5 Other Benefits Of Inbound Marketing Besides Traffic & Sales

0
75

Share on LinkedIn

The best Inbound Marketing Strategies are about much more than just boosting traffic. Eoin takes a look at other benefits of Inbound Marketing.

Inbound marketing sounds like it’s all about traffic. Even without any explanation, the name suggests it’s built around inward motion. And in many ways that impression is correct. Inbound marketing is chiefly designed to bring prospects to your website or online presence, in the hopes they will become customers or clients.

However, the best inbound strategies take a much broader view on the role of marketing and they generate many extra benefits to go with increased traffic.

Credibility

Successful inbound marketing will push your brand to the top of Google’s search results. While that will mean an increase in traffic, it will also help to build the credibility of your brand. Like having your name printed in a newspaper, getting to the top of Google’s search results makes people trust you subconsciously. Or, to put it another way, the further down you are, the less people will trust you.

Very few of us visit page 2 of Google’s results, even fewer visit page 3. There’s an unwritten rule that says, if you find yourself hovering over the little ‘O’ over page 4, you’ve gone too far. It’s time to re-evaluate that search term. You choose another search term rather than carry on because you don’t trust the remaining results. Which must say more about our subconscious than the websites beyond page 4, considering there are 10 results per Google page and 10s of millions of web pages.

Engagement

Social media, blogging and content production all form key parts of a successful inbound marketing strategy. The main function of each is to draw traffic through engagement. Essentially, you use these platforms to give your opinion, or provide another angle on a topic and prospects come to your site because they’re interested in what you have to say. The thing is, engagement itself is a key target for online marketing.

People tend to remember brands that are willing and able to engage them on an intellectual level. Across all online platforms, particularly on social media, users feel like they deserve to own as much of the conversation as brands do. The engagement created by successful inbound marketing provides that feeling of ownership.

Brand Awareness

Just like credibility mentioned above, being at the top of Google’s results boosts your brand awareness because people rarely venture too far off Google’s beaten track. Users who regularly search terms that you rank well for, they will see your name and brand over and over. Giving them plenty of reason to find out more and engage with your marketing content.

A Resource

Content provides a huge part of inbound marketing. You can’t draw prospects to you without creating locations on your site for them to share, find and visit. That means creating effective, insightful and relevant content. Of course, content created purely for traffic generation will eventually fall flat. People who read or view your content want to get something out of it, and if they don’t they’ll disappear pretty quickly.

But content created for the purposes of informing, challenging or engaging users will leave them wanting more. The more valuable information you provide on your site, the more prospects will return to look for more.

Value Proposition

Speaking of value, the real benefit of effective inbound marketing is the value it adds to your products and services. By surrounding the product details and company information in your online presence with vital, relevant and insightful information you prove your expertise. You become the brand that not only sells a product or service; you know everything about it too. And who would you rather buy from?

Successful inbound marketing can turn your online presence into a traffic-generating machine. If done right, it will give you access to the right traffic and help you to convert them into customers. With those great headlines, it’s easy to forget the other benefits it can give you. Inbound marketing doesn’t just make you better at selling online; it makes you a better online brand.

If you want to learn more about how to push your brand to the top of Google’s search results, check out our free guide to Search Engine Optimization

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Eoin Keenan
Media and Content Manager at Silicon Cloud. We help businesses to drive leads and build customer relationships through online marketing and social media. I blog mainly about social media & marketing, with some tech thrown in for good measure. All thoughts come filtered through other lives in finance, ecommerce, customer service and journalism.

ADD YOUR COMMENT

Please use comments to add value to the discussion. Maximum one link to an educational blog post or article. We will NOT PUBLISH brief comments like "good post," comments that mainly promote links, or comments with links to companies, products, or services.

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here