The fundamental goal of marketing is to increase business sales by increasing public awareness of a product or service. For many years, marketers have been using a variety of outbound marketing strategies -- e-mail blasts, telemarketing, direct mail, TV, radio, and print advertising just to name a few -- in order to reach their target audience and engage potential buyers. However, these tactics are not as effective as they once were.
Technology not only enables customers to block the advances of traditional outbound marketers, but allows them to make informed choices through online research before they buy. Most buyers use three different facets of the Internet to do this.
Search Engines
The average person conducts dozens of Google searches a day. It’s easier and more gratifying to sit at a desk and look for helpful information than it is to sort through junk mail, be interrupted by telemarketers, fly to a trade show, or spammed by pop-ups.
An effective SEO (or search engine optimization) strategy will help you meet the certain search engine criteria so you can improve your business’s search engine results ranking. Check out this blog post for three easy steps that will help you improve your SEO and in turn, grow your business.
Blogs
There are more than 150 million blogs active online and each one is being written for a specific group of interested people. When someone enters a question or a group of keywords into a search engine, more often than not, one of these blogs posts will appear with a solution.
That being said, blogging is a serious matter. In fact, 37% of businesses who blog believe it is the most valuable type of content marketing. Four years from now, it is estimated that your customers will manage 85% of their business relationships without ever talking to a human. As you and I both know, quality customer relationships yield a better bottom line. Blogging is one of the top ways you can communicate with your audience and continue growing your business, making it a big money maker. Learn more about the importance of blogging.
Social Media
Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are only a few of the social media networks people engage with on a regular basis. Here, they share ideas, recommendations, and company reviews with anyone and everyone who happens to spare a glance. Not sure if your social media efforts are paying off? Likes, shares, and retweets should positively affect these four things. Find out what they are here.
For growing businesses who want to sell more product, the dissolution of outbound marketing could be considered a problem. However, it’s really only a problem if your marketing strategy remains stagnant. By listening to your customers and understanding the ways new prospects learn and shop, you can adapt your strategy into a more profitable one through inbound marketing.
Are you ready to say goodbye to old marketing methods? Get your free marketing assessment today!