Inbound Marketing and Why It's Indispensable

1. What is Inbound Marketing?
2. Why should companies rely on an inbound marketing strategy?
3. Which phases does an inbound marketing strategy include?
4. 6 Steps to Creating an Inbound Marketing Strategy
5. Lead magnets, guides and more
6. Specific examples of lead magnets in an inbound marketing strategy
7. The right tools
8. Implementation + conclusion

Inbound Marketing - in recent years it has become more and more known and it's used by many companies and marketers out there. Essentially, everyone using the internet knows it, but barely realizes that often smart strategies lie behind it. Thus, it often happens that the term Inbound Marketing is very unfamiliar, even though the methodology behind it is simple.

This article not only explains the principle of inbound marketing, but also clarifies why it is becoming increasingly popular, why your company should rely on it and gives concrete examples for the creation and implementation of an inbound marketing strategy. You will also learn about the specific phases that such a concept has and which inbound marketing tools have proven to be effective.

What is Inbound Marketing?

With the inbound marketing method, customers are fully in focus. On the journey of the Buyer Journey, interested parties are provided with content that is interesting and helpful to them. The aim is to draw attention to one's own company. The goal is to add value from the first contact, which can be found on social media, video platforms, or own websites.

The goal of the strategy behind it is for customers to interact with the company at their request and thus become leads, which you qualify long-term via marketing automation. Digital content plays a major role in this, which can be downloaded or viewed in return for the submission of data. A lead is a contact that is interested in the company or a product - of which, of course, as many as possible should be collected and also completed in the end.

Furthermore, a customer bond should be built, which stretches across all phases of the Buyer Journey. The data that is provided is usually only the name, the e-mail address and possibly a phone number.

Especially in B2B marketing, an inbound marketing strategy is very important, as decision-makers* prefer to deal with useful rather than advertising content. This is the strong contrast to outbound marketing, which is characterized by advertisements, pop-ups, banner and display ads. These are marketing methods which are generally regarded as "annoying" by the target group. On the other hand, Inbound marketing channels like SEO, e-mail newsletters, blogs, PR work and increasingly popular content creation, especially in the video area, are perceived positively by the target group.

Why should companies rely on an inbound marketing strategy?

Working out an inbound marketing strategy, whether for B2B or B2C companies, brings with it many advantages. But let it be said right from the start: inbound marketing is not a panacea and should always have its place in a holistic marketing concept - preferably with a focus on the product you offer and what is most suitable for your target group. The following six advantages are the most well-known and relevant.

Become experts in your target group

The most obvious advantage is that in the long run, you can position yourself as an expert in a field. This includes continuous publication of content, answering questions and communication that fits the target group.

So if you are gradually seen as an expert, your potential customers will think of you first when it comes to a purchasing decision.

Solve problems

Identify problems and challenges that your target group has. Through the smart use of Content Marketing you can provide solutions and thus bind the target group to you. It also forms the basis for a good inbound marketing strategy and is indispensable here. For inspiration, you can also look at Content Marketing Examples.

Always an important goal here: Increased consumption of your content, more views on your website, and an ever-decreasing barrier to contacting your company.

Finally better measurability

Since a large part of the stages of inbound marketing takes place on your own channels (websites, blogs, newsletters), there is a higher and better Measurability of your activities. Website hits or clicks on your mails as well as interacting with your content can be tracked and traced. But above all, contacts that are once in your marketing or CRM system can be classified in phases and thus their qualification can be measured. There are various approaches to how you can classify this. More on that in the next section.

Leads: But please high quality

The core and the main goal of inbound marketing is lead generation. With a good strategy and high-quality content, the target group will not only trust you with their data but will also consume this content in the long run. Due to the possibilities of automation and the high measurability, leads can be further classified and prepared for further e-mail marketing or for your sales team. With the collected data, you ensure that only the hottest leads are contacted.

Marketing & Sales go hand in hand

You know it for sure: Marketing has budgets that need to be met. The sales team needs more and "better" leads. Generated leads in marketing are usually further classified by further measures before they move into the sales team. However, the relevant factors for this must come from the employees, as they have direct customer contact. The processing of these factors is done by marketing. It thus requires an increased dependency of these departments, but it also promotes cooperation, which ultimately leads to better results.

No dependency on large platforms

It is an advantage that is always underestimated, but is nevertheless quite relevant. By collecting the data, you make the target group your contacts, which can not be taken away from you. You can always reach them and do not have to rely on an algorithm, for example from Facebook, Instagram or YouTube. Always more important of course also TikTok. An e-mail address - of course with double-opt-in - can therefore always theoretically be played by you. Of course you are not allowed to exaggerate at this point and it should be said that spam filters are now very good and users can also unsubscribe from your mails.

These advantages show why it is theoretically worthwhile to rely on a holistic marketing concept with an inbound marketing strategy. Later we will also show practical success stories on this.

Which phases does an inbound marketing strategy include?

Classically, an inbound marketing strategy consists of three phases, with the second often divided again. For a better understanding, we will go into the four phases. For each phase, inbound marketing gives you the right tools, most of which play an important role. Which marketing instrument is used when and which strengths can they each play out?

Inbound Marketing

As in almost every marketing theory, the "attracting" of potential customers is at the forefront. As soon as possible comes the "converting", in which you collect the data and convert the users to a contact or lead. Consequently, you now want to convert these leads into customers and "close" them through various marketing and sales activities. The fourth phase is "enthusiastic", in which you want to make these new customers advocates.

Phase 1: Attract

In phase 1, it's all about achieving the highest possible reach. With targeted and optimized content across most of your controlled channels, you position yourself at the beginning of the Customer Journey.

Suitable tools for this are, for example: 

• Paid Ads (Google & Facebook, possibly TikTok)
• Video Content on YouTube
• Social Media
• Your own website or your blog optimized as much as possible for search engines

The goal of all these activities should always be to get new (and known) users to your website. Phase 1 is hereby successfully completed!

Phase 2: Convert

Now you've drawn potential customers' attention to you and they're on your website. In phase 2 it's all about creating a connection with these people and converting them into a lead. In inbound marketing, instruments come into play here, where interested parties can receive high-quality content and in return give their contact details. The relevant marketing instruments are therefore landing pages, CTAs (Call-to-Action) and forms.

Via landing pages created specifically for this purpose, these should be adapted to the target group and the source of it and contain the content that was advertised in phase 1. If someone can now identify with the content and it is relevant, there are forms for entering data there. There are classically the name and e-mail address given, every now and then directly the phone number. The desired content can be accessed after the entry or is sent by e-mail to the person. The beginning of the relationship with potential customers is therefore also done and now it's about using this data sensibly.

Phase 3: Build relationship & close

After gaining a new lead, the next challenge is now coming: Building a relationship in which the contacts trust you and you continue to provide relevant benefits. It's about giving this new lead new impulses and introducing your offer. You don't want to disturb these with advertising, but rather show possible decision paths. A solution to this is of course your product or your service.

For this step, inbound marketing softwares are mandatory. With these, you can further qualify customers through e-mail marketing — one of the most important channels in inbound marketing —. It's important to note here that you don't think in terms of classic e-mail marketing campaigns, but rather in automated e-mail tracks, appropriate to the respective place where the leads are currently located in the Customer Journey. "Advertising" can unfortunately have a negative effect at this point and should be avoided as much as possible.

Due to the possibilities of tracking and inbound marketing software, interesting measures can be used here. For example, you can send an e-mail with further information to an existing lead who is re-informing about a product on your side. In this mail, you can then continue to track whether and what the contact clicked and thus enrich further data.

In phase 3, of course it's also about closing the contacts to customers. As already written, it is extremely advantageous here if you have a well-integrated CRM system (Customer Relationshop Management System). This is ideally integrated directly with your Inbound Marketing Software - or the same system. This way, you can perfectly maintain the information about interests, data and the behavior of contacts and use them for marketing and sales activities. This can specifically be tailor-made offers by e-mail, the possibility to book a consultation or even a phone call by sales employees.

This information and hints can be processed and incorporated into a lead scoring, which can be very relevant for a sales team. Known inbound marketing software such as Hubspot Sales Hub, Salesforce Sales Cloud and Pipedrive have built-in tools that make such scoring easy.

Do you want to learn more about Salesforce's services? You can find all tools and helpful articles about the products on our company overview page of Salesforce.

If the measures are successfully applied and your customer relationship has been built up with the previous lead, of course you want to generate a completion. Regardless of whether this is done via an online shop, a sales employee or other means, inbound marketing should always follow Phase 4.

Phase 4: Inspire

Have you successfully converted your lead to purchase? Then phase 4 starts now, which is indispensable for a successful and long-term customer relationship. You should definitely plan further measures to keep the experience and user experience after purchase at a very high level. So don't immediately turn to other new customers, but inspire those who have just completed. The goal of Phase 4 is to turn new customers into “promoters” who love your products and services and who ideally recommend them. In addition, acquiring new customers is more time-consuming and more expensive than caring for your regular customers.

So what can you do to inspire your customers and win them over as advocates? One approach to this is to promote interaction. Engagement campaigns can be shared on social media to appeal to buyers of your products. Another classic is the use of surveys to inquire about the experience with the product or the service. Here you can not only gain valuable information, but show your customers that their opinion is relevant.

Measures for regular customer care and a good customer success management are also mandatory at this point. At this point, we do not want to go into this too much, but rather on the use of the "nurturing tools".

This "nurturing" means the "nourishing" of your completed customers (see Lead Nurturing) . You continue to provide them with content and e-mails that are appropriate to the purchased product. So not only do you ensure that the customers use the product (correctly), but you also create a connection that goes beyond the mere purchase. Ask them about potential problems, share experiences, and confirm them in their buying decisions. If you can motivate the buyers of your product to share this content with friends in this way, you have achieved the general goal of inbound marketing: to turn unknown into interested parties, to supply them with content and thus to convert them into buyers who love your products and services.

The exciting thing about inbound marketing is that these phases are now repeating. By distributing content about purchased products and incorporating cross- and upselling products, the buyers from phase 4 are therefore the people who are considered as “unknown” for your next - possibly more expensive - product. So keep in mind with all measures in phase 4 that the current promoters could possibly be the next buyers of your other products.

6 Steps to Creating an Inbound Marketing Strategy

Now that you know what inbound marketing is and have gained a deeper insight into the different phases and measures, it's time to develop a strategy for your company or product. There are many approaches to strategy development, in the basic features they are all very similar. I like to follow these 6 steps to establish a long-term and sustainable concept.

Step 1: Recognize problems & challenges and analyze them

I'm a friend of not thinking of a strategy and try starting quickly. Nevertheless, you should make some thoughts about the challenges of the target group before creating content and how you can help them. So start by writing down specifically which problems your product can solve. This can be evident things and the main advantage of the product, but also so-called "hidden benefits". They can be very important in communicating your offering!

For example: You sell nutritional supplements for elderly people. Here is the first obvious benefit that ideally health problems are improved or consumers are more efficient. A "hidden benefit" here can be that these people do sports again or play longer with their grandchildren.

This example is of course described quite simply. But it shows well what advantages a product can still have, other than the obvious direct benefit. Exactly on these "hidden benefits" you can now plan measures and advertise them with content.

To find these benefits and also collect ideas for content, you should find out which search terms fit the subject. What does your target group google, which videos and topics work well on YouTube, what do your potential customers interact with?

If you've done this, specifically written down and confirmed again that your product can solve these problems & challenges, you're ready for step 2.

Step 2: Create Buyer Personas

Who exactly has these challenges, who does your offer speak to exactly? These questions need to be answered by creating Buyer Personas. A Buyer Persona is not the same as a target group, it's more of a fictional person. A person who has concrete needs, wants to achieve goals in life and suffers from problems. These correspond to your ideal customers and are best fueled with data from your existing customers. They go beyond psychological and socio-demographic characteristics and vividly portray an exact customer type.

Only through the analysis and creation of these Buyer Personas can you create relevant content and sensibly place your products. At this point, it is also very advantageous to discuss with the sales team and customer service, as they have the closest customer contact.

Step 3: Become aware of your strengths and weaknesses

Now that the Buyer Personas are created and you know exactly, which product, who should buy. Soon you can start planning and creating the content. A inbound marketing concept with well-thought-out content in each phase can be quite complex and is a lot of work.

So think ahead about what you can do well in marketing and what you can't. Where do you need to get help and what can be done in-house? Even if you are already an expert in your field, you should be able to convey that well. Good content, which is poorly packaged, can unfortunately have a negative effect on you and bring exactly the opposite. Also, you should master the technique. Be it the creation of high quality YouTube videos or the setup and maintenance of the CRM and marketing system. At this point, it is often useful to get professionals for the start who show you the right direction and avoid beginner mistakes at the same time.

So ask yourself questions like these:

• Do you have someone who is good at writing?
• Can you build such an inbound marketing system?
• Do you have experts for video content, who are charismatic and authentic?
• Can you create the content yourself or do you need external help?

If you can say yes to all these questions or have a solution for it, you can get on to the measures and go into planning.

Step 4: Plan the phases & measures and set goals

Not all channels are relevant for your target group - more precisely - your Buyer Personas. These personas should already contain which social media they prefer and which approach they prefer. Think about how you are perceived yourself and which media you want to use in which phase.

Relevant channels, that almost always play a role, are:

• Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, increasingly TikTok)
• Websites & Blogs highly optimized for search engine optimization
• E-mail marketing and increasingly WhatsApp marketing campaigns
• Customer contact through live chats

Which channels can you specifically use in phase 1, what do you have to do in phase 2 and 3, how do you convince in phase 4 the previous buyers? Through precise division of the phases and channels, you can plan your measures in detail.

Step 5: Create content for your channels and integrate it

Once you've planned your measures and phases in detail, you finally start creating the content. Remember again here, if you can implement everything and if you need help somewhere. Especially your Buyer Personas should be considered at each "content piece".

The mentioned lead magnets come into play here. These guides, lists or other helpful contents are the bread and butter of your inbound marketing strategy and should really be of high quality. In the next section, we'll show you specific examples for inspiration. The creation is probably the most challenging part, but most of the time it's also fun!

Always remember that each text, every video or each guide ensures that interested parties get to know you and perceive you as experts.

Once you've created content, it's about integrating it into systems and processes and placing it sensibly. With the previous planning, however, this should no longer be a challenge.

Step 6: Analyze and optimize your strategy

Anyone who is familiar with online marketing knows that it's about testing and trying out a lot. As with almost every marketing discipline, this is also part of inbound marketing and so you should regularly look at the numbers after the start of your marketing processes. How many people fill out forms? How high are the opt-in rates? Are people looking at your content and what are the conversion numbers resulting from it? As already described, all these numbers can be measured well here.

So use the possibilities given to you, in order not to hold on to your plan forever. Especially here, feedback from your target group, customers and of course the resulting figures are very important! One way to optimize your strategy is for example to take out individual phases or measures and test other content, texts, images etc. at these points. So you can gradually get the best out of your strategy.

Lead magnets, guides and more

We've talked about lead magnets a few times and so I want to suggest a few categories and ideas. Besides these following variants, there are of course plenty more, but they all follow the same scheme.

Brochures and information material

The most classic lead magnet, which has long been in the marketing & sales world, are brochures or documents. You can simply get them sent after giving the e-mail address or physical address. They can contain information about you or your product and in return to the right content marketing are usually already very product-related.

Guides

A simple way to realize lead magnets is the creation of guide PDFs. They usually contain written tips and information on selected topics. The selection should of course be made according to the Buyer Personas. “Three exercises against back pain”, “The best travel destinations in 2023” and other titles of this kind can be seen here as an example.

Webinars

A topic not yet addressed are webinars, which can be used either live or automated. On specific topics, high-quality and detailed content can be delivered here, which is why such a type of lead magnet usually already brings highly qualified leads. Not infrequently, such webinars are therefore up to 1.5 hours long and cover topics that can then be solved by the own product or the service.

Shopping lists and checklists

Lead magnets of this kind are becoming more and more popular and especially in some industries very common. While the idea of a shopping list in exchange for an e-mail address is quite logical - for example, when advertising for cooking classes, nutritional advice etc. - checklists should explain something more precisely. Here you could make checklists like, “10 to-dos when you get a new car” or “These 5 things you should always have at home”. There are almost no limits here.

Free courses or videos

Also increasingly seen, are short free videos or even small online courses. Since video content has experienced a hype in recent years and some personas particularly like visual content, this can be a useful alternative to classic text documents. Here it is only important not to let them become too long and to keep production costs low.

Specific examples of lead magnets in an inbound marketing strategy

Scroll for just a few minutes through the social networks, you stumble across many lead magnets in various forms. Remember: Inbound marketing is not only lead magnets, but also the smart use of forms, chat possibilities and much more. But since these lead magnets are the most obvious measures, you'll find a few different examples here.

Mike-Bergmann-Academy

Mike-Bergmann-Academy uses the recording of a live webinar to get highly qualified leads for their consultancy service. Here tips for employee acquisition are given, exactly according to the consulting service offered.

Liebscher & Bracht

Liebscher & Bracht, a well-known company from the direct-to-consumer sector, advertises a challenge on TikTok. Participants receive several videos that are supposed to help against neck pain. The products and tools that can help with the given tips and exercises are to be sold in the end.

Civey

Another example is the company "Civey", which offers a free report (on LinkedIn) and thus secures the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of potential customers. The product here are also suitable target group analyses or surveys.

Kettner-Edelmetalle

The dealer “Kettner-Edelmetalle” has helpful SEO texts directly on his website, which should give the target group helpful information. Usually there is directly a form integrated there, through which you can get into the newsletter.

The right tools

I also want to write a few sentences about tools and software for implementing an inbound marketing strategy. Here it is important to inform yourself exactly about the features of the tools and also to check if you have the implementation and implementation power for them.

Among the well-known tools for inbound marketing and Marketing Automation are for example Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign or also HubSpot Marketing Hub. While ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo focus very much on the e-mail marketing part, HubSpot offers a wide range to cover all stages of inbound marketing.

You have the possibilities to pick up potential customers via forms (with lead magnets), to play automated e-mail campaigns and then to start next actions. The sales area follows, in which you can look after and follow up on sales opportunities or leads via deal. After a successful sale, Hubspot offers the service part, where the new customers can be looked after according to 3 and 4 of the Inbound Methodology. All this is based on the CRM, which is fundamentally free at Hubspot.

When selecting, you should not only worry about the features, but also about the costs, the effort of an implementation and the user-friendliness. Especially on this topic, it is important to get support if you are not familiar with this area yet or want to grow. My experience in the last years shows: Better look for a tool early than too late, which offers comprehensive possibilities, before you have to switch several times. This is not only expensive, but always causes unpleasant work.

You can get more information at OMR Reviews and in the category Marketing Automation.

Implementation + conclusion

Now there's only one thing that's relevant for you:Get started!

After you've read the article, you should be ready to take the first steps in inbound marketing. With each measure you plan and implement, you will make progress. As you have seen, many companies already rely on such a strategy and free content is not missing from the marketing world. So start with the described steps, think about which content could be meaningful for your target group and get started!

Good luck and have fun!