As the quintessential inbound marketing strategy is content marketing with blogs, YouTube, etc., I am going to focus on this route and break down different content marketing actions that you can perform, even as a small entrepreneur.
However, I want to insist that inbound marketing is not exhausted in content marketing. Finding ways other than the obvious content marketing route is largely a matter of creativity.
We’re talking about things like, for example, events, challenges, contests, sweepstakes, etc. However, for small entrepreneurs, in general, content marketing is going to be the easier route.
What are the advantages and benefits of inbound marketing?
The benefits of inbound marketing are very broad, a post could be dedicated exclusively to them.
That’s why I’m going to limit myself to a very subjective vision of mine and adapted to the target audience of this blog, which are precisely bloggers and YouTubers, with the 5 most important advantages:
- The results obtained are good and measurable
The results obtained with inbound marketing are not only good but also very measurable, because digital marketing tools allow tracking even at the level of the individual person.
Using the right tools, we know exactly how many people reach us, what percentage of them eventually become customers and many other relevant things.
We can cross-reference this with the investment made in inbound marketing actions and calculate a very precise return on investment (ROI).
On the other hand, by allowing a very precise segmentation, the leads (people who have given us their contact information, typically their email) are of very good quality.
With the right strategies, we can convert a significant portion of them into loyal customers and repeat buyers.
- It is affordable for small pockets
In traditional marketing, making powerful marketing actions to reach a large audience has always meant spending significant amounts of money.
But in inbound marketing you can even start for free, by opening a simple YouTube channel, a blog and social media accounts. This is how many successful online entrepreneurs have started.
- It allows you to create a brand from scratch
Another “hard” task in the past was to create a solid brand.
Achieving this in a short time (1-2 years maximum) meant spending large amounts of money on advertising. If you couldn’t do this, you had to work hard and wait for word of mouth to take effect, a very slow process that usually takes many years.
I remember my first company, where it took more than a decade before it really became a well-known brand in its industry. Until that happened, we suffered a lot to sell, pay the payroll every month and not go bankrupt.
- It is an honest type of marketing
Inbound marketing allows you to let potential customers get to know you and your products little by little and they can assess without pressure if you fit them, a much more natural and honest way to sell. - It works in the long term
As a consequence of the above, it is easier to create long-term relationships, customers who are satisfied, trust you and are eager to continue buying your products, if you know how to offer them what they need.
And what are the drawbacks?
As you have seen, inbound marketing is a great invention, no doubt about it, but it also has some drawbacks. Let’s take a look at some of the most important ones:
- It’s slow
The clearest disadvantage is that, by the very nature of the process, it is a slow marketing strategy, basically for two reasons:
The process of building user trust and loyalty takes time. It is complicated to accelerate.
Getting visibility for your content (the most used type of inbound marketing as we said before) on Google and/or YouTube also takes time and has an important technical component (SEO) that must be mastered.
Therefore, at the beginning, if you have the financial means to do so, the old-fashioned outbound marketing through online advertising can be very convenient to accelerate the process of launching a new website or YouTube channel with which you are starting from scratch.
- It’s laborious
Creating content that works is not easy. There is already a lot of free content on the Internet, you are competing against all that content. If you want users to pay attention to you too, you need very good quality content. That’s not an option.
So you have no choice but to roll up your sleeves and put in the hours.
And beware of blindly delegating content to third parties on writing platforms such as TextBroker, for example. Quality content is expensive and even then it is doubtful that you will get it right if you don’t put yourself in the front line to make sure.
Just as it’s difficult to run a restaurant when the owner doesn’t step in, it’s difficult to run a website if you’re not on the front line with the content, at least until your project gets off the ground.
Note: I’m not saying that you should do everything yourself all your life. That would be another extreme of an equally serious mistake. But you must mature and understand your project and your audience first. At that point, you will have much clearer guidelines on everything and it will be easier to work with a team.
- It is not easy to get visibility
Probably your biggest challenge will be to increase the visibility of your site. As we said before, you will face competition, even a lot of competition depending on the niche, and it turns out that you are the last one to arrive.
My advice is clear: it’s not enough to just create good content. You have to learn the technical side of how to get initial traffic and how to position content on the web.
