Content is still king! Even with all the developments in marketing, good quality content is still one of the most powerful marketing tools you have. This is because it allows customers to come to you, which is the point behind inbound marketing. 

There are many different inbound marketing strategies that marketers shout about these days, but which ones actually work? We explore our favourite inbound marketing strategies here and explain why we think these are the most effective marketing strategies to help you increase your consumer base. 

What is inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing is all about getting customers to contact you – to get enquiries coming inbound. The idea is to develop meaningful and lasting relationships with your customers by showing them that you value them. It’s a completely buyer-centric solution that focuses on your customers’ needs and desires. By putting content out there, you attract people to your company and draw them in, but they do not feel like they’re being sold to. 

Therefore, the content produced needs to be heavily optimised for search and social media, but it should also be created with the customer in mind – educational and entertaining. If done well, inbound marketing is a lot more effective than traditional marketing. Plus, all the leads are 100% organic and therefore doesn’t require a big budget. 

But what inbound marketing strategies are actually effective? 

Top inbound marketing strategies

Define your ideal customer

Since inbound marketing is highly consumer-centric, the first thing to do is to define who your consumer actually is! Are they male/female? What age range do they fall in? What are their interests? Where are they from? What job title do they have?

You can obtain all this information from Google Analytics, or insights from your Facebook/Instagram pages. By understanding who you are talking to, you can curate your content accordingly, so that it feels more personal to their needs. 

Optimise your website

If you’re putting quality content out there, the last thing you want to do is have your website let you down. If your website is confusing to navigate or there is too much going on, it can put people off. Again, it’s important to get into the mind of the consumer. 

You should also ensure that your website is inbound-ready; internal links should be set up so that it leads visitors to a conversion point and you should have email subscriptions or landing pages set up with offers to entice people to come back for more. 

High quality content

This is the most important feature of any inbound marketing strategy. You need to create consistent, compelling content that’s tailored to your reader. Generic content does not perform well, and you won’t see an improvement in your rank. Search engines are now getting smarter, so if you do not create content that users specifically want to see, you simply won’t rank. 

Here are our top tips for creating quality content:

• Craft an enticing headline: this is what draws readers in immediately
• Don’t be afraid to write in-depth articles with lots of data: according to research by Curata, long-form content generates 9x more leads!
• Make your content more visual: if you’re creating long-form content, no one is going to enjoy a boring read. Break the text up with graphics, charts and imagery. 
• Create persona-driven blogs: look sat each of your buyer personas and create blog posts targeted specifically to those individuals. 

There are a lot of great inbound marketing strategies out there, but content will always be king, so everything will revolve around this. However, not all strategies work for everyone, so please be prepared for a lot of trial and error.