Why Inbound Marketing is Essential for Today’s Growth-Focused Brands (and the Methodology Behind It)

If you’re a dedicated growth specialist at your company, then you understand the importance of uncovering the complexities of digital growth and fine-tuning details to keep your brand soaring. In this post, we’ll discuss how inbound marketing directly affects your bottom line and why it’s essential to stay ahead of the curve, even for companies that are already experts in digital lead generation. Besides that, we’ll explain the methodology and components behind inbound marketing and the tangible impact it can have. 

What Exactly is Inbound Marketing?

Just so we’re clear, here’s a succinct definition from the originators of the process, HubSpot. Inbound marketing is a “business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them.” Rather than using disruptive “push” tactics where you attempt to push your products on consumers, inbound marketing focuses on nondisruptive “pull” tactics that naturally draw them in by offering valuable resources and information. 

Common examples of inbound marketing mediums include: 

• Blog posts
• Content hubs
• How-to guides
• Case studies
• Whitepapers

How Does Inbound Marketing Work?

Successful inbound marketing begins with first understanding your company, target customers, market landscape, competitors, industry, and the value proposition of your products or services. The end goal is to figure out what the catalysts are that will cause customers to choose you. When your company has a firm grasp of these concepts and their applications, you can begin to take a scientific approach to the process. 

From there, you determine what types of content will offer the most value to your audience and best capture leads. Looking at competitors to see what their offers are and how you can improve on them is a great starting point. It’s then a matter of generating inbound content for lead capture, testing variations of your CTA strategy, and performing further research into what current cutting-edge CTA strategies exist for your product or service. 

Beyond that, a big part of effective inbound marketing is post-lead-capture automation that encourages leads who may not have taken an action right away to engage and gently nurture them toward making a purchase. This can include future remarketing email automation and incentivization for your specified customer base. 

Why Inbound Marketing is Essential for Today’s Growth-Focused Brands

Inbound marketing is essential in our modern age because success largely hinges upon drawing consumers in, which is the very essence of this strategy. With many of today’s consumers resistant to overt marketing attempts and some flat-out ignoring them, the inbound approach is based around the idea that “people love to buy but hate to be sold to.” This is evidenced by the fact that four out of five business decision-makers prefer to get company information via a series of blog posts versus as an advertisement. Rather than forcing it and pushing advertising on people, inbound simply supplies them with the right content at the right time, efficiently moving them through the funnel while reducing friction. 

And it represents a substantial opportunity for brands of all shapes and sizes. While in the past, it’s been an area that has primarily been associated with top-tier agencies and clients with significant marketing allocations, inbound capabilities continue to evolve along with the evolution of platforms like Google, Facebook, and beyond. 

This means that companies of any level, regardless of industry, can compete effectively with inbound marketing being one of the main pillars in a “hub and spoke” marketing mix. In turn, this makes inbound marketing a prime, must-have component in conjunction with time-proven channels such as pay-per-click, SEO, and social media marketing. 

Key Statistics

There’s no lack of evidence that proves the effectiveness of inbound marketing. First, inbound-specific companies like HubSpot gained 66.3% in 2021, showcasing 128,000 customers in over 120 countries and over a billion dollars in revenue. Given they were the ones who first coined the term “inbound marketing” back in 2006 and how much it’s infused with their core business model, their success shows firsthand how effective it is. 

Further, research has found brands that use inbound marketing see 3.3 times more visitors per month within one year and 3.5 times more leads. Companies see, on average, a 79% increase in sales within one year. And studies have found that, when executed properly, inbound marketing is 10x more effective at converting leads than traditional outbound marketing. 

Some of the strongest evidence pointing to the need for inbound comes from our own data working with our clients here at 3.7 Designs. As one of Michigan’s leading, fastest-growing full-service inbound marketing agencies, our information points to 2x and 3x growth for many clients who have implemented our recommended strategies. Here are the average results across the board. 

The bottom line is if you’re not actively managing an inbound strategy, you’re being left in the dust by competitors. 

Methodology and Components

There are four main steps involved in the inbound methodology — attract, convert, close, and delight. First, you attract your target audience with valuable content to build brand awareness and establish trust. Next, you engage them by offering solutions that solve their pain points to convert visitors into leads and then closing by turning leads into customers. And finally, you delight them by empowering them to choose the right product and get results from their purchase. 

Here’s what that looks like visually. 

Note that this methodology comes from years of evolution and practical application from clients all over the world to create an ecosystem of information and experience in the form of HubSpot’s support network, numerous blogs, case studies, and other mediums, along with first-hand experience. And like any other form of effective marketing, it continues to evolve and develop with strategies continually being tested to generate more leads, sales, and revenue. 

As for components, content offers, calls-to-action, and lead nurturing are all key parts of a strategic inbound methodology. These components will augment and amplify your existing digital marketing lead generation channels by further enhancing and maximizing metrics within your SEO and online visibility. 

Partnering with an Experienced Agency

A critical part of having success is ensuring your leadership team knows how to best implement the inbound methodology. Having the right people in the right roles at your company goes a long way toward sculpting your system and crafting your approach to revenue-generating strategies. For companies that have a set structure or are caught in a “chicken and egg” growth barrier, often the best approach is to partner with an agency like 3.7 Designs with extensive, multi-decade experience in planning and execution for digital growth and inbound marketing strategies. 

You’ll gain almost immediate access to proven inbound strategic implementation which can support your goals for growth without having to spend months seeking the right people to drive your inbound results. That way your digital marketing approach is further enhanced by an additional inbound strategy, standing as a separate channel in conjunction with your existing PPC and SEO efforts that drives value on its own accord. That’s why we suggest having your sales and marketing leaders explore opportunities to partner with an inbound marketing agency as it can increase accountability and develop a concrete, measurable plan to produce bottom-line results. 

Closing Thoughts

Today’s customers are highly knowledgeable and are becoming increasingly less receptive to disruptive, in-your-face marketing tactics. 

They are receptive to inbound marketing that focuses on providing them with valuable resources and information. Aligning your campaign with this approach has proven to be highly effective for meeting the needs of your ideal customer, maximizing your number of leads, and capitalizing on more sales opportunities.