What is Inbound Marketing? (And Why It Works So Well)

What is Inbound Marketing? (And Why It Works So Well)

Inbound Marketing is quite simple. This attracts customers who are looking for what you have.

If done right, you can see more leads and customers coming to your business for a fraction of what you would spend on offline ads. Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it?

But this does not happen overnight. And these results are not guaranteed. To be successful in implementing inbound marketing in your business, you need to understand how these strategies should mimic the way your customers behave.

Here we leave you with how to start.

• How the Buyer’s Journey Works
• Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing
• How Inbound Marketing Works

How the Buyer’s Journey Works

There was no internet a hundred years ago. There was no television. There was no radio. Just a couple of newspapers. Maybe one or two grand per town. And that was it.

Let’s fast forward a bit in time, and the same thing happened very early in television and radio. There were only a couple of channels at first. It wasn’t much.

Clients, therefore, remained in the dark. They couldn’t verify the data. They could only see some of the available options and get information from the companies, the data that the companies decided to tell them.

The world looks a little different now. Instead of ten UHF channels, we have thousands. Instead of one to two terrestrial radio stations, we now have tens of thousands. Now instead of having two local newspapers, we have millions of blogs.

Consumers are no longer in the dark. They no longer need companies to tell them what they want them to buy or believe. They are no longer forced to consume so much garbage.

Buyers are now in control.

They are engaged in actively researching what they want. All this without having to speak to another human being – until they are ready. And at that point? They probably already know almost the same as the seller.

Think about the idea of ​​buying a car. In the past, you depended on ignoring all these high-pressure tactics to get a ‘good deal.’ Today? Arrive at Kelly Blue Book value and accept less than that.

This is also happening in today’s larger purchases.

In its 2018 B2B Buyers Survey Report, Demand Gen Report painted the following picture of how the savviest businesses go about evaluating purchases of hundreds, and even millions of dollars:

• 45% of shoppers spent more time researching purchases than last year.
• 46% determine which solutions fit best with their current partners in the first three months.
• 38% also developed an informal list of potential vendors in the first three months.

What do you understand from this?

This suggests that savvy customers are spending more time and using more resources – not less – than even a year ago. And this is much higher than ten years ago.

The ‘buyer’s journey’ encompasses this entire research phase for consumers. Everything from that feeling of need to evaluating alternatives, before finally settling on a company to move forward with.

People today don’t hear about a brand on the radio or in the newspaper and buy it right away. Instead, they go from channel to channel or to other devices, at least a dozen times, before showing up in the store or consuming from your website.

We’ve seen this firsthand at Kinsta. People don’t just sign up for a new hosting provider, there’s always a journey involved. They will probably look at more than 10 of our competitors, before thinking about making a decision.

This is what the buyer’s journey looks like from the mind of a consumer.

Initially, the buyer doesn’t really know what he wants or needs. That’s why you still need to post ads or updates on your social networks to get their attention.

It is only when they understand that they have a problem that they will begin to investigate to obtain more information. Once they have a picture of the situation, they will move on to the evaluation period to compare their alternatives, before pulling the metaphorical trigger.

Google calls it the ‘proactive investigation’ phase, the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT). This covers all of those activities before someone picks up the phone or types your site’s URL into the search bar.