What is Inbound Marketing?
When you hear entrepreneurs talk about inbound marketing, they’re referring to a strategy meant to generate leads and attract customers by encompassing several different types of pull marketing.
Outbound marketing requires one to try and look for potential customers, whereas inbound marketing utilizes techniques that get their attention and draws them to your business.
Inbound marketing can be achieved through tactics like content creation in the form of blog posts, videos, podcasts, eBooks, newsletters, etc. It can also involve striving to attract customers via social media and other online platforms.
Most of the time, when inbound marketing is applied, businesses make sure to utilize search engine optimization (SEO) techniques in the content they create.
Techniques like these ensure that the content being made reaches a great number of people that can be turned into leads and then paying customers.
Why use Inbound Marketing?
Essentially, inbound marketing is designed to happen in four basic steps: attracting visitors towards your content, converting them into leads, closing deals with them, and eventually gaining happy customers that promote your business further.
This strategy is useful for many reasons, but one of the main benefits is that it has the potential to reach a much larger audience than outbound marketing strategies.
It also happens to be much cheaper in costs than outbound marketing, which can often end up spending hundreds of dollars on traditional advertisements and promotions.
Most popular social media are free to sign up for, and small businesses can benefit from utilizing them to attract leads for their companies.
About HubSpot
In 2005, HubSpot was actually the first company to coin the term inbound marketing.
HubSpot is a multi-functional, all-in-one marketing software that specializes in generating leads, growing traffic, and achieving sales by using these techniques.
Its founders reject the now aged idea of traditional marketing and aim to encourage the modernized and more effective strategy of inbound marketing.
As a single platform, they provide every inbound marketing tool needed to market your business online.
Their prices start at $200 a month for the Basic Marketing package.
How HubSpot Helps Businesses
HubSpot offers various tools as software to help small to medium-sized businesses get started with inbound marketing.
Their three main products are listed as follows: HubSpot Sales, HubSpot Marketing, and HubSpot CRM.
Build Your Website and Attract Traffic
HubSpot makes it easy to get started generating traffic for your business even if you’re starting from almost scratch.
They’ll lead you through the steps necessary to start creating content that attracts visitors.
You’ll see several tabs available on your HubSpot Marketing account. If you hover over the Content tab, you’ll have several options for creating and managing content.
An ideal way to get started is by creating your own Website Page. They’ll provide the editing tools and guides needed in order to make the content as SEO-friendly as possible.
Creating website pages isn’t the only way you can market content using HubSpot.
The software offers several different methods for publishing, including creating email templates, launching landing pages, and making blogs.
They’ll also facilitate using social media techniques for your business. You can schedule posts for future releases, and study the latest trends to figure out the best time to publish them.
Generate and Convert More Leads
Lead generation is an essential part of inbound marketing and can be achieved through many different paths.
With the HubSpot software, the first thing you’ll want to do is navigate to Content -> Lead Flows to get started creating leads.
A lead flow is a form meant to collect data from your visitors to turn them into consumers who will be directly receiving your content.
You’ll have many different options for creating your lead flow, such as having them in the form of pop-up boxes, drop-down banners, or slide-in boxes.
With a strong call-to-action or CTA, you’ll be able to bring in more viewers by generating performance with a fast click-through rate.
After this, through lead management, you’ll be able to use this data to create campaigns that aim to close more deals.
Manage Contacts and Deals with CRM
CRM is a term that stands for customer relationship management, and it is one of HubSpot’s highly regarded available products.
HubSpot CRM keeps an organized dashboard of the information you’ll need to make sales fast. Managing your pipeline has become nearly 100% automated, making closing deals a much less time-consuming task.
Your dashboard will contain access to reports on your scheduled appointments, a list of contacts, deals and contracts sent, and how they’re all performing.
Now with a single click, you can place and log calls with contacts directly from the CRM, book appointments with ease, and manage all your customer interactions from one page.
Additionally, HubSpot integrates with Salesforce, meaning you’ll have constant, clear analytical records available utilizing both of their services.
The great thing about HubSpot CRM is that the product is and always has been completely free – although it is best complemented with their Marketing and Sales products as well!
Save Time with Marketing Automation
Automated marketing isn’t a new concept, but HubSpot does it best.
Integrated workflows can be built on the platform within a few minutes, and then you never have to worry about sending out individual email campaigns again.
But email marketing isn’t the only thing that HubSpot puts on autopilot for you.
There are many simple tasks entrepreneurs and businesses have to get done that can take up a lot of time in the long run.
With HubSpot’s marketing automation, you can set it all up for quicker leads and sales.
The tools for setting up a workflow can be found under the Contacts tab.
Make sure to personalize the content you’ll be sending out to each individual contact and tailor the offers and emails to their liking while you set up the system.
Every Inbound Marketing Tool In One Software
Although HubSpot was the original inbound marketing service, nowadays there are a few alternatives available. To name just some, there’s InfusionSoft, Act-On, and Salesfusion.
In the world of modern marketing, however, HubSpot has always come out on top. It is truly the most versatile software out there – it’s not advertised as all-in-one without reason!
Inbound marketing can be a tricky game to get into, but the benefits it can make for your business are worth any hassle.
And now, with HubSpot, luckily there is no hassle. The software makes lead generation and closing deals seem easy as pie. I couldn’t recommend it more!
