Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing is a strategy aimed at attracting prospects via content created by the brand itself. It is therefore the Internet users themselves who search for and find this content (via search engines, social networks, etc.) rather than the brand imposing its messages on consumers (traditional paid advertising). It offers qualitative, instructive or entertaining content to web users who are in the middle of the buying process and are looking for more information before making a decision. This is known as generating organic traffic, as the content invariably links back to the brand’s site, products or services.
Content can be delivered in a variety of ways, via:
- A blog with articles (analyses, comparisons, tests, interviews, etc.)
- Social networks
- Photos
- Videos
- Podcasts
- Computer graphics
- Presentations
- Books and white papers
- Newsletters
- E-zines
- Webinars
- SEO
At Spike, we apply this inbound marketing strategy to ourselves. The article you are reading is all the proof you need! This method saves on the large budgets of traditional advertising and is permanently active. Once created, a blog post can attract readers for years (subject to regular updates depending on the topic) and the same goes for video content, photos, podcasts or even books. SEO will have a major role to play in ensuring that your content is optimally referenced.
This inbound marketing strategy is used by all the major brands and has proved its worth. What about you? Have you tried to launch a monthly newsletter but abandoned your efforts after three months? Do you have a blog with all of two articles from five years ago that haven’t been updated? Do you have videos on YouTube of tests on products you no longer sell? There are many ways to make qualitative content, but there are even more ways to make counter-productive content.
Let’s look at your past and current initiatives together and define a clear, simple and realistic strategy for your future inbound marketing.