10 Advantages of inbound marketing

As part of ‘Sugar for the brain’, we often look for the newest trends and developments to enrich our knowledge. Unfortunately, due to the suspension of meetings, this is not possible. As a certified partner of the SAAS platform HubSpot for marketing, CRM, sales, and service software, we have access to an extensive online Academy. The Inbound Marketing idea is at the foundation of HubSpot and, therefore, the Academy.

Inbound marketing is

1. Customer-focused
People that are good listeners are often seen as good interlocutors. At Inbound Marketing, this is also the case. The focus is, therefore, mainly on the challenge of a prospect. Organisations with an Inbound mindset help potential clients answer their questions. It is up to the prospect to determine if your product or service is the right solution.

2. Target audience focused
By focusing on the wishes, questions, and needs of your target audience, you will get to know the prospect. In the case of Inbound, this means starting the conversation and doing thorough research on this target audience. Setting up Buyer Personas will give you an idea of the ideal prospect. The Buyer Personas are adjusted as you gather more information about new and existing customers. It allows you to stay close to the target audience.

3. Low-cost
By shifting the focus to Inbound Marketing, you are not dependent on purchasing expensive media channels, such as radio, television, print, or online advertising space. Most of the marketing takes place on organic channels. By generating traffic to organic channels, you are guiding your visitors (prospects) to your website and social channels in a low-cost way.

4. Duurzaam
When using a traditional form of advertising, the principle is the following: “invest your money, and they will show your message to a certain group of people”. When you run out of budget, nobody will see your message anymore. It is a long-term strategy, but once you have good online findability, you will benefit from it for a long time. It asks for patience, but wait long enough, and Inbound Marketing will work for you.

5. Efficient
The prospects decide when and how they will look for specific information. They can do so at any moment during the day, and from wherever (on every device). Inbound Marketing responds perfectly to being 24/7 because an organisation should always have the relevant information ready.

6. Initiative at the customer
In the digital age, prospects will not be told what to do immediately. They will look for solutions, products or services online themselves. According to the research of HubSpot, 70% of the customer journey takes place without having any contact with sales. An organisation with an Inbound mindset can ensure that the initiative comes from the prospect instead of the sales team. Marketing automation tools allow you consistently generate qualitative leads for the sales team.

7. Data-driven content
By creating data-driven content, you can accurately respond to relevant questions. You (the expert) can answer these questions in an early stage. It immediately adds value to the content for a prospect. No matter the phase of the customer journey the prospect is in you are always sharing valuable information as an expert in the industry. By monitoring and analysing this data regularly, you create a better insight into the behaviour of prospects, which allows you to optimise buyer personas.

8. Connecting
Businesses with an Inbound mindset like to talk about all aspects of their organisation. This makes the organisation transparent both internally and externally. Everyone must be acquainted with the corporate story of the organisation internally to achieve this. Regardless of the functions, positions or responsibilities, everyone should be able to give the same answers to the same questions. Unambiguous about mission/vision and core values, how the organisation works, which customers they serve and what they mean for the organisation.

9. Authority and thought leadership
When you think of sports shoes, you quickly think of Nike or Adidas. If you are thinking of a soda brand, Coca-Cola is the first to jump to your mind. Why? Because these brands are leading within their industry. You acquire authority by investing in your position as a ‘thought leader’. The product or service you offer is the solution for a specific challenge of the prospect as you are doing what you are good at.

10. Brand awareness
Last but not least, people love to forward valuable content to others. Numerous content creation models are available for creating content. They all lead to the same goal: creating relevant online content. For social channels, it is especially crucial to create ‘snackable and shareable’ content. It allows the content to be pointed out functionally via several axes. No matter on which communication channels the content is shared, quality content can generate ‘online word of mouth’.

The main advantage of Inbound Marketing is that it gives a sense of direction to what type of content to create. It allows you as an organisation to direct i.a the content marketing and customer approach accordingly and effectively. There are countless advantages and arguments to name; in general, it is about developing an Inbound mindset that allows you to work according to the needs of a prospect or customer. Together you come up with the ultimate solution to any challenge.