Today’s consumers take their time to educate themselves about a product before buying it. Thanks to search, social media, and countless review websites, consumers can learn about any product or service in minutes.
This research dictates which brands customers seek out and choose to work with, and so this trend towards consumer research should also dictate your marketing. That’s where inbound marketing comes into play.
What is inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is a method of creating SEO-friendly, customer-centric content that your audience is looking for, rather than trying to reach out to someone who may or may not be interested in what you have to offer. Put simply, instead of chasing potential customers down with outbound marketing, inbound marketing is where your customers find you!
This differs from outbound marketing, which was long the standard way of doing things. With outbound marketing, you buy ads, send out cold emails, make cold calls, host events, attend trade shows, and generally shout into the void in hopes that someone will respond.
And to be fair, there’s definitely a place for outbound marketing. Outbounding will win your site traffic at scale, but it might not be the right traffic. Some of those leads will be interested, and some won’t. It’s a mixed bag, and a costly one, at that.
Inbound marketing works differently. Instead of focusing your efforts outwardly on buying your audience’s interest, you create and distribute high-quality content like blog posts, videos, podcasts, and interactive experiences that earn your audience’s interest. They’re visiting your site because they like what you say, not because you were saying it the loudest.
Why should you use inbound marketing?
Let’s start with the cold hard facts.
According to Hubspot, inbound marketing costs 61% less to implement than outbound marketing, and it has been proven to generate 54% more leads. No matter your marketing budget, those two facts alone should be reason enough to look inwardly and give inbound marketing a try.
Still, there are plenty of benefits beyond the severely decreased cost per lead. For starters, when your audience finds you naturally, each lead is more likely to be warm. In other words, they’re already interested in what you have to offer before they ever hear your sales pitch.
Even better, if you consistently create great content, your visitors will come back to your site again and again, giving you even more chances to convert these leads!
What is the best inbound marketing software?
Inbound marketing consists of many disciplines, from search engine optimization to content writing and design. It’s a big undertaking. Fortunately, there’s plenty of inbound marketing software to help marketers drive, nurture, and convert leads.
Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all tool for inbound marketing. Just as inbound marketing involves various channels, strategies, and content types, there are many types of specialized tools that inbound marketers use to perform each of the associated tasks.
Like the rest of today’s consumers, you’ll have to do your own research to find the best software for your needs. But whether you need free tools or enterprise-level capabilities, here are some good places to start!
Content Writing Tools
During the writing process, marketers turn to tools like Grammarly, ProWritingAid or Hemingway Editor to keep their copy clear, concise, and (grammatically) correct. When it’s time to write the all-important headline, CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer or The HOTH’s Title Generator may come in handy.
Video Marketing Tools
For lean teams without the resources for Adobe Creative Cloud, Wondershare’s Filmora or Magisto make it easy to churn out engaging video. YouTube is typically the go-to for posting videos, but if you want greater control over your embedded videos, you may also consider Vimeo.
Marketing Automation
Choosing your marketing automation tools may require more research than any other category in this list. The quintessential inbound marketing platform, Hubspot provides solutions for nearly every item on this list, while tools like Marketo are popular among B2B marketers.
There are also Industry-specific solutions that cater to the needs of certain types of companies, as well as solutions that focus on a single channel, such as email or SMS.
Social Media Marketing Tools
Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social allow you to schedule posts across platforms in advance, among other things. Tools like Canva, Design Wizard, and Biteable enable teams to quickly create images and videos for social media.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools
Yoast’s WordPress plugin is one of the most popular tools for basic on-page optimization. More advanced tools like Semrush or Ahrefs can help you generate keyword ideas, perform competitive research, and audit your site for technical SEO issues. And even if you don’t run paid advertising, the Keyword Planner available in Google Ads is also an effective way to source keyword ideas
Project Management
Inbound marketing is a team effort. To keep everyone on the same page, use tools like Trello, Wrike, Basecamp, or MeisterTask for managing projects big and small.
Analytics
Google Analytics is an extremely powerful tool for measuring site traffic, tracking conversions, and analyzing the performance of each marketing channel. Even better, these capabilities are all available in the free version.
Elsewhere in the Google universe, Google Search Console can help you dig deeper into your search performance, while Google Optimize can help you A/B test your site for increased conversions.
Lead Capture Tools
If potential leads are visiting your site, you need a way to capture them with forms and landing pages. Many website builders include their own form tools, and if you use WordPress, there are plenty of free plugins available to help you collect additional visitor data.
However, to maximize your lead generation performance, you’ll need more fully-featured pop-up form or quiz builder tools, such as Digioh.
With advanced lead capture solutions, you can maximize leads with interactive experiences, such as conversational forms, high-converting landing pages, or marketing quizzes.
Capture More Leads with Digioh
Once you’ve used inbound marketing to bring warm leads to your site, lead capture tools like Digioh can help you capture visitor interest by presenting the most relevant call-to-action to each visitor.
By using Digioh to show visitors targeted discounts or other promotions, you can encourage them to join your email list or provide other important first-party data. With that data in hand, you can use the rest of the tools in your inbound marketing arsenal to guide them towards conversion.
Digioh’s drag-and-drop builder is designed to put the power in the marketer’s hands. Just choose one of our built-in pop-up themes, then use our user-friendly editor to customize your pop-ups, inline forms, quizzes, surveys, or other CTAs to your heart’s content.
With Digioh’s powerful targeting conditions, you have full control over who sees your pop-ups and when. For instance, you can create a lightbox that only shows to users who visit your site from a Facebook ad, you can target visitors based on their geographic location, or you can add dynamic content based on the current page.
With flexible design, targeting, personalization, and A/B testing capabilities, Digioh makes it easy to put the right call-to-action in front of the right visitor, helping you convert more customers with relevant content.
And for SaaS companies, Digioh integrates with Calendly, allowing you to embed Calendly schedulers in your forms for stronger conversion.
Add Digioh to Your Inbound Marketing Software Stack
Don’t let all that time and effort you put into making great content go to waste; engage your visitors with Digioh, and you’ll be able to take full advantage of the audience your content brings to your site!
To learn more about how Digioh can help you grow your business, take a look at our custom form builder solution for inbound marketers, or reach out to us now!
