Why Inbound Marketing Works
“Proper inbound marketing begins with good branding, attention to detail, and something worth sharing.”
Why inbound marketing works better than, for example, outbound marketing (more specifically social media marketing) could be attributed to the fact that visitors are leads upon arrival. There’s a contrast, of course, but generally speaking, individuals finding your content online are already interested in what you have to offer since they initiated the search. Make no mistake, these warm-to-buy users are highly targeted by the publisher via techniques such as SEO (i.e., search engine optimization), among others.
Building Trust
Just because someone interacts with your site, it doesn’t mean that they will buy, ultimately. That’s why value must be offered, ideally, on a regular basis. Traditionally, publishers did so by sending a free download (whether it be an e-book, whitepaper, or app) to whomever would subscribe to their newsletter (i.e, mailing list), with the goal being to build enough trust (once again from providing a complimentary digital good) to entice these users to potentially purchase a paid product or service in the future. This form of direct marketing also helped build readership, viewership, and/or a listener base, because subsequent emails would often include blog posts and other forms of online content.
More recently, an increasing number of content creators have moved their focus toward the flywheel method of marketing. What this means, simply, is that they publish articles, podcast episodes, videos, code snippets, complete applications (Web/browser-based and/or downloadable), etc consistently to their site(s). Being free and readily available, this method quickly helps to develop a healthy bond between a publisher and its followers.
Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Of course, these days, people don’t tell others about websites, products, and/or services they’re interested in; instead, they share them online. More specifically, they share them with their social networks. Community marketing can have a powerful effect on traffic building. It’s even more powerful when highly targeted. How could this be done? Simply by adding social share links to your site. Once you’ve developed enough trust with your users (yet again, by delivering value), they’ll often reciprocate by sharing your pages, posts, articles, podcasts/audios, videos, etc throughout social media (including, ideally, niche-related business pages & profiles). And because their often like-minded friends, connections, and followers trust them, warm leads (naturally those interested in the topic at hand) quickly follow.
Other word-of-mouth traffic techniques might entail a type of rewards program (also known as a referral program) where third-party publishers (i.e., other website owners) and even visitors may share a paid product (such as, but not limited to, premium content) in exchange for money upon referrals leading up to a sale (as in the case with affiliate marketing [i.e., affiliate programs]), a reduction in price on the product itself for personal usage, or a gift (or a chance to win that gift).
There is, of course, the possibility of individuals spreading the word about a site (especially specific content and/or products) through email, but it’s safe to assume that this is becoming less common. Either way, proper inbound marketing, which begins with good branding, attention to detail, and something worth sharing (on a slightly less technical level) inevitably leads to all of the above.
Conversion
The bottom line clearly reflects why inbound marketing works for most entrepreneurial models. If you sell (and post your content) directly through social media exclusively, you’ll likely make less than if it was via a website initiative (once again, promoted by means of both organic SEO [including A.I. scrapers] and social sharing). This may sound counter-intuitive (because, clearly, everyone seems to be on social media), but the distraction from competing content along with disruptive ads has, without a doubt, a significantly negative effect on sales… hence, why it’s better to own your original content and conduct all e-commerce operations through a website that’s uniquely yours. This also encourages repeat visits & purchases because, with inbound marketing, you control the message.