Inbound as a philosophy

Philosophically, the term “inbound” goes beyond the marketing function, though the scope of this book is limited to marketing strategy and initiatives. Inbound as a business philosophy, and specifically as a marketing philosophy, refers to a complex customer-centric business model.

In particular, inbound marketing is a paradigm shift from the belief and practice of interruptive “push” marketing methods to a philosophy of attractive “pull” marketing. Inbound marketing isn’t solely about great creative campaigns, beautiful graphic design, or logos. Although these things may represent characteristics of inbound marketing, a truly attractive inbound marketing campaign dives deeper than sleek advertising whose main intention is to seek attention.

Does your organization believe in the inbound philosophy? Here are some traits of the inbound methodology:

• Your company innovates based on satisfying unfulfilled consumer needs.
• Your customer relationship extends beyond the transactional.
• Your company connects with customers at multiple levels at multiple points in time.
• Your focus is beyond making the first sale, extending to creating a customer for life.
• You encourage customer interaction, listen to feedback, and respond accordingly.

The inbound philosophy thrives upon mutual trust, meaningful relationships, and two-way communication. Inbound marketing creates shared connections between consumer and company based on mutually beneficial connective points. The most successful companies create value beyond the product or service they’re selling to enhance a consumer’s lifestyle. Brands like Starbucks and Red Bull have a value that extends well beyond the customer’s need for a beverage; they represent an aspirational lifestyle to which their customers connect on such a deep level they actually “live” the brand.

Inbound marketing as a system of attraction and conversion

In practice, inbound marketing is a connected system of online customer attraction and conversion. When a stranger becomes a lead, a lead becomes a customer, and that customer lives and advocates your brand … that is the flawless execution of inbound marketing. This powerful conversion process is why more and more organizations are practicing inbound marketing. Of companies that practice inbound marketing, 93 percent see an increase in lead generation.

Using this principle, inbound marketing specifically aims to attract those potential customers who have signaled or demonstrated an interest in what your organization has to offer. You have a valuable product or service consumers want or need — something they’re searching for online. Inbound marketing speaks directly to that need by creating conversations that connect with prospective customers, then facilitating a positive conversion action. By the way, these conversions are not always measured by the items in the online shopping cart. Your desired conversion action may certainly be a purchase, but it also may be any derived action, including:

• Donations
• Reviews
• Shares or Likes on Facebook
• Retweets on Twitter
• Downloads
• Demos
• Free trials
• Webinars
• Newsletters

By offering value and facilitating connections, inbound marketing “pulls” in customers based on their specific expressed needs. This attractive “pull” method is a key approach that defines inbound marketing.

Simply put, the practice of inbound marketing can be defined as:

Traditional marketing

Traditional marketing was designed with good intentions, but it was limited by the medium. Before the advent of the Internet and the resulting proliferation of information and data, control of information rested in the hands of a few powerful media outlets. If you wanted to know the weather forecast, for example, you stayed up late to watch the evening news. Remember when TiVo was considered cool because you could watch your favorite show whenever you wanted?

Traditional marketing worked, and it can still work, but traditional marketing, by definition, is a one-way message from brand to consumer. Traditional marketing was founded on interruptive, product-centric messaging, and it relies on massive message broadcasting that’s not conducive to developing meaningful, personalized consumer relationships. Further, more media choices means more fragmentation. Consumers accessing multiple screens simultaneously (TV, desktop, mobile devices) results in divided consumer attention, eroding the impact of your commercial message. Individual media consumption and behavior is migrating away from broadcast messaging. So although traditional marketing consumption is still great when measured in terms of hours spent with traditional media, it is becoming less relevant and less effective.

Inbound marketing

Inbound marketing works for the very reason that traditional marketing doesn’t. Inbound marketing meets a previously undiscovered or unfulfilled need: creating meaningful conversations based on individual actions.

By definition, inbound marketing systems create opportunities through bidirectional messaging between brand and consumer. This two-way messaging is attractive to individual consumers who wish to engage on their terms and based on their perceived needs.

Although traditional and inbound marketing campaigns may be combined, they are quite frequently misused, such as TV ads with QR codes or the annoying pop-up ads on websites. It’s too easy for online searchers to bounce from your website by clicking somewhere else, leaving your site and engaging elsewhere with another brand, maybe your competitors. Knowing that traditional marketing practices do not apply to your inbound marketing success helps you avoid costly mistakes, lost revenues, and negative reviews. (Table 1-1 compares the features of inbound and traditional marketing.)

Attracting interest with inbound marketing

What is inbound marketing if it does not address the needs of your prospective customers? Nothing. So, give customers what they want. Period.

The first tenet of inbound marketing is attraction, search engine marketing (SEM). SEM consists of various methods of attracting people to your website. The various forms of SEM that attract include:

• Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns through Google AdWords re-targeting campaigns
• Bing ads in the U.S. and Baidu in China
• Online paid display advertising
• Paid listings
• Search retargeting and remarketing
• Search engine optimization (SEO) to be found in organic rankings
• Content marketing
• Social media campaigns on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and so on
• Email marketing

Purists contend that paid search and online banner advertising are not part of the inbound family. I disagree because SEM practiced under the inbound philosophy is attractive marketing, meaning it serves up relevant results that satisfy consumer needs, based on your understanding of those needs. PPC is a subcategory of SEM and inbound SEM helps attract visitors to your website. Your website content should be relevant, timely, and well-organized regardless of whether it is earned or paid media that attracts the prospective buyer.

Creating internal and external connections with inbound marketing

Effective inbound processes systematically track visitor and customer onsite behaviors. A well-designed inbound system delivers timely, relevant, and contextual information. We call this content.

So, ideally, you’ll be able to deliver the information your prospects and customers want when they want it. That’s determined by:

• The customer’s location in the Purchase Funnel/Buyer’s Journey/Lifestyle Loop
• The buyer profile/persona with whom you’re attempting to create a conversation
• The product/service/conversion you’re encouraging the customer to seek and buy

Causing customer conversions with inbound marketing

Customer conversion is a process rather than a single end event. As you can see in Figure 1-1, customer conversions are a series of progressive, connected events. There are key conversion events that can be measured and should be. Each of these key conversions is a link in the Customer Conversion Chain.

The customer conversion process and the Customer Conversion Chain are covered more in-depth in Chapter 19.

Diagnosing with a baseline assessment/audit

Imagine this scenario: You walk into your doctor’s office after twisting your ankle, and he says, “Don’t bother sitting down. You look sick. I’m going to get you on chemotherapy right away. Come back and see me next year if you don’t get better.” You’d leave, wouldn’t you? Any sane person would.

Physicians are trained to diagnose before they prescribe. Marketers should do the same. Like a good physician, you should begin by asking questions of your organization:

• How do you know where you’re trying to go if you don’t know where you are?
• Do you know your consumer profiles?
• Have you written target buyer personas?
• Do you know what motivates your prospective customers?
• Do you know and measure your website and page visits, conversion rates, and track leads from marketing to sales?
• Are you able to source those leads?
• What’s the value of your customers?
• Can you connect this data, reporting it as meaningful business ratios?

Diagnosing your current marketing situation will help you see where your organization is as opposed to where you want to be. You’ll discover there is a gap. Don’t worry, there’s always a gap. If there wasn’t, you couldn’t grow.

Unless you are a panicked marketer or an irresponsible marketer, or unless you just like to leave you or your clients’ success up to the whims of Lady Luck, performing a marketing diagnostic is the best starting point.

Prescribing business solutions through strategy

Strategy is a written prescription. Effective inbound marketers start with a strategic assessment (diagnosis) and a formal, written strategic document. This strategic document is your inbound strategy prescription. The best inbound strategies

• Define your current state with highly defined metrics
• Identify your organization’s desired end business results
• Define future success, usually in dollars
• Perform a SWOT analysis — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
• Include SMART goals — specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and timebound
• Use keyword research to uncover consumer needs
• Connect your current state to your desired future state with a series of well-planned marketing initiatives
• Outline a prioritized set of initiatives to most efficiently reach goals and objectives
• Include a content strategy
• Assign ownership and accountability
• Define meaningful metrics by which your success will be gauged

The idea of including a SWOT analysis and articulating SMART goals is not a revolutionary one. It should be standard practice for marketers, but it’s not. It’s time inbound marketers incorporate a common business practice into their actions and language. So, start with strategy based on a solid audit or assessment or don’t start at all. Anything else is just a sophisticated form of gambling.

Applying solutions with inbound initiatives

The third step is to apply solutions. Remember, the inbound marketer is solving customer problems and business problems, not mere marketing problems. The marketing is the connection between product and persona, and there is no singular path to achieving success. With inbound marketing, there is rarely a “right” or “wrong” initiative. The world is too complicated, the competition too sophisticated, and the consumer too dynamic to predict everything. So even though you’re attempting to satisfy a successful desired end result, the path may be twisting with some blind spots along the way. Your end destination is the same, but your method of getting there may change as you uncover new information.

You’re here to solve business problems. This is where the marketing expertise of yourself, your team, and your professional marketing partners converge. Knowing your organization’s strengths and weaknesses and knowing when to ask for help is as important as the inbound marketing initiatives themselves.