Inbound marketing: Definition, principles and implementation

What is inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing: Definition

THEInbound marketing Refers to a digital marketing technique that allows you to attract your prospects to yourself. In French, we could talk about “inbound marketing” or”attraction marketing” and that is exactly the image you should have of this technique! Inbound is a tool that helps businesses capture the attention of their prospects and customers. It's as simple as that.

This differs from traditional marketing, the objective of which is to solicit the prospect and to seek them out, through advertising or prospecting, for example.

Concretely, a company that wants to set up a inbound marketing strategy can use a lot of tools. Mention may be made of:

• The creation of articles to feed your website and create your own reference media;
• The implementation of an SEO strategy to position yourself in the first results;
• Deploying a social media strategy...

In inbound marketing, there is no shortage of techniques to achieve attract and generate new customers while maintaining the loyalty of regulars.

To build a strategy that will be coherent, we must consider and create a real discovery journey. We also talk about Funnel marketing, or of Inbound cycle more recently.
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What is the difference between inbound marketing and content marketing? A few examples

THEInbound And the Content marketing are often terms used in the same context. It is therefore difficult to know precisely if they refer to the same thing. Let's be clear: inbound marketing doesn't mean content marketing.

As we mentioned earlier, inbound marketing is a set of techniques that make it possible to attract visitors, generate leads and then convert them into customers and retain them. The aim is to move your prospects forward in the sales cycle.

On the other hand, the Content marketing can be associated with inbound marketing since it is a strategy that is totally in line with the inbound “philosophy”. The aim is to create content to meet the needs and expectations of its target audience so that they can potentially become customers.

So can you see the difference?

The Content marketing is similar to a tool to be deployed as part of an inbound strategy.

Indeed, in inbound, several marketing techniques can be used: creating a blog, marketing automation, influencing, writing Lead magnet, lead nurturing... Anyone who starts inbound benefits from a wide range of tools to succeed in converting a lead into a customer.

In summary, theInbound marketing has a more global approach which takes into account the concept of buyer journey (the customer's buying journey). In other words, you pamper your customer regardless of their stage of progress in getting to know your business.
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Can inbound marketing and outbound marketing be combined?

You guessed it, theOutbound marketing, so it's the outbound marketing which consists in picking up the customer. In this sense, the relationship is rather one-sided because the customer can only rarely interact with the company.

Outbound refers to marketing as it was practiced before the advent of the Internet. A few concrete examples, a company practices outbound marketing when:

• She starts a poster campaign in the subway;
• It is implementing a strategy of telephone prospecting ;
• She starts a advertising spot on the radio...

But it can also refer to the implementation of an Adwords campaign on search engines. Today, it is not uncommon for a company to combine the two approaches. On the contrary, it is even highly recommended!

With inbound, the company creates a stronger link with its audience. It can take a long time. For example, the The efforts of a content marketing strategy can be observed after a few months.

On the other hand, with theOutbound, the results can be very fast ! The effects of a poster campaign or the passage of an advertisement to TV are a real boost for a brand.

The best thing is therefore to adopt a strategy that combines both types of approaches and to adapt according to the practices of your target, your market or what the competition practices.
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Why do inbound marketing? The advantages

Implement a sustainable strategy that works all the time

One of the first benefits of inbound marketing is the fact that it's a strategy that works for businesses every day of the week, at any time.

We explain ourselves. The major tool for companies starting out in outbound is the website on which a whole range of qualitative content is deployed. Prospects come to read articles, buying guides or even testimonies that can convince them to become customers.

The website is often the backbone of this strategy. And as we well know, a website is accessible at any time of the day.

So, unlike a commercial prospecting system that requires the work of salespeople over a given period of time, inbound never takes time off. Practical!

Likewise, if an advertising campaign launched in a magazine (outbound marketing strategy) can allow a company to have visibility, this will remain temporary: the spotlight will bring results while the campaign is broadcast.

With inbound marketing, the strategy is built on longterm and offers results that last over time.
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Develop a better brand image

THEbranding refers to the perception that individuals have of a business. Obviously, every company has an interest in maintaining this image: the more positive it is, the more it shows the seriousness of the company and the potential satisfaction of its customers.

Inbound marketing is an approach that can precisely help improve brand image. Indeed, it is a system that includes work on several media: website, blog, social networks, e-mailing... By developing this ecosystem in the best way, the perceived image of the brand can significantly improve. But how, exactly?

Imagine, you are a company specialized in organizing language courses. With inbound, to gain the trust of your future customers, you will be able to create accurate tourist guides that present your destinations. You can also create powerful customer testimonials who are now proud to speak in another language, or even use partnerships with influencers on social networks.

All of these tools, carefully determined according to your marketing goals, will contribute to create your brand image. Offering quality content will help you show your seriousness: you quickly appear as a reference in your market and your sector.

So, when a person has to choose their trip, it is a safe bet that they will turn to the company with which they have had the best web experience, the one that will demonstrated its reliability and expertise. In other words, offering qualitative and targeted information for your target audience increases the probability of being chosen at the time of taking action and buying.
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Know your prospects better to better help them

Thanks to inbound marketing, a real exchange between the prospect and the company is possible : via the implementation of a chatbot on a site, a blog with a comment space, a conversation started on social networks...

You will agree, it will always be easier to give your opinion in this context, rather than during an advertising campaign in the subway! Thus, with inbound, businesses can survey their prospects and customers, in short, better know them and their expectations.

Community managers in charge of managing social networks can for example: identify the most discussed topics in private messages. If there is friction that converges on one point, this can then lead to the evolution of an offer or to change an element of language in communication.

On the contrary, we can also more easily know the favorite topics of our target to use them in its marketing approach. To do this, you can monitor the most read articles on a corporate blog.

Inbound offers many metrics to study for better understand the functioning and questions of its prospects. Finally, it is a great tool for building a relationship of trust with Internet users.
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Control your inbound marketing costs

With the inbound marketing, companies have the possibility of using a whole range of tools in their strategy: website optimization through SEO, production of quality content, animation on social networks, etc... All these actions obviously have a cost, whether it is a cost borne internally or by external service providers.

But the results induced by inbound marketing strategies are measurable: it is possible to Know the number of leads generated thanks to natural referencing or to the creation of a Landing page for example.

The cost of inbound marketing is also lower than the cost of traditional communication, via display or on more traditional media. It is estimated that inbound marketing costs up to 61% less than traditional marketing (Source: Content Marketing Institute (Hubspot).
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Create better collaboration between internal teams

One of the last benefits of inbound marketing is the ability to bring together the different teams of a company around a project and common goals.

Let's explain: unfortunately, it is not uncommon to notice disputes between Marketing and Sales teams within the same structure. However, these two teams have everything to gain from working together: the customer feedback collected by Sales can give material to future content that will be created in Marketing.

Thanks to inbound, it is possible to collaborate for create better sales tools. On the one hand, Marketing teams design a sales funnel designed to attract future prospects. On the other hand, sales teams can then take over to convert prospects into customers.

How to set up an inbound marketing strategy? What are the actions?

Step 1: Attract

An inbound marketing strategy is deployed in several stages. The first step is to Attracting the attention of your prospect through relevant content. We also talk about Attraction phase.

To do this, you must write content that answers the questions or needs of your prospects on your website, blog, social networks.

The aim of this first step is toattract more traffic to communication channels that you use. The ideal medium to attract customers is the website. The latter is often thought of as the pillar of an inbound marketing strategy.

But once your website is created, how do you attract the famous traffic?

A few ways to do this:

• Training in content marketing : by creating relevant content that meets the concerns of its target, capable of attracting its prospects, you maximize the chances of bringing traffic to your site! To do this, be generous: create text content, videos, customer testimonials, infographics...
• Don't forget about natural referencing (SEO): identify the relevant keywords that will be searched for by Internet users. It is essential that optimized content is shared on search engines... And especially that they are well positioned!

💡 Read also: How do you write a good blog post?

Step 2: Convert

Numerous contents were produced in phase 1 described above. They are so qualitative that visits flow to the site and traffic jumps. It is perfect! But this is far from enough... Now, we must convert visitors into leads.

It's the conversion phase or qualification. How do you proceed?

The difficult task here is convincing visitors that you have other things to offer them. The ideal, even, would be for them to leave you their contact details in order to be called back or to be kept up to date with recent news.

A few tips for convert customers into an inbound marketing strategy :

• Attracting visitors to your website is one thing, but consider setting up contact forms or”Call to action” (CTA) on pages that encourage visitors to leave their contact information. CTAs need to be visible and attractive.
• Create high value-added content to explore a specific subject that requires registration: white paper, webinar, practical guide...;
• Design well-optimized landing pages where the user experience (UX design) bonus: it is very important to take care of the way in which the information on a site is arranged because a poor user experience can encourage visitors to leave the page right away!

Step 3: Conclude

The third step in a successful inbound marketing strategy aims to conclusion of a sale. This is probably the most delicate step that can take several days or several weeks in the buying process for your prospects.

Indeed, not all visitors are necessarily ready to buy right away. Some buyers need to compare the various options offered.

At this stage, it may therefore be interesting to focus on Level of maturity of the prospect (Lead scoring) to reach them at the right time. You can assign a score to prospects in order to communicate the contact details of the “hottest” contacts to sales teams.

It's up to you to precisely define the criteria for a hot prospect. For example, someone who attended a webinar and then downloaded an implementation guide can be considered a hot prospect.

In general, the inbound marketing conversion stage must be done with various tools:

• One CRM tool (Customer Relationship Management) that is effective in precisely making it possible to monitor the actions undertaken by a prospect;
• The implementation of automatic e-mails (Marketing automation) to provide the prospect with premium content: for example by sending an email at the time of a promotion that may be of interest to them or to introduce them to a newly written white paper.

Step 4: Retain

When the customer conversion goal has been reached (congratulations for that!) , the work does not end there... You still have to make an effort to maintaining a good relationship with this new customer: customer loyalty.

Moreover, the studies are formal: keeping a customer and retaining them is cheaper than finding a new one. So you have every interest in cherishing each new customer.

He can then become an ambassador about your business by talking about you to his family and friends. And if you succeed in this bet, then without a doubt, you will have won everything!

For retain and continue to interact with a customer, various tools may be useful to you:

• Les Newsletters : these are perfect for keeping your customers informed of news or special offers at the right time. It is necessary to produce original and useful content in order not to tire your newly acquired customer by developing a lead nurturing strategy;
• The media and social networks are an alternative for staying in touch with your loyal customers. Publishing quality content on these channels allows you to maintain a dialogue and a lasting relationship with your audience;
• Take advantage of the very precise tools we have today to offer a personalized experience to Internet users (thanks to cookies in particular): target customer preferences and show them advertising that may be of interest to them.

Our advice for an effective inbound marketing strategy

Work on your personas

It will quickly become obvious to you: sharing all the marketing content in the world on your site will not be enough to convince your prospects. The essential work you need to do, even before embarking on inbound marketing, is that of know your target.

By having an idea of your ideal prospect, you can produce the best content to interest this type of profile. Take the time to know and develop your” Buyer Personas ” based on your contacts. You will need to know everything about this ideal customer:

• Its demographic profile (age, gender, place of life...);
• Its working context, its function, its purchasing power;
• His areas of interest;
• The way he gets information on the Internet (smartphone, office, via social networks, etc.).

Once you have your ideal customer in mind, you can Imagine your buying journey on your site (buyer's journey) to design the most useful content for them.

💡Discover our templates to succeed with your personas

Define an editorial strategy

To properly implement all the content of your inbound marketing strategy, take the time to put the basis of your communication. You can write a document that includes your communication goals and how you're going to communicate with your personas.

This document will be used by each collaborator who will produce or participate in the deployment of the content strategy. In a way, it will be your guide to follow to speak out on the web and in all your communications.

La editorial line must include:

• Les communication goals of the company and the expected results (example: objective of promoting a new offer...).
• The message that should be carried through the interventions: what do you want customers to remember? (example: an innovative, designer, reassuring brand...).
• Les keywords : the words that will in particular be used by prospects to find you on the Internet and that will be used in your thinking about your natural referencing strategy.
• The target audience : indicate here everything you have learned about your personas so that the content generated by inbound marketing is useful to the target.
• The Your employee : with what tone are you going to communicate on the web? (example: communicate with the target, relaxed tone, professional tone, etc.).
• Les types of content to write depending on the buyer's journey: you have to be sure that there is enough content for each stage of the imagined inbound marketing strategy.

From this document, you can then Develop a editorial calendar by planning the production of each of the contents. Don't forget to vary the pleasures and offer different content: blog articles, videos, infographics, white papers...

Finally, keep in mind that a regular rhythm of publications is the best way to get results. Also remember that an inbound marketing strategy allows you to obtain long-term results: you will therefore have to be patient before getting your first results (return on investment).

The link between SEO and inbound marketing

Any inbound marketing strategy must include a reflection on natural referencing (online visibility) of the website. Indeed, what would be the point of a website that offers qualitative content but that is not wanted by anyone? Absolutely nothing, we agree!

So remember to integrate this reflection when you build your editorial line: what are the queries or keywords that will be searched for on search engines by your personas? What intentions will your prospects have when they want to find information on a product?

Then design your strategy using these keywords and build articles or content pages that incorporate them. This is absolutely essential to be found on search engines and thus obtain results with your inbound marketing strategy.

Don't forget social networks

We have mentioned them several times during this article. Social networks also have a place in your inbound marketing strategy !

First, they can intervene at stage 1 of the strategy: to get people talking about you or to let you know your prospects. Second, they are also tools for maintaining relationships with customers when they have already purchased a service or product from you.

The main advantage of social networks is the proximity they create with customers. They are perfect for engaging your target audience and maintaining the link with your community.

To succeed on these supports, there are no secrets either. Arm yourself with patience, relevance and regularity. Qualitative content always brings new leads and long term results. And above all, select the ones your target is on!

Focus on marketing automation

Finally, it is impossible not to remind you of the importance of Marketing automation in the success of your inbound marketing strategy. Remember that the purpose of all the work done on your site or blog is to obtain contact information from your prospects: the famous leads.

To do this, you must take the time to equip yourself with an efficient solution adapted to your needs, then:

1. Get your databases ready segmented e-mailings (based on your contact base)
2. Deploy your conversion tools (landing page, contact forms, lead magnets)‍
3. Plan content when your prospects have been qualified as customers to retain them
4. Last step and not the least: monitor your results such as your acquisition costs or conversion rates by observing statistical data and adapt your strategies accordingly! Sometimes, it doesn't take much: a poorly placed CTA (call to action), a link that no longer works... Be vigilant and track down each of your conversion tools.

💡 Read also: Definition and success stories in marketing automation
You are now ready to deploy a strategy that will attract traffic and its share of qualified leads. Always be sure to take stock of what is working and what is not working. Test, adjust, monitor: three reflexes you will need to adopt!