Advertisements are like mosquitoes. You don’t ask for them, they appear everywhere you go, and they won’t leave you alone. Naturally, this isn’t always true, and I’ve definitely had an occasional positive experience from following an ad that was relevant to me. Too often, though, are we faced with a seemingly unrelenting stream of advertising that we just don’t care about.
But what can be done about this?
As marketers, we want to channel our time and effort into activities and strategies that will encourage possible customers to interact with our brand. To tag along with this, we also don’t want to waste money pursuing campaigns that aren’t going to land well with our audience. So how can we get around this?
Inbound Marketing.
What is inbound marketing? Great question! Inbound marketing is essentially a method of attracting potential customers by creating content, such as online articles or blog posts, that are relevant to them. Compared to outbound strategies, like the advertisements I alluded to earlier, inbound strategies encourage the forming of a relationship between your brand and your consumer. If you create a piece of content that your customer finds useful, this can help to build trust with them.
In a study conducted by MOZ, 55% of respondents said that content from online articles positively impacted their purchase decisions. In contrast, only about 20% said the same about email marketing campaigns. If nothing else, this demonstrates how marketing is a two-way channel now as opposed to simply companies bombarding leads with advertisements. People like to interact with brands and, ideally, be able to talk back to them.
So creating quality content is a good thing, but how do I know how to target who I want to engage with it?
Like most marketing campaigns, this starts with figuring out who you’re trying to target with the message you’re trying to spread. Once you have a good idea of who this is and have had time to experiment with figuring out the most appropriate ways to engage with them, you can craft a buyer persona, or a model that best describes your target customer based on research that you’ve done. By basically creating a version of your ideal customer, you can hone in on how to best deliver your message, such as what tone to use and what topics to address in the content you create. Since you can’t get to know all of your customers individually (as crazy/cool that would be), the next best option is to design a persona that generally applies to most of them.
Here is a good 5 step guide to creating buyer personas:
- Do your research. Learn what you can about the people who are already buying from you. This should include demographics and purchase behavior. You can also study your analytics (if you’re not already using Google Analytics, read my article here!). It is also definitely worth looking into what your competition is up to.
- Identify where the customers struggles are. What are their problems? What are they trying to do right now to solve them independently? What is barring them from solving them themselves? Although finding answers to these questions is easier said than done, it is a crucial part of the process. Social listening can be a great way to more organically find out more about the problems that your customers face.
- Figure out what their goals are. Besides simply solving the problems that they are facing, why are they trying to solve these problems in the first place? What is motivating them to seek a solution? Even if your customers’ goals don’t totally line up with what your brand is offering, there can still be a way for your product to be part of the solution.
- Understand how your brand can help. If there is a customer that is facing a problem that your brand can solve directly with your offering, then that customer is definitely worth pursuing. If things aren’t this direct, think to yourself: how can I/my brand help? What distinguishing features would make my offering the best helper for my customer in their search for a solution?
- Convert all of this into your ultimate persona. Now you know who you’re looking for, what their problems are, and how your offering can help them. All of the pieces are ready!
Ultimately, inbound marketing is about creating content that will draw customers to your brand instead of chasing them around with advertisements that they may or may not be totally interested in seeing. In order to foster a long-term relationship with your consumers, consider adopting an inbound or content based strategy. Buyer personas can help by creating a clear image of who you’re trying to reach with your message. It’s about quality over quantity.
Now, you might be thinking to yourself: Ian, is there a reason your first blog post is about inbound marketing? I’m glad you asked! As someone looking to apply my marketing knowledge and skill set in a professional setting, the goal of this blog is to provide valuable content for my target audience (people who might want to hire someone like me) and, as I said earlier, build trust and demonstrate the quality that I bring to the table. Great articles can be a great inbound marketing tactic.
If you’d like to connect on LinkedIn, please do! I would love to chat.
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