Why Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is a specific form of marketing wherein the marketer directly reaches his target customers without having to go through various hassles associated with marketing. Also, this form of marketing comes with the advantage of not having to go through the screening processes like segmenting the markets or searching for the right target customers. In this context it may be noted that marketing, as defined by management gurus, is said to start from identifying the needs, necessities and aspirations of customers and then conveying the same to the research and development team of the firm to make the product followed by trying to sell the same and lastly taking feedback from the customers about it and again reconveying it to the firm so that it can be modified to suit the tastes, preferences and requirements of the customers. Obviously this whole set of activities includes planning, organizing, promoting and researching activities as well. Obviously, marketing or the ways by which marketing or for that matter promoting of the products are done have undergone sea change over the years. However, in an age characterized by increased ways of communication, customers are rather plagued by the huge number of outbound marketing efforts. These are for the most part unwanted and unsolicited. However, in tune with these trends, marketers have found out a better way to reaching out to their customers – a way that is cost effective, efficient, and reaches only those who are prospective customers of the product or service. This is commonly referred to as inbound marketing.

The reason why inbound marketing is doing the rounds over all quarters of the business fraternity is because in contrast to the established rules of outbound marketing, this particular approach is much more specific and cost effective. Moreover, inbound marketing focuses on “pull” based marketing rather than stressing on “push” based marketing as done by various other marketers. Also, push marketing is becoming more and more costly as well as ineffective. Coupled with these are problems like scanty resources and other problems of global magnitude like recession. So in order to make a fitment between the macro environmental forces that has taken its toll on marketing efforts as well as other constraints that have only aggravated the overall environment for marketing, and then of course the fact that competition is intensifying by the day has only led marketers to think of more effective ways to market their products and services. Therefore, inbound marketing has gained ground all over the world.

For starters, inbound marketing has loads of ways to market their products and services all over the world. It should be noted in this regard that making optimal use of inbound marketing requires the knowledge of its various forms and how these individual forms can be used to get maximum impact.

There are various forms of inbound marketing that has become popular and that too for their respective reasons. The most popular forms of inbound marketing are blogging, social media, webinars and search engine optimization. We at www.emarketz.net are into each of these and offer comprehensive, exhaustive as well as cost effective solutions for inbound marketing activities for products as well as services.

Blogging is one of the foremost inbound marketing activities that is prevalent among marketers all over the world. The concept of blogging is free for the most part and this is one of those processes through which marketers can reach out to customers and clients the world over. Blogs can be created by individuals as well as organizations thereby increasing the use of this particular type of marketing activity. Just like people post their write ups, poems, essays and views on blogs, organizations have also started taking cues from these write ups and have started introducing blogs on their products, reviews, features etc that may be accessed on the internet. Moreover, the web traffic is already holds immense potential and one can directly view the details for free, sitting at home. This has made blogs an effective way to communicate to prospective users of the product or services. Moreover, in this case, the marketer does not have to push the product or directly contact the customer and it is the prospective customer who would search for similar products and services and view the blog only to learn more about the product or service, various features of the same and also the plans or prices. So the marketer does not have to evoke a sense of necessity or possession in the mind of the customers and this has already been taken care of. Customers, on their part, do not have to think of fending off the unwanted mails, text messages, advertisements and web pop ups since they are already on the lookout for similar products or services. Our team of inbound marketing specialists includes specialist bloggers who have experience in putting life into the blog entries.

Of the other forms of inbound marketing available to marketers, social media has become one of the foremost sources of this form of inbound marketing. The emergence of social media is widely accepted and organizations are now turning towards targeting social media for generating prospective leads. The fact that Facebook, one of the most famous networking sites has a “population” only second to China has indeed fascinated many a marketer to deploy various strategies to catch the attention of prospective leads. Websites of almost all firms nowadays have options that let their customers follow them or their products on social media. Moreover, interacting with customers and clients and coming to know about their product or service experiences have also become the order of the day. Firms have deployed separate wings to ensure that the potential of social media is tapped properly and the chances of growth and popularity of firms can be optimized through the options and features available to them via social networking websites.

Search engine optimization, yet another technique of inbound marketing is a rather relatively old technique that websites have been using for quite some time. The basic concept of search engine optimization ensures a better visibility to websites by increasing the rank and making it conspicuous to the users on the internet. Moreover, this ensures that these companies or websites are among the first to be seen on the search results of the users. This in turn obviously optimizes the chances of products or services being sold or availed by prospective users. These techniques employ the strategies of using keywords that are likely to be searched and also link building which applies to back links of web pages. This way websites gain popularity and therefore needless to say the products and services also become more popular. Other than the aspect of popularity, search engine optimization helps in creating brand awareness and also is nowadays seen as a brand building activity by many firms. This is one of the areas that www.emarketz.net specializes in. We have SEO experts who know how to formulate exact keywords and how to optimize the ranking of websites.

Webinars are also gaining popularity as one of the mostly used inbound marketing tools on the internet. The term webinar refers to holding seminars on the web. This helps in drawing much web traffic and marketers are able to seek the attention of prospective customers who are actually interested to know about the product or service, details about its features, price and other attributes.

The very concept of inbound marketing holds that customers should already be searching for similar or identical products or services and it is only then that these marketing tactics may be applied or become useful. So if a firm seeks to generate more demand or launch a brand new concept through a product or service whose demand needs to be created by persuading customers about the benefits to be derived, then probably marketers are still better off selecting outbound marketing strategies. However, brand awareness or even recognition can be created through the proper and optimal use of inbound marketing tactics. Furthermore, the best part is that these marketing efforts are extended or targeted at only those individuals who are in need of same or similar services or products. This makes the effort much more fruitful and dispenses with the hazards of beating around the bush. Since the efforts hit the bull’s eye at the very first go, the rate of success is also higher than other forms of marketing. And what is even better is that most of these marketing techniques are free or come for very little cost or investment. However, regular updates are a must. Also, these form to be an essential ingredient in comprehending the changing trends and demands, tastes and preferences of customers. So it is imperative that marketers are utilizing these tools and techniques more and more. Also, inbound marketing efforts are becoming an essential part of the broader marketing strategy for firms. Thus inbound marketing is the talk of the town and has created much ado about something that is indeed useful for the business community!