Albert Einstein famously said, “You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” As a theoretical scientist, and professor, it was important for Einstein to simplify complex ideas so that they could be taught to the next generation of scientists.
Explaining new concepts to people who don’t do what you do is hard. It’s a great test of your own knowledge, and a perfect opportunity to practice your communication skills.
Inbound marketing relies heavily on creating content that is helpful to your buyer persona. If your business wants to generate inbound leads you’re going to need to get very good at communicating new ideas.
So how do you explain inbound marketing to your boss in a simple, relatable, and meaningful way?
The Basics Of Inbound Marketing
Let’s start with the simple:
- The term “inbound marketing” was coined by HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan, and introduced as a methodology for acquiring new customers.
- Inbound means that people come to the business, rather than the business going to them (Outbound).
- The methodology supports a business being “helpful” not “disruptive” to potential customers.
- To be helpful, the business creates content that solves problems, and supports the needs of potential customers.
- Helpful content helps establish trust with the potential customer.
- Content also builds brand awareness and authority for the business.
How Inbound Marketing Attracts Customers
The relatable way inbound speaks to potential customers:
- Creating content for the right persona means a better chance at converting a lead into a customer.
- The content published by a business helps them solve relevant problems that build toward the goal of making them a customer.
- Content is supported by a solid SEO strategy that uses relevant keywords to make content discoverable on search engines.
- The content needs to be promoted on social media to increase visibility of your brand and the content.
- To get your potential customers to the next step in your inbound marketing process you need to create long-form content that is worth the price of a person’s contact information.
The Inbound Marketing Methodology
Hubspot’s marketing methodology starts and end with one simple premise: align the content you publish with your customer’s interests every time they encounter your business.
The methodology flow chart above shows the ideal lifecycle of a customer. A lead will be attracted to your brand through content, fill in a form when they’re ready to be contacted, go through the sales cycle, become a customer and finally a promoter of your business.
Unfortunately, leads and customers often drop off between each stage.
The goal of inbound marketing is to carefully accomplish these actions to move each person along each stage without any churn or dissatisfaction.
Next Steps: Learn More About Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than traditional outbound marketing – (Mashable). That’s because the time you put into inbound marketing tactics, and getting to know your target audience, results in more quality sales, and less customer churn in the long-term.
To learn more about inbound marketing we highly recommend visiting the following inbound marketing blogs:
Hubspot: http://hubspot.com/blog
The founders of inbound.
Inbound.org: https://inbound.org
A blog community built by the founders of Moz and Hubspot.
Moz: https://moz.com/blog
The Kings of SEO.
Content Marketing Institute: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/blog/
Learn how to create amazing content from the experts.
Social Media Examiner: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com
Learn how to connect social media to your marketing plan from this curated resource of articles.
Make sure you keep up to date with InboundMate as we publish more helpful content on how you can build an inbound marketing funnel at your business. Sign up for our weekly blog newsletter by clicking the banner below:
