Now that 1 year has passed this year, small business owners are looking to the future. Small business owners are looking for new ways to attract prospects in order to achieve success in 2022. Sales and customer success play an important role in this process, but there's one method you shouldn't forget.
inbound marketing.
Why is that so important? One of the most important benefits of implementing inbound marketing is that it can be found online. If customers can't easily find you (such as within Google's initial search implementation results page), your lead generation efforts may be negatively impacted.
Another key element of inbound marketing is making sure your audience can turn to you for expertise. When I don't know how to approach an issue, I usually search on Google, and when I find an expert who can solve that problem and provide solutions to other issues I didn't know I was facing, I built a relationship of trust with that expert. That means your organization has a better chance of running a successful business because they'll trust you when they're ready to make a purchase.
But first, what is inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is a way to improve online lead generation for your business through blogging, social media, and search engine optimization (SEO). All of these factors combine to attract customers to your website and begin building trust through helpful content.
To clearly define it, let's ask inbound marketing pioneer HubSpot for a definition.
Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them.
Inbound marketing can target a wide variety of online services. This includes:
Unlike outbound marketing, this form of marketing is also known as “pull marketing.” Instead of cold calling potential prospects, they “attract” prospects to the website through useful content and high search implementation rankings.
As HubSpot notes, outbound marketing distracts audiences with content they don't necessarily want, while inbound marketing forms a true connection with what the audience is looking for and solves the challenges they already have.
I know what you're thinking. It might be something like, “How does this marketing strategy relate to getting leads and increasing revenue?”
Don't worry, we have the answer.
Events, world news, and other information streams are constantly competing for individual mental energy, making it difficult for small businesses to break through that barrier.
If your team is focused on creating useful and educational content, you know you care about your audience. In return, your business is more likely to always be at the forefront and center of the customer's mind.
For example, potential prospects may be tired of working or surfing the internet. To find new articles, you might type in keywords related to your job or industry. They might come across blog posts on your website that point out (and resolve) useful information. Issues they may not have been aware of.
They'll remember that you've provided knowledge that helped them in the past, and they're much more likely to return to your organization when they need more help. The more useful content you create, the more new users will find your website.
Combine this content with other social evidence, such as online reviews on Google and Clutch, and you have plenty of opportunities to guide customers on the buyer journey.
One of our guiding principles in marketing is that we need to “crawl before we walk, walk before we run.” Even if small businesses embark on the “crawling” phase (so-called) of their inbound marketing strategy, they may not have reached their competitors' online authority.
But what are those crawl stages? For many businesses, the best starting point for marketing is posting to social media twice a week, blogging once or twice a month, and sending an email newsletter.
This basic level of inbound marketing starts by showing the online world that you exist and are ready to help your target audience.
By writing the content that buyer personas are searching online, small businesses can be more visible to ideal prospects by providing useful information. To know what to start writing, ask yourself, “What challenges do customers face every day that they can solve with a blog post?”
One common reason small businesses fail is that marketing becomes less of a priority. In a survey of 101 bankrupt companies, 14% had neglected their marketing strategies. If this feels like it's happening in a small business, don't worry. An experienced inbound marketing agency can eliminate that work and produce measurable implementation results.
An example of increasing the reputation of a business is posting regularly to a platform with an audience. LinkedIn is a great platform to start posting at least once a week. Aspire follows a proven social posting method called the 60/30/10 rule.
60% of your monthly posts should be curated content—articles relevant to your business that your audience is likely to be interested in. 30% of posts must be content written by you, such as blogs or articles. Second, 10% of posts must be promotional. Remind your viewers what you can offer in between engaging articles.
From a survey of 351 small business owners, Clutch found that 61% of small businesses use social media marketing to market their products and content. Also, using software to pre-schedule posts, it's easier than ever to take advantage of these platforms.
Keep in mind that with inbound marketing, teams can't achieve overnight success. This is a long-term strategy for gaining loyal and engaged customers with high ROI.
As small businesses begin creating knowledgeable content and website traffic starts to increase, you'll notice that their website pages begin to rank higher in search engines.
This SEO strategy is an important cog in the small business lead generation machine. Once content starts to appear on the first page of the search implementation results page, it means that a wide range of internet is being launched to acquire customers searching for highly relevant phrases.
Google is smart and does its best to quickly deliver useful content to users. One way to do this is by calculating the website's E.A.T. (expertise, authority, trustworthiness) score. This score affects your website's rank. There are various factors that Google uses to rank websites, but unfortunately not many of them are publicly available. Well-known factors include:
The main reason small businesses set up websites is to promote their products and services, but it's important to remember that your audience isn't always looking to buy. Prospective customers are enthralled when they show up on Google's first page, have helpful content, and prove they're a reliable source of information.
The secret is that real people don't really like ads unless it's during the Super Bowl.
In the B2B world, the buying process takes time and time. This means that small businesses must constantly build trust and prove their knowledge. By creating content that demonstrates your team's willingness to help, more prospects will visit your website and improve your Google search adoption ranking (and industry authority).
With a high-quality website and a well-designed inbound marketing strategy, small businesses can pave the way to the top search adoption performance pages and gain recognition from more customers.
Ready to learn the basics of inbound marketing and get more leads on your website? Optimize your small business marketing strategy with our free e-book.