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Published March 19, 2023

According to Hubspot, 65% of businesses say that generating traffic and leads is their biggest marketing challenge.

Small businesses have two ways of creating awareness of their brand to generate leads. One is termed outbound marketing and the other is inbound marketing. Inbound is defined by use of your website, social media, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and blogging.

There are three key objectives when implementing inbound strategies: (1) Convert website visitors into sales leads with effective lead capture forms and content offers, (2) Nurture those leads with automated email marketing that provides value and encourages further engagement, (3) Close the deal by providing high-quality content marketing that speaks directly to the needs, wants and desires of your target audience.

Some inbound marketing gets complicated and beyond most small-business owners or managers to execute. Let’s look at what you can undertake that will get results.

Niche/guest blogging. Blogging is an important tactic since it positions your brand as a knowledge leader. When you share your knowledge with your target audience they see an enhanced value of having you in their supply chain sphere. When you ask a guest who is a subject matter expert to blog on your website you are enabling your target audience to be exposed to knowledge beyond both you and them.

Headline words. Getting noticed is tougher and tougher with the amount of communications that are being posted. Most writers spend an inordinate amount of time choosing the subject wording. Keywords in your website are key to your blog or messaging headlines to grab viewers’ attention. Studies have shown that negative words like “never” get more attention than superlatives like “always.” After you have chosen the keywords in your subject, test them to assure they are attention-grabbing.

SEO in inbound marketing. Search engine optimization is essential to attracting visitors because it positions your content at the top of searches. This starts with a keyword analysis. What words are visitors to your website using to find you? Then taking those words and assuring that they are being used in headlines, blogs, and curated content. But SEO alone will not increase traffic. It, combined with content development, will generate greater visitors and then sales.

Be active on social media. What does this mean? Not just more time and effort, but more content that will resonate with customers and prospects. It means taking SEO seriously so that you will be more visible in searches. Part of your social media strategy needs to be the utilization of guest blogs. Content from knowledge experts that buyers recognize will cause them to view the blogs. According to Hubspot, 76% of monthly blog views come from “old blogs” that were published in prior months. Choosing guest bloggers who not only have something to say but provide interesting content will generate greater returns on the time invested by viewers and create value for the website. When using a guest blog strategy, make sure you have backlinks to your site so that readers have access to your products and services. Not only can you have guest bloggers, but you can be the guest bloggers on complementary websites that link back to you.

Use niche influencers. You can add to the number of viewers of your website by harnessing the power of niche influencers. Take into account the characteristics of your target customers – age, gender, location, and other demographic descriptors and then partner with those that influence the buying of your types of products or services. The niche marketers have large numbers of followers focusing on a specific interest area. They can help promote your offerings. The influencers you choose have to be aligned with your target audience. Make sure they understand your goals and objectives of the partnership and always be respectful of their time and resources needed to create content that will drive business. We know that trust is a big factor in new buyers accepting your offer and that is where influencers come into play. Their followers trust them and therefore if they are promoting your offers, they will instinctively trust what you are offering until you prove them otherwise.

Call to action. The only way you get the order is to ASK for it. The only way you get a viewer to your website to click through to the next is to ASK them to do it. And, the only way you get them to act is to ASK them. Hubspot recommends you give before you ask. That means that curated content should be offered before they are asked to act. Buyers don’t trust everything they see online. Pop-ups and other “in-your-face” advertising are lost on most buyers. So avoid these distracting and mind-numbing annoyances called marketing.

Remarketing. In a previous column, we talked about the inbound marketing funnel. We looked at tactics for the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel. In the middle of the funnel, you might consider a remarketing strategy in which ads are served to web users based on their previous interactions with your website. This approach uses browser cookies to target Google ads to people who have already visited your website in the past. The ads that are used in remarketing are customized specifically to those users who are revisiting. It is a great way of thanking them for coming back and reminding them to revisit. You can also place paid advertising in place on the internet where prior visitors will be viewing based on their interests.

All of these tactics are used in the process of converting viewers into buyers. Using compelling content gains traffic to your site and opens up a dialog with potentially interested buyers. The key is to take a lowkey, slow approach to nurture new buyers along until the sale is closed. What is nurturing? It is the same as face-to-face sales. Generating the lead is only the first step. Then comes providing the prospect with valuable content that move them through the buying continuum. Brand Unawareness to Awareness to Understanding to Believability to Trust to Trial to Purchase/Repurchase/ Referral. Blog posts, infographics, helpful hints, tips and techniques, and informative useful content all can be employed during the nurturing and sale-closing stage. Before signing off, make sure you have a plan to measure which of these tactics drive leads and which nurture your leads to closed sales so you can replicate the process.

Contributed by Marc L. Goldberg, Certified Mentor, SCORE Cape Cod & the Islands. Reach out to SCORE for FREE and confidential mentoring. www.score.org/capecod, capecodscore@scorebvolunteer.org, 508-7754884. Source: Chris Leach, 310 Creative, Hubspot partner. Inbound Marketing Funnel, First10 & SmartInsights.