Elements of Inbound Marketing: Content is King

When your neighborhood realtor says that the three most important things in real estate are “location, location, location” you might roll our eyes, unless you are looking for a new home and then you may nod in agreement.

The thing about “old sayings” is they typically have enough truth to them to have staying power.

Inbound marketing is new enough to not have any “old sayings” yet, but it may not be long before your neighborhood marketer says that the three most important things in inbound marketing are “content, content, content.”

Eye rolls aside, when it comes to the elements of inbound marketing, content truly is king.

Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing

If you are new to inbound marketing, it might help to consider what inbound marketing is in relation to traditional or outbound marketing.

Traditional marketing is built on media and tactics such as television, radio, billboards, cold calls and unsolicited emails.

In this method, your marketing messaging is outbound, usually cast over a wide area, looking to find customers.

Inbound marketing is about building long-term relationships instead of focusing on short-term sales.

By providing content that educates, entertains, and even inspires, inbound marketing attracts potential customers by building brand awareness and establishing your company as a trusted source of knowledgeable information.

A focused inbound marketing campaign, with relevant content to your prospective customers, can turn strangers to your company into frequent visitors as they return to consume your content.

Over time these visitors will become leads and hopefully convert into customers. If your company goodwill and brand awareness are strong enough those customers may even become advocates for your product.

Strong Content to Rank High on Google

Of course, your inbound marketing will only be as strong as your content.

People are online every day looking for information, education, solutions, products, services, and entertainment. If you create quality content, search engines such as Google will rank your pages high in their results, thus driving traffic to your website.

This is important because, according to HubSpot’s Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics for 2020:

• 49% of users say they use Google to discover or find a new item or product.
• 51% of shoppers surveyed say they use Google to research a purchase they plan to make online.
• Search is the number one traffic source to blogs across all industries.

It is All About “Content, Content, Content”

You need quality content to make your inbound marketing work and there are many types of content to choose from including:

• Blogs: The cornerstone of inbound marketing, blogs should be informative and useful articles posted on your website at regular intervals.
• Articles:  Similar to blogs, these articles, usually posted on third-party media sites, establish your authority on a subject or area and drive traffic to your website.
• Case Studies: More than a testimonial, a case study should show a customer’s specific need you identified and how you provided them with the successful solution.
• Demos: Do not just show how your product works but showcase within a customer’s story and how your product played a key role in helping them.
• Permission-based Emails: These emails should incentivize your readers to take action by clicking links to more of your content.
• Social Messaging: From Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn and other social media channels, you can share your content with followers and they in turn can share it with others.
• Surveys: This powerful tool can be designed to tailor to your target customer profile and help you understand what is important to them.
• Videos: Use videos, where possible, to reinforce the content you are sharing in blogs, articles, case studies, demos, and on social media. In 2020, of any content created, a video has the most chance of going viral.

There are many other types of content you can utilize in your inbound marketing including brochures, eBooks, information guides, manuals, online courses, podcasts, presentations, webinars, and white papers.

The best news is that inbound marketing content is more cost effective than traditional marketing and has a greater shelf life, with the content you are creating today driving traffic to your website for years to come.

And guess what, we are inbound marketing experts! We won't say gurus, because experts sounds haughty enough. But if you need some help, please reach out and we'll be in touch.