Inbound marketing: drive traffic with your content

THEinbound marketing is a communication technique consisting in attracting the customer rather than canvassing him. No more hunting for prospects, long and perilous, make way for the content strategy.

How to implement this strategy and what are its advantages?

Inbound Marketing: definition

Inbound marketing, also called “incoming marketing” in French, is a digital communication strategy implementing content creation. This is intended to drive traffic to a website and convert visitors into customers.

Inbound marketing is considered a "soft" strategy. It generates the attraction of your audience through relevant content, such as blog posts, rather than soliciting them through advertising.

The principle is quite simple: attract by being attractive and not by harassing its target message. It's the American company Hubspot which set up this concept in 2006. Their goal was to make the marketing strategy more qualitative in the form of a “business model”.

This type of strategy appeared in response to the decline in the effectiveness of traditional marketing, called "outbound marketing" or "outbound marketing" in French. The latter was essentially based on advertising and prospecting by email and telephone, a technique often considered too intrusive.

Inbound marketing: how does it work?

Mainly used in B To B, this type of communication is set up to generate interest from your prospects. It is a method to create commitment in the visitor so that your relationship evolves. He will thus go from visitors to cold then hot prospects until he becomes a customer. This relationship can evolve naturally by allowing your visitors to educate themselves through the resources you can provide.

The buyer personas

First, you will have to define your “buyer personas” or, if you prefer, create different robot portraits of your audience. They will be the fictitious representations of your ideal customers and will allow you to know their behaviors, their needs and their expectations. Thanks to your personas, you will be able to position yourself in the best way to meet their needs.

Content creation

In a second step, it will be necessary to create quality content in order to increase your visibility and your conversion rate on the web. This strategy is just like content marketing. This content must represent your brand and must showcase your values.

In order to attract visitors, you must be visible and attract their attention by offering them content that may interest them. This can be done via your website, your blog, on social networks or even through newsletters. To attract your future customers, your content must be targeted and qualitative. This can be done through blog articles, videos or downloadable white papers.

An optimized website

At the same time, you must offer a personalized experience to your audience thanks to an optimized website. You must offer them dynamic content that adapts to the profile and commitment of your target. Your website must therefore provide the best user experience by being optimized for the SEO and for conversion. You can, for example, set up a landing page to promote a product through a call to action in your social media strategy. The goal is to retain your customers so that they become ambassadors of your brand.

What are the benefits of inbound marketing?

Implementing this marketing strategy within your businesses can generate a lot of benefits. The first of them is the cost!

Inbound marketing can convert customers at a much lower cost than through traditional marketing. It is an effective method that allows you to obtain a return on investment without drowning your communication budget.

Also, this strategy allows you to create a long-term relationship with your customers. It's not a system to get one-time customers, but a method to build a kind of community.

Implementing an inbound strategy also builds your reputation and credibility. By adopting this strategy and producing regular and qualitative content, you will increase your visibility and gain positions on search engines. This allows you to gradually build an image of an expert in your chosen field in the eyes of your audience.

It's a digital marketing strategy that can be adapted to everyone! It is ROI (return on investment) oriented, which makes it an investment center. It allows small structures to compete with large ones without paying the price.

Despite its massive use by American companies, inbound marketing appears to be a newcomer in France. With the new modes of consumption on the web, this strategy opens more and more doors and now appears to be essential.