Some companies appear to assume their inbound marketing options are limited. Sure, a business that has the type of product that creates instant buzz online will always have an advantage when it comes to content creation and inbound marketing.
But many people fail to recognize that every kind of business can engage in similar inbound methods. Here are three types of marketing that every business can utilize in an inbound fashion.
1. Relationship building on social media
Social media presence isn’t enough, and that’s where most businesses fall short. Even worse, they put up a Facebook or Twitter page, and only promote their products and services. Instead, great brands use their social media marketing presence to engage in relationship building that’s focused on customer service.
It might be as simple a gesture as posting a congratulatory photo of your client’s business, or sharing an interesting article on a related supplier’s page.
Don’t just promote your products on social media. Build relationships. Say and do the things you’d do in real life. That’s what leads to inbound traffic!
2. Contests
Any type of business can run a contest. If your product isn’t a popular one with consumers, use something that’s popular with them. Think about what metric you want to focus on, and reward that action!
3. Online video
Online video usage has been fairly stagnant on the part of brand marketers, but past practice is no reason to avoid doing it in the future. It’s hard for most businesses to understand why they should use video in their marketing, but to understand it better, all you have to do is simply think about how business works now.
We can use the example of a professional and fundamentally sound website where people go to learn about manufacturing resource planning. This is exactly the type of business and industry where it might seem that video doesn’t apply to the core business objectives.
But take a look at the “video” tab on the above site, and you’ll see a great example of how the product is demonstrated to the potential consumer, and therefore helps to automate a task that would normally require the ingenuity of a salesperson.
Other ideas for video content might range from customer testimonials and employee recruitment to applications in action. The possibilities are endless when you start to see how many in-person activities can be done in an online video!
