Stop Paying For Customers
There are many ways to find customers online. Instead of paying for advertising, like using Google Ads, try joining other small businesses that are doing “inbound marketing” – it’s cheaper and more effective.
What’s Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is how clients find you online. People are naturally searching for things on the Internet – there are over 1 billion searches on Google every month! Instead of pushing your products and services, let your customers find you. There are 5 parts to inbound marketing:
SEO: makes sure potential customers find your website
Website: where clients come to find more about you and your services
Blog: the “voice” of your company – clients will come to ask qs and learn what you do
Social Media: gives your company a personality and allows you to interact with clients
Email: use website + social media to collect emails and build relationships with customers
Why Should I Use Inbound Marketing?
People are getting more difficult to reach through traditional advertising. Flyers, local papers and even the bus are becoming less effective. Inbound marketing is an alternative – it’s how today’s customers want to interact with your business, plus it’s more effective and less expensive.
Will I Get More Clients?
Inbound marketing creates higher quality leads, or “potential customers,” than traditional marketing. This means people who find you using inbound marketing are more likely to become customers than people who you find using traditional marketing.
How Long Will It Take?
Inbound marketing takes around 3 months before you start to see serious results – this is the time it takes Google and other search engines to find and display you in their results.
During the first months, the goal is to stay focused and be consistent. You can monitor analytics and see your leads increase over time – it gets better every month you use it. And remember, people who use inbound marketing have seen their businesses double and triple in the first year.
How much will it cost?
Compared to traditional marketing, getting customers online using inbound marketing is significantly cheaper. If you want to do it on your own, it’s just your time. You can also work with professionals to set up your website and social media accounts, and you can even pay them to run your campaign, although it can add up fast. Plus, there’re lots of tools to help, and we’ll be going through our favorite inbound marketing tools in detail later.
Why Can’t I Just Pay For Ads On Google?
You can! You can pay to advertise on the Internet using Google Adwords, Facebook Ads and other platforms, and you can see instant results on how you’re campaign is doing. For example, you can tell if people are clicking on your ad.
However, it doesn’t mean your campaign is good at getting customers online. When you pay to advertise, you pay every time someone clicks on your ad, but that doesn’t mean they’ll become customers. You can end up losing money if people don’t buy when they click!
You never pay for potential clients with inbound marketing. Instead, you invest your time to share knowledge and attract clients. It helps you build personal connections with possible clients, so when they’re ready to buy, you’re the first person they think of.
Learn more about how to use inbound marketing for small businesses in part 2. Still have questions? Give us a shout to chat more about inbound marketing.