trust you to satisfy their needs always.
