4 Basics of Inbound Marketing for Startups

Inbound marketing is an effective strategy to bring in prospects for many small businesses. Manage all of your clients and deals with a free simple CRM like Base.

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When you start a new business one of the top things on your mind will be that you need to find clients.? If you implement a good inbound marketing strategy, clients can find you.

At first, you?ll probably need to hunt for new business and have to work hard to retain the customers that you find. However, inbound marketing can result in a lot less banging on doors and cold calling from people who find you and are interested in doing business with you.

The big difference between advertising and marketing is that advertising just looks to grab someone?s attention, really.? Marketing looks to build a relationship with them. Small businesses who focus more on marketing than advertising are being more customer-centric. Customer-centricity is vital in the competitive marketplace and it equates to positive customer experience. Positive customer experience brings people back and gets them testifying to others about the quality and value you bring. Those testimonies will attract others to you.

One of the great things about the internet and inbound marketing is that you can set the stage for success. You help people find positive information about your company that helps people believe that they should logically and confidently buy from you. You?re not looking to trick people (if you do, it won?t take long before you put yourself out of business) but you?re insetad creating a platform that showcases your business and shows people who you are and what you are about.

There are a number of ways to do inbound marketing activities as a start-up. Here are some of those areas and how they can help you.

1. Create a Web Presence

Creating a web presence can help people find you. Using a combination of organic search engine optimization and paid advertising, you can shine a beacon on your website as a solution to someone?s problem.

Identify a need and present that you can serve that need.

If you try to ?be? where people are looking, through keyword optimization, your site will likely come up as an answer to someone?s Google search or inquiry. If your website is an informative resource you?ll attract traffic naturally.

2. Educate and Inform

By creating a prolific presence online that informs others who need information, you can draw people to organically want to learn more about you.? Educational articles, videos, an informative business blog, infographics, guest posts, and social media / microblogging updates can help you establish yourself as an influencer in your industry. This is a brilliant way to market because you develop relationships built on trust and value.

3. Use Testimonials to Your Advantage

Online testimonies can have serious viral potential and can bring lots of people to your small business. People who want to buy something often do a review search to learn about the reputation of product and service providers.

A good inbound marketing technique is to encourage your customers to publish reviews and testimonials of you as a product or service provider.? This could backfire, of course, if you get a negative review, but could be an excellent way to demonstrate your professionalism.? People who find your company by reading reviews are also likely to come back and post a review of their own after doing business with you.? Reading positive reviews could help people choose to call you for a quote over your competitor.

4. Create a Sales Funnel

A big part of inbound marketing is a sales funnel. People are attracted to your site online but may not buy from you the first time they arrive on your site. To increase the chances of nurturing that visitor, turn them into a lead. Do so by inserting them into a sales funnel.

There are many ways to do this, such as a newsletter opt-in, free e-course, giveaway, and so on.? The idea is to find a way to drive traffic to your site and then take time to walk them through a sales process. The good thing about this is that you can have it done through a series of automated tasks that you set up on your website or email newsletter software.

In the world of inbound marketing, it?s important to track activities and analyze results.? By doing so you?ll see what?s bringing your business the most leads and the most resulting sales. We?ve only just scratched the surface here but you?ll find a multitude of great inbound marketing resources online to help you.

Tip: Hubspot is a great resource that you should consider checking out.

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About Dana Prince

Dana Prince writes for Future Simple?s Growth University. Dana blends her passion for entrepreneurship with experience in software licensing sales, product management, online marketing, and SEO writing to run Dana Prince Writing, a web writing agency that creates optimized content that helps websites succeed.

Source: http://www.futuresimple.com/blog/basics-of-inbound-marketing-startups/

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