Inbound marketing can be useful to companies of all industries and sizes, including small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Inbound is not only for large brands, as small and medium-sized businesses can also reap many benefits using an inbound strategy.
Let's review the benefits of inbound marketing for SMEs and dive into the best strategies to get your inbound plan up and running.
Before we start planning an SME inbound marketing strategy, it's important to be clear about the market situation. Even if you don't have a big budget for market research, we can always Google and conduct social research to see what your main competitors are doing, as well as what users think of them and your own brand.
Another key step in this analysis is to profile our ideal customer (aka buyer persona). By understanding your buyer persona, you should be able to answer these questions:
Inbound marketing starts by attracting users to your website or other branded channels, but that's just the first step. Between the first contact and the final conversion, the user goes through different stages, called the buyer journey. Therefore, investigate what that customer journey looks like and design a strategy for each step.
Content is a key part of inbound marketing, as it is through our content that we are able to attract potential customers.
Sometimes, SMEs may have a blog and start publishing without having a clear plan. To get the most out of your time, be clear about what content actually provides value to your prospects and design a publishing calendar that you can realistically keep up with.
For an inbound marketing strategy to work, your content needs to be visible and easy to find. And for that, it is essential that they are well positioned on Google.
The first step, therefore, is to do keyword research to determine what your ideal customers' searches would be. Keep in mind that as an SME, we will not likely be able to compete for the top keywords, but we will have the opportunity to position in searches for longer tail keywords, for example, "design agency for fashion stores in Malaga". Positioning for the top keywords is difficult even for large brands, so we must reach our customers using more unique key phrases.
Once a potential customer has landed on your website, you need to collect their data in order to continue communicating with them. You can do this using your inbound marketing tools.
One of the most widely used tactics is to invite users to download valuable content in exchange for filling out a form. Ideally, create different landing pages for different types of users and content, so that they are as optimized as possible to meet your specific needs.
Once you’ve acquired your lead, you must nurture the relationship. A cost-effective strategy that usually produces good results is email marketing. There are very low-cost tools on the market that allow you to create automated email sequences, so you don't even have to be actively involved in the process.
When the lead has converted and made a sale, your relationship shouldn’t just end. Remember, it is more expensive to get a new customer than an old customer. Therefore, continue to communicate via email or other channels and send both valuable content and offers tailored to their tastes and needs. This will encourage the customer to become loyal to your company.