For over 10 years, inbound marketing, as a concept and practice, has been the most effective marketing method for doing business online. In addition to traditional “outbound” marketing methods of buying ad space in print and online with various emarketing tools to nurture leads, inbound marketing focuses on creating content that pulls people toward your company or product.

Developing content to support customer needs and interests increases building awareness and credibility — and inbound traffic to nurture leads and grow your sales pipeline. Many companies do rather well at building awareness but fall short of following through on monitoring and best responding to the course of this customer experience. Fundamental to inbound (and the outbound that supports it) is the understanding and development of the customer experience for your customer personas — those traits and buying behaviors, internal roles, and personal pain points that define your customer base. Developing content geared toward the needs and interests of unique personas further optimizes your true opportunities for success.

So What is Inbound?

Inbound is all about making a more meaningful connection with your prospects and customers through the creation and sharing of relevant content. By developing content that is specifically designed to appeal to your ideal customers, inbound marketing The Power of “Inbound” for Digital Marketing (& Sales!) Success attracts better qualified prospects to your business like a magnet — engaging and retaining leads in ways traditional advertising can’t.

Inbound marketing isn’t “automation.” It requires action. Deployed correctly, the Inbound Methodology provides a comprehensive approach to managing every interaction and stage of your buyer’s journey — from total stranger to happy customer. Your end goal is to achieve and maintain the perfect marketing trifecta of precisely delivering the right content, in the right place at the right time. It takes experimentation and an open mind to learn what works and what doesn’t when it comes to your audience. The good news is that there are many tools and best practices shared in the market that can make your inbound efforts easier to facilitate, monitor, and manage.

Next Steps: Personalizing Multichannel Marketing

1. Consider how inbound marketing can positively transform your marketing to sales hand-off
2. Learn your market thorough market research
3. Set goals for your marketing efforts and tie them closely to your sales strategy
4. Define your ideal customer
5. Develop compelling thought leadership
6. Share your insights on all of your digital channels to build on your brand
7. Measure your results to be sure that what you’re sharing is making an impact
8. Nurture your leads through the buyers journey with streamlined automation
9. Strike when the iron is hot and gain those opportunities, using both demand and lead-generation intelligence
10. Delight your customers through personalized / tailored experiences — both in-person and online