inbound marketing - cost effective strategies for small businesses:- www.deekpay.com

Marketing strategies, techniques, trends and approaches have changed rapidly and for the better over the past few years. These changes have expanded the horizons of innovation in the small business sector and have successfully strengthened the relationship between customers and brands.

When the word "marketing" was derived from the Latin word "Mercatus", no one knew how important this strategy would become for every brand. Dating back to the early 1900s, promotions mainly took the form of flyers, displays and announcements. These methods were used to advertise specific upcoming events in towns and cities or the launch of new commercial products such as fruits, vegetables, beauty products and so on. Marketing can be classified into several types, but when broadly categorised, there are two main types - outbound marketing and inbound marketing.

What is outbound marketing?

On closer inspection, outbound marketing includes all traditional strategies such as print advertising, television, radio, newspapers, trade shows or exhibitions, and direct mail. Analyses show that the efficiency of outbound marketing is limited to specific audiences and is not technologically adept. Here, many assumptions are based on broad audience targeting. Therefore, X amount of money invested here will not boost conversions as expected.

As outbound marketing is largely traditional, it excludes new technology platforms such as social media, digital, mobile, etc. within it. As such, it ignores a large number of what is undoubtedly the primary audience of the future.

What is inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing, also known as content marketing, covers everything that outbound marketing easily ignores - the

blog (loanword)

Social Media Channels

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

email

Webinars

infographic

It rightly focuses on new age media and promotional mediums, which is the area where audiences are currently spending most of their time. Unlike outbound marketing, it does not strongly demand attention. It is carefully segmented and targeted. It waits to be discovered by its audience to provide valuable insights and perspectives. Simply put, it is a source of free traffic.

efficiency

By adopting inbound marketing, small businesses can achieve the following:

Reaching relevant audiences

Displaying large billboards and distributing adverts in public dailies is not as effective as online advertising. This is because the audience viewing billboards is not intentional, whereas your target audience is active on social media. With micro-targeting, you can reach a specific audience and let them know about your brand and your value proposition.

Significant savings

A half-page print advert can be costly, now imagine bringing your product to market every day! You can turn the tables and make a fortune by incorporating this strategy into your promotional plan. While this requires more effort than simply buying a newspaper advert, its cost per lead is far less than traditional marketing.

Improve natural search rankings

To rank on the first page of Google, you must provide relevant and fresh content. When you regularly produce content that is optimised for search and gets social media attention, your rankings will increase dramatically. Choosing the right keywords is crucial.

Enabling operational decision-making and action

Using inbound marketing, you can quickly gain first-hand insights into the performance of your online or digital campaigns. Based on these results, as a business owner, you can quickly take action to change or enhance your campaigns for better business results.

Building Loyal Customers

If you keep coming up with new products, offers, coupons, discounts and provide excellent customer service by interacting with your customers, people will love, share and buy your products or services. Time and time again, it has been proven that customers who are associated with your social media accounts are more likely to remain loyal. Think of these as benefits or tips to increase your business, and inbound marketing is the way to go. Whether you are a small, medium or large business owner, these benefits apply.

Here's an example of what helped Varsha, a passionate pastry baker, expand her baking business. She started her business by taking small orders from friends and family. Soon, her passion and unique baking flavours were recognised in her community and neighborhood. She built her own website and accepted online orders from others beyond her community, family and friends. To increase her online presence, she developed a strategic inbound marketing plan for her business.

Varsha actively promotes her brand and products in different Facebook communities and groups.

She also has a blog attached to her website that discusses different baking techniques, styles and "all about cake".

She wisely chose keywords such as "cake", "baking" and "DIY".

These are keywords that her target audience frequently searches for on Google, and they come from a wide range of ages, genders, and backgrounds.

This took care of her website's SEO.

By utilising different inbound marketing techniques and tools, this process ultimately increased Varsha's customer base and business several times over.