Why inbound marketing still has it going on

Internet-based marketing can really be divided into two camps: inbound and outbound. They complement each other when used properly, but at League Digital inbound marketing will always be our darling, and there’s plenty of good reason for that.

Inbound vs outbound – what exactly is the difference?

Outbound marketing is the good-ol’ fashioned method of pushing out your message, broadcasting it far and wide, shouting at times, and wrestling for viewers’ precious time and attention in an increasingly cluttered and noisy online environment. Its effectiveness is in decline and user experience suffers as marketers resort to more aggressive and intrusive tactics. Many people have begun to ignore ads as a rule, and ad-blocking software has never been more popular, with up to 42.7% of internet users worldwide now using it at least once a month, according to Backlinko.

Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is permission-based and works by delivering the information that users are looking for. It meets genuine interest with valuable content and useful information, demonstrating credibility and creating meaningful, lasting relationships. Customers find the exact product or service they want or need and brands find their ideal customers. It’s digital marketing being used for good, solving problems and ensuring that everybody wins.

How does inbound marketing work?

An inbound marketing strategy, as per HubSpot’s model, consists of three distinct steps: attract, engage, delight. Each has its own considerations and a specific toolset.

Attract – It starts with attracting visitors. To do that, some research is first required to develop the buyer personas which will inform your content creation. And you’re going to need a lot of quality content. There are many content formats, but blogging remains popular since it offers a great way to explore a topic in-depth and rank for important keywords. This SEO plays a vital part in attracting the right visitors to your site.

Engage – Once visitors start to arrive, the aim is to turn them into leads. You can do this with a specific content or services offer and a call to action that motivates them to take the next step, which could be downloading a gated asset or requesting a demonstration. This is where tools like lead flows, email marketing, chatbots and marketing automation play a key part.

Delight – The third step is to turn those leads into customers. Multi-channel lead nurturing is the way to go, with multiple touches, timely follow-ups and personalised communications. Make sure that your audience can connect easily with your sales and services teams.

In our experience, we’ve found that applying some paid content promotion helps to get the ball rolling for the initial “attract” phase. The reality is that you can’t attract visitors with your content if they never see it and don’t know you exist, and earning organic reach takes time.

That means that inbound and outbound marketing needs to work in harmony to some degree. Each industry and business has its own “sweet spot” with the optimal balance between the two, but it’s always vital to ensure that all your sales and marketing efforts work together as part of an integrated strategy.

Does inbound marketing work?

It most certainly does. In fact, according to HubSpot’s Not Another State of Marketing Report 2020, 59% of marketers found that inbound strategies produced the highest quality leads, and that inbound marketers are four times as likely to be effective than their traditional counterparts. In addition, 70% of marketers surveyed were actively investing in content marketing as a crucial part of any inbound strategy.

The B2B space is especially well-suited to inbound strategies since online content does a great deal of heavy lifting in the buyer journey. According to Gartner’s research, an average of 27% of B2B buyers’ time in the lead-up to a purchase is spent researching independently online, compared to only 17% spent meeting with suppliers.

The HubSpot advantage

HubSpot is the name you’ll hear again and again in the world of inbound marketing. They were the pioneers of the inbound methodology and invented the attract, engage, delight flywheel, a model which has proven itself time and time again. HubSpot’s CRM suite provides a powerful set of tools to help marketers make a success of their inbound marketing strategies, such as workflow and tracking technologies, templates and analytics tools.

We partnered with HubSpot back in 2013 and reached gold status in just 11 months thanks to our team of certified inbound marketing gurus. Since then, we’ve continued to hone our lead-nurturing skills and master the HubSpot toolset, which has helped us deliver phenomenal success for our clients.

It's more crucial than ever for brands to deliver a high-quality customer experience. That necessitates using the right set of tools to apply the right methodology. We can help your business begin its inbound marketing journey with the implementation and advanced setup of HubSpot’s CRM and as much help as you need along the way to maximise ROI.

Get in touch to learn more about how we can manage your HubSpot.