Nowadays in the media landscape, consumers live in their own bubbles and can access content whenever they want, which has made traditional outbound marketing increasingly inefficient. It doesn’t make sense for companies to spend millions of dollars on advertising where they think their audience can be, only to waste money on unwanted attention. Instead, inbound marketing is an efficient approach to target customers who are actively searching for solutions to their problems through search engines. This strategic shift eliminates wasted spending and delivers three times more leads per dollar compared to traditional outbound marketing and significantly reduces customer acquisition costs.
Fundamentals of Inbound & Content Marketing
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing, also known as engagement marketing, is the process of helping customers find your business (often before they’re even looking to buy something) and turning that early awareness into brand preference, which ultimately leads to conversions. The goal is simple and is to convert website visitors into customers by creating personalized messaging that meets their needs.
E-mail marketing is particularly effective nowadays for several reasons. First, prospective buyers are educating themselves before engaging with salespeople and arrive already informed about products and services. Second, the return on investment is strong, with inbound marketing delivering three times the leads compared to outbound marketing on the same dollar spent. Third, it reduces customer acquisition cost by calculating the total $ spent on marketing divided by the number of customers acquired, which makes marketing efforts more efficient.
The buyer’s journey consists of three stages, each requiring different content approaches. During the awareness stage, buyers realize something is missing from their life and turn to search engines to acquire information using unbranded search queries. The consideration stage is next, where potential customers compare different options with one another after doing research. Finally, the decision stage is where the conversion happens, and the customer commits to purchasing a product or service.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a strategic approach within inbound marketing that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract customers and retain a clearly defined target audience. Content marketing plays a crucial role in inbound marketing.
The key to effective content marketing is understanding exactly who you’re targeting and creating relevant content specifically for this audience. For B2B companies, this means offering solutions to problems that companies face, such as how to increase revenue or decrease costs. For B2C companies, valuable content addresses problems that their customers face, like how to be healthy, enjoy themselves, or be productive. B2C content can focus on entertainment, using trends and influencer partnerships.
In content marketing, consistency and brand voice are a must. Every piece of content created for a business must sound like it is coming from the same source across all platforms, which allows customers to recognize your unique personality for your brand. Brand voice should be developed but considering your business mission, thinking about your buyer’s persona, and creating a voice that represents your target market. When content is valuable, relevant, and consistent, people will naturally share it within their networks and expand their reach. Other websites were also linked to your content, which signals to search engines that your website should be ranked higher on search engine result pages, which expands brand awareness for free.
How Modl Straps Uses Inbound Marketing
The Journey to Reach Modl Straps Website
Modl, a B2C company that sells gear straps, can be discovered through the unbranded search query “Adventure Straps”. The product page provides brief descriptions, lists of use, and technical specifications about the product. They focus on showcasing solutions for problems people face during outdoor adventures.
Current Strategies
Modl heavily relies on video content to demonstrate how to use its products. Their “How-To” section within their website shows different ways to use the gear strap and includes a basic section that teaches users how to cinch or link multiple straps together for further customization of their product. Although they utilize how-to videos effectively, they lack written blogs and articles explaining how to use their items. This limits their SEO potential since search engine crawlers don’t easily pick up video content.
Modl’s website also features “Modl Adventures” content, which showcases a video of real adventures like bike rafting through Moab, where they demonstrate all the ways their product can be used during an adventure. This content effectively shows product application while offering solutions for travelling problems. Additionally, they leverage social media and work with photographers, adventurers, and other influencers to show how different people can use their gear strap product in many different applications. However, they don’t take advantage of social media hashtags to reach a specific audience and segment their content. Modl Also collects minimal demographic information from visitors and only gathers emails through their website for future marketing communications.
Suggestions to Improve Modl’s Inbound Marketing Strategies
During the awareness stage of a buyer’s journey, Modl should add blog posts and articles to complement their video content in their “How To” section of their website. Written articles that showcase the practicality of the gear strap would improve SEO since search engine crawlers can index text space content more easily. They should also segment their social media content, targeting hashtags like #photographytips or #backpackinghacks to reach a specific audience more effectively.
During the consideration stage, Modl can create product comparison guides that show how their gear strap is more versatile than other competitors in the gear strap sector, like the popular Voile strap. They can highlight how the straps connect and create tension at every inch, versus traditional gear straps that only create tension at the belt holes halfway down the gear trap. This will help retain your prospective buyers who are also considering buying a different brand of gear strap.
For the decision stage, Modl should leverage acquired e-mail addresses to send personalized emails about products customers haven’t purchased yet. They can include coupons to incentivize purchases and reengage customers who haven’t bought recently.
How Bellingham Design Uses Inbound Marketing
The Journey to Reach Bellingham Design’s Website
Bellingham Design, a B2B web design company, can be found through the unbranded search query “Web Design Bellingham WA”. As a service-based business, they focus on providing solutions for problems that companies and businesses face.
Current Strategies
Before the visitors convert, they encounter several pieces of content throughout the Bellingham Design website. The services drop-down menu features “websites”, “brands and logos”, and “marketing and SEO”. This demonstrates the company’s expertise and offers solutions for how they can create websites, brand content, and marketing strategies for other businesses. This is content that is appropriate for the awareness stage.
The “Use Cases” briefly explain the goal of each website and how it integrates marketing strategies into the website. This consideration stage content helps visitors compare different options. The page “About Us” describes their expertise in web design, their philosophy on creating the best client experiences, and providing ongoing support using their 15 years of experience. This is content that is appropriate for the decision stage of the buyer’s journey.
However, Bellingham design only collects e-mail information at the final conversion stage, when visitors are prompted to inquire about their services. They lack early opportunities to capture leads, such as a newsletter sign-up about good website practices for small businesses. Their current content focuses exclusively on promoting their own products without educating visitors about web design in the development category or different options available for creating websites.
Suggestions to Improve Bellingham Design’s Inbound Marketing Strategies
For the awareness stage, Bellingham Design needs more top-of-the-funnel content. You should create blog posts and social media posts about web development industry topics, such as what web design is and how businesses can take advantage of it. This educational content would attract visitors who have problems, it needs solutions, but don’t know yet that Bellingham Design exists.
During the consideration stage, they should expand their use cases section into full case studies that show the specific impact of their work on the business. They should explain exactly how they improved each small business’s website and what conversion resulted from the improvements. This would serve as compelling content; it would help visitors compare different service options.
For the stage of decision, Bellingham Design should identify leads who requested contact but haven’t committed to buying their service. They should send promotional offers like one month of free back-end web design after the website is created. Since people love getting deals, this strategy could convert people on the fence into customers.
Similarities & Differences Between B2B & B2C Companies Inbound Marketing Strategies
Similarities
Both B2B and B2C companies must maintain a consistent brand voice across all platforms they create content. They both need clearly defined target audiences to create relevant content for their audiences. Regardless of the business model, when content is valuable, relevant, and consistent, people share it within their networks, which expands your reach organically. Other websites link to your quality content, and will signal search engines to rank your website higher on the search engine results page (SERP), which expands brand awareness for free.
Differences
The differences between B2B and B2C companies’ inbound marketing strategies lie in the content that the business focuses on creating. B2B companies should create valuable content that offers solutions to problems companies face, such as how to increase revenue or decrease costs. B2C companies should create valuable content addressing problems individuals face, such as being healthy, enjoying themselves, or being productive. B2C companies must focus on attracting people as individuals. B2C companies can also create engaging and entertaining content that features trends and influencers.
Understanding these key distinctions while maintaining the core principles of valuable, relevant, and consistent content allows both B2B and B2C companies to significantly improve their inbound marketing efforts and achieve better results with less money spent.