If you’re a bit interested in trends, you’ve heard of Slow Cosmetics. Now, it’s coming to marketing and we see new strategies coming: slow marketing strategies !
Why marketers start to do it slow ?
There is a trend arising on all markets: the slow trend. From cosmetics to food and marketing, taking your time is now the new thing to do. Actually, we mostly talk about high quality products. For instance, in slow cosmetics, we’re looking for the best quality ingredients, the greenest product, organic and with less number of ingredients.
In Marketing, this is the same basics. Instead of trying to get to the customer in all ways possible as the 360 strategies aim to do, the main principle in slow marketing is to let the customer come to your brand. Because he is interested in what you’ve got to say and not because he is fed up of being followed by your brand wherever he goes on the internet and is curious to find out who is behind all communications he receives.
And that’s why marketers are adopting slow marketing or inbound marketing. As the name show it, the way things work changes with this inbound strategy. Whereas outbound which is basically sending out content and messages towards your target. Here, the objective is to let people in, find the brand on their own. This implies that brands need to be more efficient in their content strategies.
Inbound marketing to forget the old way
This trend is a new way of working in the marketing industry. All marketing automation and content webinars prove it easily. The world has changed. Customer just use google to find anything: a new pair of shoes, what’s happening around them, a new job, even learn new competences. So, brands just need to take advantage from that fact. How ? Rethinking their way of communicating.
Make the customer comes towards you
To attract the customer, there’s many ploys but here, content is king. The main weapon of inbound marketing is to create wonderful and efficient content. It can, of course, be articles but also videos, webinars, guides, ebook, infographics, checklists… and so on.
Brands have to keep in mind the needs of their audience. In that attraction phase, people aren’t ready yet to buy anything but they can get to know the brand and evaluate its legitimiacy, personality, value and professionalism. Indeed, for example, a shoe brand would be able to create content about fashion trends, quality shoes, leather, even DIY to customize clothes… The objective for the brand is to show you they know what they’re talking about, they have the skills needed and that’s why you can believe their product are what you need!
For B2B and B2C business
These strategies have been used first by B2B industry. Mainly software brands. They started by offering guides and « how to » tutorials for their software and then began to expand a bit their skills specter. That’s how they attracted more and more people, not looking for software at first, but wanting to know how to build a perfect email for example. And then, when people get deeper into the content, they started to find the product more and more interesting.
For B2C, the same process is possible. The content can’t really be the same but the procedure is related. A B2C brand can collect emails and build relationship thanks to that kind of strategy. Indeed customers are always looking for advises, opinions, answers to their questions. Providing them content to answer that expectation is the key to convert.
8 basics to create your inbound marketing strategy
- Know your customer: use « buyer personas » to define who is tour ideal customer and go deeply into his life, interests, habits, problems, daily life challenges…
- Think client first: that is the only way you’ll be able to always provide interesting content to your audience. Think of all frequently asked questions, even your own questions about the company you’re working for
- Divide your content regarding the different purchase phases (attract, capture, nurture, convert, expand)
- Create useful content : don’t write for yourself, write for your customer. Look at searches analytics to see what your clients are looking for on the web and write them the solution
- Optimize your content: of course, great content isn’t enough. You have to be « google findable » (invention of mine :-D). Then SEO is your best friend now
- Use landing pages: those pages dedicated to only one subject like downloading a guide are essential to inbound marketing. They are how you collect new leads and email addresses
- Change for marketing automation : trying to transform most of your marketing communications into automatic flows is very helpful. You can better manage the customer journey and decide which content to send to who regarding if they’re only looking for related information or already looking at a concrete solution.
- Be attractive: design and visual identity are more than important nowadays. Use wonderful images, minimalist design, color harmony… Just make people want to keep reading and stay on your website
To know more about inbound marketing :
– Hubspot
– Markentive
– Invox
– We are the words
Estelle
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