HubSpot - Class 1

The biggest question - what is Inbound and why?

Companies that use traditional marketing techniques are focusing on finding customers. They use interruptive techniques like cold-calling, print advertising to TV commercials and junk mail. Also, all of those techniques are expensive nowadays. 

"Inbound Marketing is about Empowering potential customers."

 

"Instead of interrupting people with television ads, they might create videos that potential customers want to see. Instead of buying display ads in print publications, they could create a business blog that people would look forward to reading. And instead of cold calling, they create useful content so that prospects can contact them when they want more information"
"Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on getting found by customers. It’s customer-focused. It’s helpful. Wouldn’t you prefer to deal with a business that is focused on your needs instead of
their own?"

It's called Inbound because the real purpose, is to drag people (in), be part of the conversation, and creating marketing that people love. Nowadays, nobody asks for a salesperson when buying things, firstly they do some research on the web about what they need. What, where, when, how, how much, are some of the questions that people are doing on the web every day.

The four stages that make up the Inbound Marketing are: Attract, Convert, Close and Delight.

Attract - bring strangers to your site and turning them into visitors. One the tools that you can use is blogging, optimising your website, and social media;

Convert - after you've attracted, you need do convert some of the visitors in leads by gathering their contact information. It's essential to have contact information. In order to have it, you have to offer something in return to your visitor (ebooks, whitepapers, or tip sheets);

Close - it's time to transform those leads into customers. "In the Close stage, tools like email and a CRM can be used to help sell to the right leads at the right time;"

 
Delight - "Just because someone is already a customer doesn’t mean that you can forget about them! Inbound companies continue to delight and engage their customer base, turning them into happy promoters of the products and services they love". At the end of this process, it all begins again, like a circle, the whole methodology starts back at the beginning.

The final part of the process - Analyze - "Anything you do, any piece of content you create, any campaign you launch, or any marketing action you undertake, should be analyzed."

 

See you in the next class - What are the fundamentals of the Inbound Success?