If you're a small business owner, you may feel overwhelmed when it comes to your marketing strategy.
Sure, the big brands are putting out Super Bowl commercials and getting celebrity ambassadors, but those marketing activities are out of the question for you at your budget.
So, what marketing tactics should you focus on?
An inbound marketing strategy is perfect for small business owners as it's affordable, effective, and relatively easy to manage.
If maintaining marketing activities is more than you can add to your plate right now, you can also hire an inbound marketing agency Minnesota.
What is Inbound Marketing?
When you think of marketing, you probably think of outbound marketing tactics.
Outbound marketing is when a person's regular activities are interrupted by promotions. For example, a commercial plays during a television show, an advertisement comes up while you're scrolling through social media, or a radio commercial interrupting regular music streaming.
These ads are often ignored or skipped by the individual as it's intrusive and disruptive. The person was just trying to enjoy an activity and advertising was forced upon them.
Inbound marketing is a much less "in-your-face" strategy. It looks to provide valuable resources, content, or information to the individual.
The hope is that once the individual willingly interacts with your brand, they'll look for more information, and convert into a customer.
Inbound marketing focuses on creating a relationship with the customer by helping them solve existing problems.
Why Inbound Marketing Works
Inbound marketing works because the person willingly engages with your brand, so the entire initial interaction starts on a more positive note.
The individual comes to your brand looking for information or to have a problem solved and is rewarded with an answer. From there, they can choose to explore and engage with your brand, possibly becoming a customer.
Executing Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing can be applied in three ways:
- Attract: Draw in an audience with valuable content that establishes you as a trusted, valuable source
- Engage: Offer up solutions and resources that solve their problems or needs
- Delight: Provide support and help to empower your customers to find success with their purchase
Top Tactics for Inbound Marketing
If you're new to inbound marketing, an inbound marketing agency in Minneapolis can help you build out and start a new strategy for your business.
After getting you set up, you can choose to take over some tactics if it feels right for you.
Your Minneapolis inbound marketing agency will likely recommend you launch a combination of the inbound marketing tactics below:
SEO
One of the most critical inbound marketing tactics is search engine optimization (SEO).
If individuals can't find your website, then they can't interact with your brand. You will want to make sure you're ranking on the first page for the top keywords associated with your brand, acquire backlinks to verify your site as an authority, set up a Google My Business account, and more.
SEO is quite complicated, but your starting point is usually finding the right keywords you want to rank for and focusing in on them.
If SEO isn't your specialty, an inbound marketing agency in Minneapolis will be able to help.
PPC
As SEO takes some time, and it's nearly impossible to become the top organic result for a keyword overnight, you should also consider PPC ads.
Most people would consider PPC an outbound marketing tactic as it's paid, but this isn't correct.
Pay-per-click (PPC) ads show up when an individual searches for a key term or phrase. Therefore, the user actively went searching themselves, and PPC ads show up to provide them with a potential answer.
While your SEO tactics take some time to gain traction and get you to the top results, PPC ads can help you appear on page one immediately.
However, be warned that PPC can be quite expensive and a money-drain if you don't know how to set up your ad campaigns.
An inbound marketing agency in Minnesota can help you with the initial set-up of a PPC account.
Content Creation
One of the most effective ways to get people on your website is to create engaging, informative content.
You provide content that genuinely helps audiences or solves a problem, and they will come to your site.
Content can also be repurposed in a variety of formats to get the broadest reach. So, if you're a coffee shop producing a piece of content on "the best coffee shops in Minneapolis," you can take that information and present it via a blog post, video, and downloadable guide.
The most crucial factor of content is that it stands out from the competition.
If you can create high-quality content, the online traffic will grow. We recommend making a content calendar and producing at least one new piece every two to three weeks.
Social Media
If you're producing all that content, you want it to be viewed!
As soon as you create a piece of content, share it on your social media channels. This will not only ensure it gets a broader audience, but it will also keep your brand social channels active and exciting.
Don't forget that your social media marketing platforms are an inbound marketing tool, so they shouldn't all be promotion.
The key is to also post content on your social media from other sources that you believe will be genuinely helpful to your customers.
That local coffee shop we mentioned earlier might repost content on "what fair-trade coffee means" or "how coffee is consumed around the world." A variety of content from sources other than just yourself will keep your audience interested and engaged.
Website Development
It might not seem like an inbound marketing activity, but having a user-friendly website is important.
You don't want to put in all that effort to get users onto your website only to have them bounce immediately off because it's difficult to navigate or slow to load.
Your website should include CTAs in the right areas, so visitors can easily be converted from just looking for information to becoming a customer.
You also need to ensure your website is mobile-friendly, as nearly 60% of searches are coming from a mobile device.
Website development efforts can help ensure that the visitor has a positive experience once they interact with your brand's site.
Agency Jet offers a free, no-obligation website assessment, so you can better understand where your site needs improvement.
Website development is often challenging, so this is one of those tactics that is likely best to outsource to the professionals.
Ever received a free website audit for your company site? If not, it's one of the easiest things you can do to help your business.
Agency Jet is a Top Inbound Marketing Agency in Minnesota
Agency Jet is one of the top digital marketing agencies in Minnesota specializing in helping small local businesses achieve their goals.
We have a team of experienced professionals who specialize in PPC, SEO, website development, and social media marketing.
We understand inbound marketing and can help you build out a strategy and execute on it.
Agency Jet believes in educating our clients along the way, so when they leave their partnership with us, they know how to continue their marketing tactics. And yet, few clients do leave us. We are proud to hold a 96% retention rate with customers loving the results we achieve.
Contact us today to see how we can help you grow your business.
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