Inbound Marketing is the secret to long-term business growth.
Inbound marketing is the most effective way for your business to attract and convert prospects to leads and leads to customers.
It is the practice of bringing warm, qualified leads into your sales funnel rather than reaching outward to cold, questionable targets. In other words, it is the practice of making it easy for people to find what they are looking for.
Inbound marketing is the opposite of traditional outbound marketing where companies pump out ads, flyers and other material to mass markets hoping that someone will respond, but if they do respond, it may not be clear what they responded to or where the lead came from. Inbound marketing is more about establishing relationships and being able to measure results.
The Concept of the Sales Funnel has been around for a long time, but it is much more meaningful when discussing an Inbound Marketing Plan.
The top of the Funnel
This is where you attract prospects. These prospects are unqualified but are interested in what you have to say or what they think you have to say. They have found you through searching for what they want using search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. (for example: Skiing Whistler)
If you can engage them with something interesting, a contest, information, an event invitation, an ebook etc. you have an opportunity to qualify the prospect and turn them into a lead. This is not a time to sell. It is a time to engage and start a useful conversation.
The Middle of the Funnel
Once the prospect has been engaged, you can move to providing them more information of value. It should be educational or useful, but at this point you can introduce your products. Examples might be a product fact sheet or comparison, or an informative video.
The bottom of the Funnel
The payoff. Your lead is now at a point where they like you and want to talk to you directly and specifically about your product or service. They may choose to come into your store, start and email conversation or talk to you on the phone. They may spend a lot of time on your web site if you have what they want. They are ready to become a customer – hopefully a lifetime customer if you treat them right.