7 Tips To Grow Your Business With Inbound Marketing
Apr 06, 2016
10 min read
Today the internet is overflowing with information and your potential buyers are being over-saturated with it. In fact, Sirius decisions has reported a 22% increase in the average sales cycle over the past 5 years because of more involvement of the decision makers in the buying process.
To make sales you need to provide these decision makers the content that they are looking for that helps them make a decision exactly why your company is the next stop where they should buy the product from. Giving this informative content at the right time, and on the right platform has become your top job priority.
There are simpler ways to use Inbound Marketing to grow your business and we’ll have a look at it.
1. Research
To do a research, you don’t need wikipedia go throughs or searching over the internet for case studies or white papers to make your own strategy. All that is needed is you need to know your business and objectives, knowing about the competition and what kind of inbound strategy they employ and last and most important thing is to know your customers.
Just ask yourselves these simple questions:
Knowing your business
- How would you measure the performance of your efforts?
- What are your revenue goals?
- How do you describe the growth of your business?( revenue generated, amount of leads coming in, customers acquired, etc.)
- Defining the sales process? (producing content used to educate prospects, what is the length of process, etc.)
Knowing your Competition
If you think that you know it all about your industry that might be correct for some cases but businesses overlook the fact that they shouldn’t care much about the changes taking place in the industry, updates and innovations. If you want to stay ahead of the herd then continued industry research is a must.
- What kind of content is posted by your competitors on their website?
- Is there any major changes taking place, news and updates?
- Does a business to business marketplace exist for your industry?
- What is the current scenario regarding your industry stats? Are your goals realistic and attainable?
Knowing Your Customer
Constantly staying in touch with your sales team is important because they are the ones who are in direct contact with your potentials customers and they are the ones who can provide an insight about what your customers want. Some questions to ask them are:
- 5 key points that are commonly answered by the sales people?
- How is your product helpful in solving the customer’s problems?
- Most responsive customer demographics?
- What kind of communication the customers respond to the most?
2. SEO
Creating content as per the needs of your customers is as important as optimizing it for keywords. Knowing in depth about what keywords your customers are searching for and optimizing each and every page of your website for such keywords is the process that your business needs to follow. When it comes to SEO keeping a tab on these takeaways is helpful:
- Including keywords in the page content in elements like header and page text
- Including keywords in the page properties such as URL, meta description and alt tags for images.
- Most importantly linking keywords in your content to the other pages of the website or to the other websites or landing pages for backlinking.
3. Content
Most important and integral part of Inbound Marketing is the content. Creating an Inbound strategy that includes contents like blogs, content on websites, landing pages, on social media or email to which your customers respond the most to should be the area you should focus your energy.
To see results you can even ask your customers by creating the premium content and fill out a form that how helpful or informative do they find your content.
4. Blogging
Posting blogs on your websites and optimizing them for keywords is the way how you bring organic traffic to your website. It is highly recommended that you use blogging to grow traffic on your website. Some simple tips for a robust blogging strategy are:
Writing content around the issues, and challenges that your prospects face and penning their solutions and mentioning about how your products or services can solve your problems.
Maintaining the frequency
The amount of content that goes out in a day whether it be in any form: blogs, content on social media sites etc., maintain the frequency according to the response you get from your customers.
Learning from competitors
Your competitors have already been blogging, so learn most of the stuff from them like what kind of content they post, what is the response they get in the form of comments, shares etc.
Using call-to-actions
Providing call-to-actions at the end of the blog like a button re-directing them to your products or services page after you have addressed their concerns through your blog.
5. Lead Communication
After that you have successfully implemented all the above steps and let us assume that you have got some qualified leads, now is the time to actually focus on communicating with them. Based on the type of leads or queries that have been generated by various types of customers: who they are and what is their demographics, what kind of service or product are they looking at, which question they want to be answered by you. All these need to be taken care of while communicating with the customer.
6. Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing is the time when you get to know whether a lead is sales ready or not so that the sales team is not wasting time on unqualified leads. Here are some tips:
Refining your messages
Giving your customers with the relevant content or asking them more questions to know exactly what they want to know. They exactly need to hear something from you like an offer or something that entices them towards your company.
What to give your customers
Blogging comes in handy for this purpose. Keep sending them blog posts or updates in the lead nurturing e-mails to inform them or getting them back on your website.
7. Conclusion
We hope that these 7 steps in your Inbound Marketing will help you grow your business. Creating the right content, optimizing the content for SEO will attract the right kind of visitors you are looking on your website and certainly generate queries for your products or services.
Drive Exceptional Growth without an In-House Marketing Team
We drive business growth by optimizing every inbound channel to attract and convert high-quality clients for you
Share with Friends
Outshine Your Competition Faster
Drive measurable growth through comprehensive, data-driven digital marketing strategies.
Talk to Experts
How To Stand Out From The Noise On Instagram
Instagram is undoubtedly the most prominent social media platform out there and is on its way to close the gap with its parent company Facebook - which currently boasts 2.2 billion monthly active users. Instagram is huge! With 1 billion monthly active users and more than 8 million brands present on the platform collectively sharing more than 40 million pictures on an average day, standing out from the crowd can become a bit difficult if you are actively marketing yourself on the platform organically or inorganically. Yes, building a highly engaged following on the platform is hard but it’s certainly not impossible. If you are maintaining a presence on the platform and are seeing little to no results or are just starting out from scratch, the tips I’m about to tell you will help you stand out on Instagram and build a highly engaged following for your Instagram business or personal account - Create a profile and optimize Creating a profile on the platform is easy but you’ll have to choose if you want to create a personal profile or a business profile. The reason I’m mentioning it is that if you create a business profile, you’ll get additional analytics for your each and every post made on the platform. While you can choose to create a personal profile as well, going for a business profile will always be beneficial if you are looking to establish yourself strongly on the platform. Data always helps. Optimizing your business profile on the platform is easy! Just focus on providing as much information to your audience (in about 200 words) about yourself in your profile bio. And don’t forget to add your website link and contact information so users can easily give you a call when they feel like it! If you’re going for a personal profile, make sure it’s not set to private by checking it’s settings. The kind of images you upload matters Instagram is a highly visual image sharing platform in nature, so it makes sense to upload only your best on the platform. So, focus on uploading only high-quality images on Instagram that are high on aesthetics and visual appeal. You can also upload videos on the platform, they receive a ton of engagement as well. But, on Instagram, images are the king and receive the most engagement. Try keeping a unique theme in all your pics and keep it consistent to stand out. Don’t waste that caption space Talking about posting images, with each image you post, Instagram allows you to add a 2200 words caption than you can make use of to tell your audience a story to add more depth to your pictures, add relevant hashtags or tag other people, but do make good use of all that space. National Geographic, which is currently the most followed brand on the visual platform, does it perfectly by adding a lot of depth to all their images by adding heart-warming and witty captions that keep their ever-increasing fans wanting for more. Use stories, hashtags, and other Instagram marketing features Like Snapchat, you can create stories on Instagram to get in front of your audience with the help of a colorful circle which appears at the top of news feed. Also, you can make use of relevant #hashtags on the platform to get seen by an audience browsing through that specific hashtag and gain exposure. Or you can make use of Live Video on the platform for instant engagement as each time you start a LIve Video on your profile, all your followers will receive a push notification about it. You can use the platform to market yourself in various ways, make sure you know all about their nitty-gritty marketing features that let creators on the platform get really creative. I would suggest you to keep a close look at Instagram Press to stay abreast with all their upcoming features and latest updates. Keep your audience interested Keeping your audience interested on Instagram by uploading engaging posts every now and then is of utmost importance. Only when you are actively working on engaging your audience and post consistently, you’ll be able to pave way for new audiences to find and follow you. So, post consistently, engage with your audience by regularly replying to their comments, share their images and get involved in the community to build a solid fan base on the platform. Spend some money If you want to gain quick exposure and build a solid fan base on the platform, going the paid way is always an option. You can make use of Instagram’s in-feed ads to get your message across to a ton of targeted users depending on your budget. Instagram provides you the functionality of displaying photo, video, carousel, stories and collection ads to fulfill all kinds of your business objectives. While you get an option to promote your each and every post, you’ll have to use Facebook Ads Manager to set-up, optimize and target all your paid marketing campaigns on the platform. If you've never done paid marketing on the platform, don't worry we can help you with setting it all up. Use the above-mentioned methods to convert your Instagram presence from NOT to HOT!. While there are many other ways you can use to gain exposure on the platform, the ways I mentioned above will surely help you gain a lot of traction on the platform. If there are other great ways to build a solid fan base on Instagram that may have helped your or someone’s else business take off on the platform, do let us know in the comments. ...
read more
Top 5 Demand-Side Platforms (DSP) For Programmatic Advertising
We’re continuing on our programmatic spree! If you are still not familiar with what programmatic is, you can have a look at our previous blogs which specifically talk about what exactly programmatic advertising is and some things you should take care of before firing up your programmatic efforts. Going through them first will help you get on the same page as us. So, you’ve decided that going programmatic is the way to go to achieve better ROI and have successfully defined a strategy, got abreast with the current needs of your target audience and are almost ready to begin advertising programmatically. But what are the best platforms out there that will acquaint you with the best available ad units according to your targeted audience and provide detailed analytics as well so you can optimize all your programmatic advertising campaigns along the way? This post is all about that and a lot more! So, let’s get into those top 5 programmatic advertising platforms right away - Google Marketing Platform To keep up with the ever-evolving needs of marketers and publishers alike, Google went through a major rebrand to simplify, unify and consolidate their various top-of-the-line digital marketing and advertising products, giving advertisers and publishers more control over their entire digital marketing campaigns. After the rebrand, Google AdWords is now Google Ads. Google’s Doubleclick Advertisers products (including DoubleClick Bid Manager, Campaign Manager, Studio & Audience Centre) and Analytics 360 suite is now Google Marketing Platform. And DoubleClick For Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange is now Google Ads Manager. The reason I’m telling you all this is because, before the rebrand, Google’s DoubleClick was the go-to product for everything programmatic for both advertisers and publishers. But after the rebrand, DoubleClick’s Bid Manager (DSP) and it’s other advertiser products are shipped integrated with Google Marketing platform under the name of ‘Display and Video 360’ which empowers advertisers to effectively plan, buy, measure and optimize their programmatic advertising campaigns across TV, video, display, mobile and more from a single unified platform. Coming to why Google’s platform is at the top of this list? Simply because of the large network of publishers selling advertising spaces on the platform. Reportedly, Google provides you with a choice to buy ad spaces programmatically on more than 1 billion websites and apps! And did I forget mentioning about Youtube? Yes, Google Marketing Platform is the only place where you can buy ad inventory on Youtube. Combined with the superior audience intelligence and analytics that the company is renowned for, you get a programmatic behemoth at your disposal that will support all your programmatic efforts every step of the way. We rely on the Google Marketing Platform as well for providing all our programmatic services. And it’s just great! Facebook Ads Manager Other than the web, if you are looking to advertise programmatically specifically on Facebook, then Facebook Ads Manager is your best bet. While there are other programmatic advertising platforms that provide ad spaces on Facebook and other social media platforms like Twitter, they will never be able to match the in-depth audience targeting options Facebook provides to its advertisers. And it’s all about the audience when it comes to making your advertisements work. If you have targeted the kind of audience who is already inclined to buy services/products related to your business, your ad will work. You can programmatically advertise native ads on the platform in the form of photos, videos, carousel ads, slideshows, and instant experiences. Appnexus Appnexus in another great programmatic advertising platform backed up by rich data and machine learning. The USP of the platform is you can fully customize it according to your business requirements and needs. The programmable platform allows you to programmatically buy premium inventory across various channels (desktop, mobile, TV) and formats (video, display, native, OTT) via multiple programmatic options (open exchange, private marketplace, programmatic guaranteed) with safety and transparency. Obviously, their inventory with not be as vast and detailed as Google but the platform still outscores other programmatic platforms over the web. SpotX If you have some videos at your disposal and want to advertise them programmatically over the web, then SpotX is your best option. SpotX is dedicatedly a video ad serving platform that has won various accolades for the awesome services they provide. I say services and not platform because the SpotX team, if you choose their services, will closely work with you to make your programmatic efforts a success. Their programmatic platform is studded with detailed analytics, superior audience intelligence and provides the functionality to advertise various video ad units such as in-stream videos, outstream videos, interstitial videos and OTT videos to deliver your preferred video experience to the targeted users and platforms of your programmatic advertising campaign. AdRoll Renowned for their spot-on retargeting services, this programmatic service provider and platform is best suited for entrepreneurs and advertisers of eCommerce stores. Their rich data pool of 1.2 billion online shoppers which includes their browsing behavior, previous purchases, and other important user data enables advertisers to target users based on their exact preferences and make every advertising campaign a success, ask from the 37,000 businesses using their platform and churning billions in business revenue. The platform lets you market your advertisements and retargets users across display, social, native and email. And their platform also lets you integrate all your user data with top eCommerce solutions such as Shopify, Magento, MailChimp and more to streamline all your workflows and turn you eCommerce store into a money-making machine. So, there you go! These 5 programmatic advertising platforms are all different in how they let you advertise yourself over the web and are built keeping in mind different business goals and objectives. So, I would advise you to go to their website, see what they have to provide and then decide which platform will suit you the best according to your budget and unique business requirements. If there are some other awesome programmatic platforms that have helped you remarkably in all your programmatic efforts, do let us know in the comments. ...
read more
What is a Knowledge Graph and how does it work?
Have you ever seen a knowledge card appear in the search results when you Google “current president of the United States” or “weather today”? If so, you’ve already experienced the power of knowledge graphs in action. The Google Knowledge Graph is a prime example of a widely recognized knowledge graph. But what exactly is a knowledge graph, and how does it work? How can you leverage it to boost your brand’s visibility and enhance your SEO strategy? In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn all of the above. How Do Knowledge Graphs Influence Search and SEO? Knowledge graphs enhance SEO by structuring data to improve search engine understanding, enabling rich results, optimizing for voice search, and increasing search rankings, thus boosting visibility and user engagement. In data science and AI, knowledge graphs improve search results by adding identifiers and descriptions to data to make sense of it, integrate it, and explain it. Understanding Search Intent Traditional keyword matching often fails to understand the true intent behind a search query. Knowledge graphs go beyond keywords to grasp the context and relationships between entities. For example, searching for “famous artist who painted the Mona Lisa” yields the correct result (Leonardo da Vinci) without mentioning his name. This demonstrates how knowledge graphs can interpret the intent behind queries. Knowledge graphs use natural language processing to understand the context and relationships between entities, enhancing their ability to interpret and respond to complex queries. Enhancing Voice Search with Natural Language Processing With the increasing use of voice-activated assistants, natural language voice searches are becoming more common. Knowledge graphs help search engines recognize entities and their attributes in voice queries. For instance, asking, “Who played the lead in the movie Titanic?” and then “How old is he?” enables the search engine to understand that “he” refers to Leonardo DiCaprio, showcasing the interconnected nature of entities. Knowledge graphs use machine learning to improve the accuracy of voice search results by training data to feed machine learning algorithms and integrating these techniques to enhance their functionality. Boosting Brand Visibility and Authority Data from knowledge graphs often appears in SERP features like knowledge panels and knowledge cards. These features provide significant SERP real estate, enhancing visibility and authority. If your brand is included in a knowledge graph, your logo and key information can appear in search results, even for non-branded queries, elevating your visibility and perceived authority. Organizations can leverage internal knowledge graphs by utilizing existing datasets or ontologies to bootstrap their internal knowledge graphs, enhancing brand visibility and authority. Reducing Click-Through Rates According to a study by Rand Fishkin, over 50% of searches result in no clicks, partly because knowledge graphs often provide direct answers in the SERP. While this can reduce organic traffic, focusing on keywords with higher click-through rates can help mitigate this impact. Knowledge graphs can start from unstructured data, storing vectors along with nodes and relationships to provide long-term memory for AI, which helps deliver direct answers in the SERP. Let’s break through your revenue hurdles We find your primary growth blockers, build expert-led strategies, and provide custom data-driven solutions to help you hit your revenue goals. Set up a 1:1 strategy call How to Get Included in a Knowledge Graph Inclusion in a knowledge graph can significantly enhance your SEO strategy. Here are six comprehensive steps to notably improve your chances of being featured: Organizing your data in a specific format is crucial for inclusion in a knowledge graph, as it involves linking entity descriptions to one another, forming connections, and creating a graph structure. Enhance Your PR and Link Building Efforts Mentions from authoritative sources can signal to search engines that your entity is notable. Although challenging, small and medium businesses can achieve this with a focused PR strategy and scaling link building. Knowledge graphs can also assist with knowledge management tasks such as data governance and fraud detection, enhancing the overall efficiency of organizational units. Implement Schema Markup on Your Website for Structured Data Using schema markup (structured data) helps search engines understand your content better. Implement organization markup to include name, logo, URL, and social profiles. Validate your markup to ensure accuracy. A knowledge graph acquires information by integrating it into an ontology and applying a reasoner to derive new knowledge. It organizes entities like concepts, places, people, and organizations and connects them through relationships. Here’s an example: {”@context”: “http://schema.org“,”@type”: “Organization”,”name”: “Your Company”,”description”: “Your Company provides innovative solutions in the tech industry.”,”url”: “https://yourcompany.com“,”logo”: “https://yourcompany.com/logo.jpg“,”email”: “contact@yourcompany.com“,”address”: {”@type”: “PostalAddress”,”addressCountry”: “US”,”postalCode”: “12345”,”streetAddress”: “123 Main Street”},”founder”: {”@type”: “Person”,”name”: “John Doe”,”gender”: “Male”,”jobTitle”: “CEO”,”image”: “https://yourcompany.com/johndoe.jpg“,”sameAs”: [”https://twitter.com/johndoe“,”https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndoe/“]},”foundingDate”: “2005-06-01”,”sameAs”: [”https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/yourcompany“,”https://www.facebook.com/YourCompany“,”https://www.linkedin.com/company/yourcompany“,”https://twitter.com/yourcompany“,”https://www.youtube.com/channel/yourcompany“],”contactPoint”: [{”@type”: “ContactPoint”,”contactType”: “customer service”,”email”: “support@yourcompany.com“,”url”: “https://yourcompany.com“}] Create a Google My Business (GMB) Profile for Google Knowledge Graph Creating a GMB profile for a Google Knowledge Graph helps with brand visibility in Google Maps and searches. Ensure that your details (name, address, phone number) are consistent across your website, social media, and GMB listing. Develop a Wikidata Entry Wikidata is a structured data repository used by Wikipedia and other projects. A significant portion of data in knowledge graphs comes from Wikidata, making it crucial to have a profile there. To create an entry, follow Wikidata’s Help portal and Notability policy. Obtain a Wikipedia Page Having a Wikipedia page can enhance your credibility and presence in knowledge graphs. Ensure that your page adheres to Wikipedia’s guidelines and notability criteria. Ideally, have someone unaffiliated with your brand create the page to avoid bias. Maintain Consistency Consistency across all online platforms is vital. Ensure your brand information is uniform across your website, social media profiles, and other digital properties. This consistency helps search engines accurately represent your brand in knowledge graphs. Turn website into high paying customers We drive business growth by optimizing every inbound channel to attract and convert high-quality clients for you Set up a 1:1 strategy call Semantic Knowledge Graph A semantic knowledge graph is a graph-based representation of data where entities (nodes) and their relationships (edges) are integrated into an ontology. This means the entities are semantically enriched, providing context and meaning. For example, a node named "NASH" is ambiguous. However, by aligning it with a disease ontology, the graph clarifies that "NASH" refers to a disease, not a gene, drug, or person. Attributes on nodes and edges further describe their characteristics. This semantic enrichment allows a knowledge graph to accurately understand and represent real-world entities and their relationships, facilitating more meaningful data analysis and interpretation. Essentially, a knowledge graph understands "things, not strings," enabling computers to comprehend and process data in a human-like context. Knowledge Graph Examples Knowledge graphs are powerful tools developed by major tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. They significantly impact semantic SEO, entity development, and branding. Google’s Knowledge Graph: Launched in 2012, it enhances search engine results by understanding the relationships between people, places, and things. This enables Google to provide users with more accurate and relevant information. For instance, searching for a famous person will yield a rich snippet with a brief biography, related people, and key facts, improving user experience and engagement. Microsoft’s Satori: Microsoft's knowledge graph is integrated into Bing. It helps deliver detailed and structured information right within the search results. Satori enriches Bing’s capabilities by understanding complex queries and presenting concise answers, thus reducing the need for users to click through multiple links. Facebook’s Graph Search: Although not a traditional search engine, Facebook uses a knowledge graph to connect users with content, people, and interests. By understanding the connections and preferences within its massive user base, Facebook can offer personalized search results and content recommendations, enhancing user engagement and advertising effectiveness. These knowledge graphs are crucial for SEO as they prioritize structured data and entities, making it easier for search engines to understand and index content. For businesses, this means enhanced visibility, better branding, and a more profound presence in search results, ultimately driving more traffic and engagement. Conclusion Understanding and leveraging knowledge graphs is essential for modern SEO. Inclusion in a knowledge graph requires effort and consistency, but the benefits of visibility, authority, and user trust make it worthwhile. Utilizing knowledge graph AI techniques can significantly enhance these benefits, driving more sophisticated insights and interactions. By following the steps outlined above, you can increase your chances of being featured in a semantic graph and improve your SEO strategy. Saffron Edge helps your brand stay informed and proactive about these developments, which is key to maintaining a competitive edge in SEO. Knowledge graphs can create new knowledge from existing facts, leading to more relevant search results and actionable insights. ...
read more
Subscribe to our newsletter
Get fresh stories, case studies, and
advice
from successful creators and industry experts.
Subscribe now
Outshine Your Competition Faster
Drive measurable growth through comprehensive, data-driven digital marketing strategies.
Talk to Experts