Everyone is talking about Inbound Marketing and content marketing these days, and for a good reason. Gone are the days when marketing was based on interrupting the customer and flooding them with promotions.
Today, our client is an expert at ignoring those interruptions, ignoring the ads, and closing the pop-ups that promote something. We ourselves have become experts in that.
And what is the solution?
Instead of chasing and interrupting, the solution is to draw them to us. Let them be the ones who are interested. Come, sign up for our mailing lists, and want to receive our messages and listen to them voluntarily.
That is what Inbound Marketing is all about, generating that attraction and letting them come, to nurture them and convert them into customers.
Many entrepreneurs see this and realize that it is the solution, that they have seen that this type of Marketing is what works. After all, they themselves follow blogs, join mailing lists or subscribe to their favorite content channels and listen to them often, so they want to achieve the same.
But it is true that many are often a bit lost and do not know how to go from theory to practice or how to start.
So, to get you off to a good start, here are 5 practical steps to get your own Inbound Marketing system up and running.
Step 1. Adopt a value mindset
The first step, more than a practical action, is an important change of mentality.
The key to getting people interested in us is to provide value.
In other words, the key to Inbound Marketing is value, and there is no other way. We must always keep this in mind because, just as we are not going to move towards anyone who does not offer us something we want, neither are others going to move towards us.
Understanding this, we have to decide how we will transmit that value and through which channel we will do it (or channels, but better to focus on one at the beginning) to build our audience.
We can start with a blog like this, in which we give valuable information to our potential clients. It does not matter if we are dedicated to tax advice or information technology; we can always offer value through useful information.
If video is our thing, we can do it through a YouTube channel or through a podcast if talking is what we do best.
It has to be a medium in which we feel comfortable. And yes, at first, everything is a little difficult, but we have to persevere and overcome the initial resistance.
Over time, our goal will not only be to add value but to become the leading authority in our industry, showing that we know what we’re doing through those valuable resources that we give to our audience.
The ideal, in fact, is to have more than one way, for example, writing an article and creating videos, to reach a larger audience and reach those who prefer one or another method, but if we are starting, let’s focus on just one and do it.
Tips: FlexClip video creator can be of great help with your video marketing purpose. You can make short videos easily with FlexClip.
2. Let’s put in place a means of actively communicating with those who visit us
Another thing that we must always keep in mind is that it is very difficult to get a sale at first, especially when we are talking about online marketing.
That basically means that we must have a way to communicate often with our audience, which in practice usually means having a mailing list, although this is not the only possible means.
We can also use social networks or other systems to communicate regularly, but the truth is that email marketing is still king and what works best when it comes to attracting attention and listening to our messages.
Even when we choose video or podcast, whose platforms have options to subscribe to our content, the ideal is to have at least a website where they sign up for that mailing list, of course, in exchange for an incentive.
Let’s remember that nobody is going to move without that incentive and that, of course, we will have to comply with anti-spam and data protection legislation.
3. Let’s measure what we do and how we are doing it
The old proverb: “What can’t be measured, can’t be managed,” is truer than ever.
In Marketing, be it Inbound Marketing or any other type, doing things whose results we do not measure is the same as playing roulette.
How do we know what is working? How do we know what needs to be improved, what needs to be insisted on, or what needs to be cut short?
We will never know unless we take data on how we are doing, and for that, there is nothing better than starting with these metrics for Inbound Marketing.
4. Commit to continuous improvement
It is much better to focus on a couple of things, which we will constantly improve, than to launch a thousand different things (such as mailing lists, social networks everywhere, blogs, collaborations, etc.) and neglect them.
It is better little and deep, becoming experts in what we have put in place and improving those previous metrics.
Nothing is more damaging to our image than a blog that is not updated or a neglected social network. We will convey a message of unprofessionalism, and the potential client, with all reason, will think that we are the same when it comes to working with them.
5. We create alliances
What is the easiest and most effective way to get an audience that we can nurture and convert? Go to those who already have it.
Alliances are the most effective Marketing strategy in general, and in the case of Inbound Marketing, this is no exception. We want to attract a certain type of public, so we will have to expose ourselves in those places where this public usually gathers.
That means other blogs, podcasts, and video channels that already have that audience. That is why it is important to generate contacts and start making friends and alliances.
Naturally, those who already have the audience do not usually have much incentive to pay attention to us, who are just starting out. That is why they must also gain something in return, that we must offer them an agreement that benefits them in some way.
One of the common ways to do this is by guest on their blogs or content channels. That allows us to expose ourselves and present ourselves to their audience while they present valuable content to their visitors generated by us.
It is not the only way and, as I have always said, the most valuable marketing tool is the contact book, so we must start generating those contacts among those who are the authority of our sector.
Conclusion
As in everything new, starting with an Inbound Marketing strategy can be a bit imposing, but by taking these 5 steps, we will have started on the right track.
