Leaning In: Finding Winning Inbound Marketing Strategies

Last week we introduced the topic of inbound marketing, a new approach to integrating the lifestyle aspect of potential and existing customers with meaningful content that can lead to a longstanding commercial relationship. For ecommerce merchants, inbound marketing holds enormous promise.

But it’s not as simple as its reverse strategy of outbound marketing. Sending emails, buying pop-up ads, and initiating contact at your chosen pace is waning as an effective way to win customers. Learning to work your marketing into the increasing online engagement of buyers takes patience, insight, a bit of technical know-how, and a sincere desire to improve the lives and livelihoods of everyone.
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For newer sellers who may feel out of their league, here are some tips on how to make inbound marketing work for you.

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1. Learn about your audience. Understanding what it is that drives potential customers to any site means studying user behavior on social media platforms, reading analysts’ pieces in trade publications, and following the skyrocketing phenomenon of “social influencers,” who seem to know exactly what it takes to hit on heartstrings in order to open up the purse strings.
   
   
2. Use analytics available to you. Facebook is a particularly useful social media platform with respect to assisting businesses in measuring response to content. It’s also the most widely used, as of now. Here are instructions on studying the demographics and habits of people who follow your page.
   
   
3. Go for the big win with content. Creating compelling material for your customers and future customers is the first step toward earning their attention and, most important, their trust. Focusing on you and the history of your business is not effective. Instead, focus on the people you hope to help. Find copywriters who are trained to translate knowledge and understanding into persuasiveness. If outsourcing is not in your budget, take these tips on crafting content that wins.
   
   
4. Start at Home. The home page of any website, commercial or otherwise, is the gateway that will either open doors or shut Windows – no pun intended. Make sure your site is readable, informative, and informal (if it suits your product mix). Keep it short, creating user-friendly interface through a menu with click-through navigation.
   
   
5. Witness Testimony. Testimonials from real-live people go a long way when they are believable. Not unlike review sections showing up increasingly on big box online retailers such as Amazon and Walmart, low-key, specified sites attract consumers who are smart and focused, and eager to read input from others who may experience similar needs and desires. Find out how to effectively use testimonials from Hubspot.
   
   
6. Be their guest. Guest-posting is a great way to play into a conversational pitch and earn backlinks to your page, as well as assert yourself as an authority on the product line you sell. Consistent, timely writing is critical. And publishing on blogs already blessed with engaged readers puts you well in front of the rest. Interested? Start here for great tips.
   
   

These and other strategies will ultimately move you from a sometimes-annoying, unsolicited advertiser, to a source of good information and great products. When you become part of a consumer’s daily life, you remain a window of opportunity for them to fill their needs.