There are two contrasting techniques digital marketers use, Inbound and Outbound marketing.

Outbound marketing involves pushing products through various channels to a mass of people regardless of whether they have an interest in your product or not. Inbound on the other hand totally reverses these roles as the merchants only attract willing people to their online channels.

What really is Inbound digital marketing?

Inbound digital marketing is a strategy that involves attracting people looking for your products or services to your online platforms. This requires strategically placing your business in the digital path of online traffic with interest in your products or services.

Inbound marketing strategies are categorized into three phases:

  1. Attracting clients looking for your product or service
  2. Engaging and naturing leads by providing value and building a relationship and trust
  3. Delighting by improving overall customer experience and giving back to win new clients and retain old ones.

Inbound "Attracting" strategies

There are so many "attracting" strategies inbound digital marketers use. The choice and effectiveness of each strategy depend on a number of factors we'll discuss in another article. In this article, however, we'll highlight the most popular ones that every online business can and should employ.

Content Marketing

This is an "attracting" inbound strategy. It involves creating content that persons interested in your products or services are looking for. The right content strategy with proper documentation can be extremely rewarding in attracting new clients.

47% of buyers view at least 3 to 5 pieces of content before deciding to speak with a sales rep.

Digital Insights

The more content a site produces, the more likely they will meet the client's needs education-wise. This, in turn, builds trust and increases the likelihood of a lead converting.

To illustrate, A tourism agency blog in Uganda reports about the security situation in the country. They indicate insecure areas and educate tourists on how to ensure they are secure at all times. This information comes in handy for curious tourists who would like to visit Uganda. Almost all traffic to the page will be from potential clients for tourism packages. This presents the opportunity to collect their information and pitch them with safari offers.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing a website to rank better on search Engines. This is an "attracting" inbound strategy.

A survey was done to determine just how much ranking affects Click through rate to a website and the results were astonishing.

Top 3 Positions in google receive 60% of all clicks.

Click-Through Distribution Vs Search Engine Ranking.

The research by Optify above suggests that the first result on Google receives 3X more click-throughs than the second.

To put it into context, assume 10,000 people are searching for Uganda Safaris. By the statistic, 3500 will click on the first result while only 1000 will click through the second result. Less than 100 individuals of that sample space will make it to the second page.

The evidence is in the numbers. Clearly, optimizing your website to get a higher search ranking is a key Inbound digital strategy. Note: a rise in search ranking by just one level often results in doubling previous traffic.

Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing is the paid alternative to increasing your website visibility in search results. To put it another way, Search Engine Marketing is SEO on steroids.

Paid results are displayed on top of organic results in effect giving them an upper hand over organic results. Furthermore, Google's recent change in paid ad display makes paid results look more like organic ones as a result users can't easily differentiate between them. Due to this change, there has been a tremendous increase in paid ads effectiveness.

Google Organic Vs Paid Results

For this strategy, an eye for detail is important because it involves identifying trends and implementing data-driven recommendations.

Combining this "attracting" method with content marketing can be extremely effective in finding new leads thus increasing conversion.

Social Marketing With Targeting

Social marketing with targeting is an "attracting" method that has become very popular in the inbound marketing arena. More people are spending time on social media than ever before as a result, it's become an invaluable source of leads.

Social Marketing is one of the more cost-effective methods of marketing making it a choice for smaller businesses.

The conversational approach it allows makes trust-building easier than it was before. The wealth of information on people's habits, likes, and behaviors social media platforms hold significantly improves targeting.

Consumers are more likely to buy from a business with a strong social presence than one with none at all all

We have covered the most popular attracting strategies. In the next section, we'll cover some of the common Inbound engaging strategies.

Inbound Marketing "Engaging" Strategies.

Once a lead has found their way to your website using an "attracting" strategy, the next phase is to engage them. The purpose of the engagement is to convert them into loyal customers.

In this phase, the business task is to provide value to the lead. The value can be in the form of great content, experience or customer care. With this in mind, the business has to provide solutions other than trying to sell a product.

There are several ways to engage customers. In effect, the more methods you use, the more "human" your brand is perceived thus increase in trust.

Some engaging methods include feedback collection from existing clients, inbuild chat support, social media shares, shared experiences, email/ newsletters, and In-product messaging.

90% of consumers say that positive reviews makes them trust a bussiness more.

Inboud Marketing "Delighting" Strategies