Inbound marketing is one of the most effective ways to increase the popularity of a product. Inbound marketing does so without creating a lot of irritating noise. Even people who depend upon marketing to make a living are likely to get a bit annoyed with the sheer amount of advertisements in the world these days. Web pages are stuffed with advertisements, television can be downright annoying with the amount of advertising it carries and radio even more so. Inbound marketing is a way to reach out to consumers without annoying them into having a negative image of your product.
An Attractive Pitch
For a moment, try to take the perspective of someone to whom you’re advertising our affiliate program. This person is bombarded with so many advertisements that they probably feel exhausted by it all at the end of the day. The last thing they want to do, for certain, is to listen to one more advertisement for a product they’re probably not even interested in. That last part is the important part: a product that they’re not even interested in. Inbound advertising avoids one of the huge pitfalls of outbound advertising, which is spending money to speak to uninterested ears. By being targeted toward individuals who are actually interested in the product being advertised, inbound adverting avoids becoming a nuisance to the consumer.
They’re Already Interested
If you flip on the television at night, you’re going to be watching a lot of car commercials, to be sure. If you already have a car, aren’t interested in buying another car and get away from the tube every time one of these advertisements comes on, you know one of the failings of outbound advertising. The 30 seconds of airtime that the advertiser paid for to tell you about their new car was a complete waste. Inbound advertising is targeted at people are already interested.
There are materials that straddle the line between marketing and information. This isn’t a new idea. Advertorial advertising was very popular in newspapers and provided a way for marketers to reach out to audiences by giving them useful information about a product that they were interested in. Inbound advertising relies on this simple and effective concept.
With inbound advertising, you’re providing more information about a product that your potential customers are already interested in. If you’ve read a lot of marketing studies, you know that people need to be shown something more than once before they’ll actually buy it. Some studies claim that it requires up to 10 instances of being shown the same item before the consumer will buy it, even if the consumer is already very interested in the product! Inbound marketing helps you to show the product to the consumer, among other advantages.
A Useful form of Advertising
Inbound marketing actually gives the customer an excuse to learn more about a product in which they’re interested. Outbound marketing offers only an advertisement, which is why it generally doesn’t generate the same levels of interest that inbound marketing does.Inbound advertising can be a blog that gives people good information about a product, a website that has articles that are useful for people who already own the product and numerous other types of materials. All of these materials have in common the fact that they actually offer something of value to the consumer. These aren’t bland marketing materials that just tell people how amazing the product is and why they should buy it. Inbound marketing is more creative, more useful and more engaging than outbound marketing, in most cases.
Using Inbound Marketing
There are some characteristics of inbound marketing that you can keep in mind to give you ideas about how you might use it.
It’s engaging It’s useful It’s oftentimes interactive It’s not always directly marketing Inbound marketing seeks to capture the interest of the user by giving them something they need. Articles that explain the product that you’re selling beyond marketing hype are great for this. They give the product context and help people to understand how it might fit within their life. Inbound marketing oftentimes does have an interactive element. Sometimes it will take the form of a blog that people participate in, which gives them a reason to keep reading. In other cases, the marketing might be a poll, a game or something else that brings the customer to the advertiser by offering the customer something fun or interesting to do.
Remember that you’re creating marketing materials for someone who is already somewhat interested in the product. This means that you don’t have to worry about giving them the basics of it over and over. Consider offering them something that has more detailed information about the product and, in particular, try to produce materials that are designed for those that already have the product. This is a great way to introduce them to the different uses for the product.
Attracting an Audience
One of the ways that affiliate marketers can use inbound marketing very effectively is to set themselves up as experts. The idea is that the site will attract people who are looking for more detailed information on the product that they’re already interested in buying.
You might want to consider using a blog site or another informational site to attract customers. Blog sites, in particular, are useful for affiliate marketers. They can be set up for free and all you have to do is to include a link to the product at the bottom of any post so that customers have an opportunity to buy.
Make sure you keep your site updated regularly. The search engines will pay more attention to sites that update regularly and this means that you’ll get better search engine placement if you take the time to write rather frequent updates. You can also exchange posts with other bloggers and have special offers on your site to attract clients. Inbound marketing attracts the types of leads that you want. Outbound advertising, more often than not, ends up making much less of an impression, particularly if it’s overdone.