7-minute read
Just like any other form of marketing, inbound marketing is something that continues to evolve over time. In fact, the best practices for inbound marketing nowadays look nothing like their 2005 counterparts. So it begs the question, how do you successfully conduct inbound marketing?
While this is a complicated topic that would require far more than just one article to fully explore, we can still use this opportunity to provide you with a list of four tips that are essential for any company to know in 2020.
Perseverance is the Key
Something that happens to a lot of companies attempting inbound marketing for the first time is that they end up giving up far too soon. Inbound marketing is no different from any other part of building a company and requires some time in order to grow to a point where the business can begin to see even the slightest benefit from it.
Although there are many different factors that will impact how effective your inbound marketing is, it is likely that you won’t see any substantial results on a consistent basis until after at least six months. But after two or three months, most places are ready to call it quits when they don’t immediately see their leads begin to shoot up.
The fact is that the audience is out there and you will reach them but it takes patience. So you need to make sure that you are continuing to press forward and maintain your inbound marketing efforts in order to eventually get out of the marketing slog and reach the other side with more leads than you ever thought possible.
Email is Still Very Effective
There are some companies that make the mistake of thinking that email marketing is no longer an effective part of inbound marketing. However, email marketing is still very effective in this regard.
Maintaining an email list for promotional emails or even blog or newsletter updates is a very effective strategy that has been shown to directly impact the number of conversions that a company receives and even how much these individuals end up spending. Therefore, it is important to maintain a lengthy email list and frequently use it to engage with your audience in a way that captivates them and does not come off as pestering people who are already likely having to deal with dozens of emails every day.
Pick and Choose Social Media Platforms
When companies hear that social media engagement is a huge part of successful inbound marketing and that 94 percent of marketers are actively using it, it makes these businesses want to go out and set up as many social media accounts as possible. However, this is not the right reaction to have if you are going for the best ROI from your inbound marketing.
This is because not all forms of social media are made equal. Some of these platforms will provide you with a massive ROI, while others fail to make even the smallest amount of difference for your inbound marketing plan.
Unfortunately, figuring out which of these platforms are which is not always going to be easy and will likely require a bit of trial and error. But the important thing is that you shouldn’t keep trying to build a social media account on a platform that is clearly not working for you. By doing so, you are only wasting the time it takes to come up with original content and regularly engage with various communities on the platform.
Here are some helpful social media platform insights to make it easier to determine which platforms you should or should not bother using.
The Facebook audience is mostly:
- Female (83 percent of females are on Facebook)
- Between the ages of 18 and 49 (Gen X individuals spend seven hours on Facebook each week)
The YouTube audience is mostly:
- Male (55 percent of the audience are males)
- Between the ages of 18 and 49 (reaching more people in this age group than any cable network)
The Instagram audience is mostly:
- Female (38 percent of females are on Instagram)
- Under the age of 35 (90 percent of all users are less than 35 years old)
The Twitter audience is mostly:
- Male (22 percent of men are on Twitter)
- Between the ages of 18 and 29 (Users less than 29 years old have accounts but rarely post)
The Pinterest audience is mostly:
- Female (45 percent of females are on Pinterest)
- Between the ages of 18 and 64 (Fairly even split between all of these age ranges)
The LinkedIn audience is mostly:
- Even (31 percent of males are on LinkedIn, while 27 percent of females are on LinkedIn)
- Earning more than $75,000 per year (45 percent of users are middle or upper-middle-class)
The Reddit audience is mostly:
- Male (67 percent of the Reddit audience is male)
- Under the age of 30 (64 percent of Reddit users are less than 30 years old)
Use an 80-20 Mix of Content
The driving force behind inbound marketing is creating content that is able to attract views and provide value to readers so that they are more tempted to subscribe, keep reading more content, or purchase your products or services. This means that you will need to walk a fine line between delivering content aimed at providing value and content meant to be almost entirely promotional.
Too much promotional content and you’ll come off as an annoying company that is only out to benefit themselves. However, too little promotional content and you will be sacrificing some of the results that you could be receiving from your inbound marketing. That is exactly why the 80-20 rule was established! It helps you perfectly walk this line so that you are able to get the best of both worlds and make the most of your inbound marketing.
The handy rule states that about 80 percent of the content you create and share with your audience should be aimed at solely creating value for the consumers. The remaining 20 percent should be promotional content that is directly aimed at increasing sales of certain products or services.
By following these essential tips, you will be able to have the basic understanding needed to help excel at inbound marketing in 2020.
