What is Inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing is a term coined by marketing company HubSpot , which refers to a set of techniques useful for “being found by customers“; it is in contrast to Outbound marketing, whose point is to “buy the attention of customers“ through traditional advertising media (print, radio, TV, billboards, etc.).

1. Worthy content: the key point of the whole strategy. On the website there should be interesting and useful information in order to attract the attention of potential customers.
2. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): the website must be designed and constructed to maximize your rankings in search engines; it is the starting point of the marketing process.
3. Social media: they are especially effective to accelerate the viral spread of content and consequently increase the traffic to the site of origin of the content. There can be used Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, Intagram, Foursquare, but also blogs e forums.

The 4 stages of marketing

The four steps for a good marketing strategy are:

1. Attract: the ability to be found on the Internet through the keywords that potential customers are looking for on the search engines and being present on social in active form.
2. Convert: satisfy potential customers’ interest. In this step the visitors turn into possible contacts: it is therefore necessary to collect their data giving them something in return (estimating guides, practical tips, ebooks ..)
3. Close. Here the contacts turn into actual customers. The deal is done!
4. Delight. Customers must be maintained. Do not forget that satisfied customers become promoters fantastic for your business!

Advantages

• Less costs: with inbound marketing is not necessary to buy advertising space, acquire lists of e-mail, commissioning paperwork, rent huge pavilions in exhibitions … Instead, we need to create good content and discuss it: on blogs, Facebook or Twitter accounts, etc.
• Better targeting: with inbound marketing it is easier to reach a specific audience, which shows interest in the broadcast content and therefore is interested in the company’s products.