Let’s talk inbound marketing. It amazes me that many business owners are not harnessing the power of inbound marketing to generate sales and leads for their business. Inbound Marketing is marketing focusing on getting found by potential customers who are already looking for your service or product. Unlike most other forms of advertising it is most often not an interruption to what you are doing.

Inbound Marketing : Is Your Business Missing the Boat?

Incorporating Inbound Marketing is not as difficult as you might think! Here are a couple key components:

Blogs – There are many benefits to blogging. One of the primary benefits is that you are able to establish yourself as an expert in your field by sharing your knowledge through your blog.
Blogging can give you a real advantage over your competitors.

Let’s say my wife is looking for a new hair stylist. She would start her search online either via Facebook or Google. She may ask her friends on Facebook who they use or just search something like “Salon Greenville.” Out of the websites that she is referred to either by her Facebook friends or Google, if there is one that has a blog they will have a decided advantage. Why you ask? The hair stylist blog will consists of hair care and styling tips (Expertise) and depicts the personality of the stylist. We do business with people we know, like, and trust. The blog gives you the ability to build that relationship with your prospects and clients. Another advantage of the blog is that search engines love blogs. It adds more content (Keywords, Headlines, Links, etc) and search engine spiders will crawl your site more often if it is updated frequently.

Advanced Tip Alert! – Add a call to action to your blog posts. Carrying over from the example I just used, let’s say Sally, the hair stylist, did a blog about how to care for color treated hair (not sure of the terminology hair pros use but I think that is right) and at the end of the post mentioned that thru the end of the month they are running a special on a special shampoo used on colored hair with a link to buy it form her online store. Cha- Ching!

Social Media – As I pointed out earlier, Facebook often acts as a referral source for many businesses. We trust the advice of our friends when seeking out products and services. So if my wife is referred to a stylist by one of her Facebook friends, she will be inclined (since she is already there) to see if they have a Facebook page. It would blow her mind if when she searched for the particular stylist and not only did they have a Facebook page, but today they where offering a free bottle of her favorite hair care product with the purchase of a cut and color. Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner! She would be out the door and on the way to the stylist at light speed.

These are a couple of the elements of inbound marketing that can be effective for your business. I think you can see how search engine optimization and a professionally designed and optimized website would also aid in your quest to grow your leads and sales. There are numerous other elements and strategies that are employed with inbound marketing including video, landing pages, and email marketing. If you need assistance with your inbound marketing reach out to one of our heroes. We would love to talk with you and discuss how we can help you grow your customer base.

Doug Greathouse is the creative mind behind SuperHero Marketing, a web design and internet marketing firm that specializes in working with small businesses and optimizing their websites as marketing tools. Doug believes each small business owner deserves to have the same high level service and options as the big guys, and is able to optimize websites to generate leads, traffic and growth to your small business. superheromarketing.net. 

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