Inbound marketing is for folks who have brains more than money to dedicate towards their marketing efforts. Quite simple, isn’t it?
‘If you have more money than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing. If you have more brains than money, you should focus on inbound marketing,’ says Guy Kawasaki, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist and marketing expert.
Confused about what the heck is inbound marketing? Here is your definition. Hubspot defines inbound marketing as ‘an approach focused on attracting customers through content and interactions that are relevant and helpful — not interruptive. With inbound marketing, potential customers find you through channels like blogs, search engines, and social media.’
To simplify again, inbound marketing is all about using content marketing, blogs, social media, SEO etc. effectively to drive more business.
The opportunities in inbound marketing fascinate anyone who is passionate about digital marketing and pursue a pg diploma course or certification course in it. Let’s discuss the priorities and challenges for marketers in inbound marketing.
Priorities in 2017
It’s a super-competitive marketplace, isn’t it? And inbound marketing strategy has been a saviour for marketers to effectively create a mark with their brand. In previous years, the priorities of inbound marketers circled around the growth of SEO and improving organic presence. But later it turned to content creation and distribution.
In 2017, marketing automation has been a new priority in the inbound marketing strategy. Interactive and visual content are other areas of priority. However, blog content still gets the attention it deserves!
In this year State of Inbound Marketing report from Hubspot, it says most of the modern-day marketers find their priorities in increasing web traffic and lead conversion rates. A whopping 70% of the total respondents in the survey agree that their priority remains in converting leads into customers.
Top challenges
Well, it is never a walk in the park to create an effective inbound marketing strategy. It comes with a set of unique challenges of its own. It includes generating leads and web traffic, budget constraints, adding new content distribution challenges, proving the ROI, identifying the right techniques to be used, and the list goes on. The Hubspot report states that the major challenge marketers’ face is to generate traffic and leads and proving ROI.
Although the challenges are evident, inbound marketers continue to explore the potential and make the best out their existing strategy! Use your brains!