Why Inbound Marketing is a No-Brainer Way to Grow Your Small Family-Owned Business

We’re all looking for ways to grow our business. Most of us understand that marketing is an important part of the growth equation. How do you handle your company’s marketing? Maybe a better question would be: when is the last time you evaluated your marketing efforts?

If your sales are down and your marketing efforts aren't achieving ROI, consider changing your marketing strategy and tactics. Perhaps it's time to learn more about Inbound Marketing which focuses on creating quality content that attracts people to your company when and where it suits them. Inbound Marketing has tried-and-true methods that turn strangers into customers who become brand ambassadors.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing is extremely impactful and successful. Its strategies are buyer-specific and often result in noticeable sales increases. Because it's methods are customized to the buyer, only relevant and valuable information is distributed. When these methods are done well, buyers feel respected which, in turn, leads to a much higher probability of them buying a product or service.

Inbound Marketing is the opposite of traditional outbound marketing. Here are some reasons why.

• It unites various non-invasive strategies into a cohesive and effective marketing plan.
• It does not utilize cold calling, buying email lists, telemarketing, or other intrusive marketing methods.   
• It helps company's "get found" by people already learning about and shopping in related industries.
• It gives valuable content to potential leads which establishes trust.
• It uses reporting and tracking methods that lead to informed marketing decisions that keep content relevant and personalized.

The Inbound Marketing methodology employs the below tactics. The best results come when an Inbound Marketing software like HubSpot is used for implementation.

• Cohesive and client-based marketing strategy focused on business goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
• Buyer persona creation
• Blogging
• Content offers
• Landing pages
• Marketing campaigns
• Email marketing
• Workflow automation
• Social media management
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Website design and development
• Video and photo shoots
• Paid search (Pay Per Click [PPC], Google Adwords)
• Paid social (ad campaigns on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.)
• Sales empowerment
• Performance metrics
• Closed-loop reporting
• Success measurement

Practical ways to apply Inbound Marketing to your small family-owned business

Take a moment to consider the five Inbound Marketing mediums described below. They're things you can start doing now to improve your marketing efforts.

1. A helpful website

Although you may want your customers to see everything you have to offer, they only want to find what they’re looking for. So, make the process as easy as possible by making sure your website is clearly branded, organized, and easy to navigate. Avoid clutter, excessive pop-ups, and industry jargon. Here are a few more helpful tips.

2. Content, content, content

Create valuable content on a daily or weekly basis. This can be done by updating your web pages with new or updated information, highlighting new or different features, creating a spotlight ad, or adding a new blog post. As long as it's valuable content that you're adding, you’ll be well-positioned to earn more organic traffic.

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As you write content, keep onsite SEO in mind. When your website content is optimized, it has a better chance of cutting through the clutter and becoming visible to those are searching for your product on Google and other search engines. While SEO can be complicated, simply using title tags, image alt text, keywords, and meta descriptions throughout your website will go a long way.

Don't forget about offsite SEO. It's a bit more complicated and takes some level of expertise. It includes - but is not limited to - garnishing reviews on Yelp and Google+ (and other business review sites) and creating a strategy to earn inbound links (also known as link building).

4. Social media

Be active on every social media platform that makes sense for your business. For most, those platforms include Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Get your information out there! Spread the word daily in engaging ways like broadcasting deals, giving away swag, sharing important updates, posting videos, and sharing photos. Figure out how you can most effectively appeal to your target audience.

5. Lead communication

Once someone shows interest in your company or product, reach out to them without being overbearing. Whether responding via a social media platform or sending a follow-up email, make sure to emphasizes your product’s value, offer an idea or insight, then provide a clear call to action (i.e. "Click here to buy" or "Click here to learn more").

For more Inbound Marketing methods that will grow your small family-owned business, download our ebook, The Power of Inbound Marketing. This helpful guide will further define and explain the benefits of Inbound Marketing, plus provide more applicable ideas that will help you to improve your marketing now.

Need help implementing Inbound Marketing?

While we love conquering challenges and solving marketing problems, we care even more deeply about helping businesses succeed. With that in mind, we're in the business of honestly assessing company's challenges, goals, and KPIs. Because we value honesty and because we strive for success, if Inbound Marketing isn't a good fit for a particular business model or industry, we'll say it upfront. There’s no point in wasting anyone's time.

If Inbound Marketing is a good fit for you, we can help! We're committed to using what we believe is the best Inbound Marketing platform around - HubSpot. We're a HubSpot Gold Partner, and we're both HubSpot and Inbound Certified. In other words, between our expertise and HubSpot's capabilities, the sky is our limit.

When we helped a family-owned business (a storage building manufacturer in South Dakota) implement Inbound Marketing, the business experienced a 20% increase in sales, a 100% uptick in website traffic, and 100% growth in social media traffic and engagement - all in less than one year! Learn more about how Inbound Marketing transformed Dakota Storage Buildings.

Ready to ramp up your marketing? There’s no time like the present! If you want to tackle these strategies on your own, go for it; but if you need help, contact us. If you prefer, you can start by having your current marketing strategy assessed. Sign up for our free marketing assessment, and we'll highlight your core strengths, identify a few areas of weakness, and provide insight into how Inbound Marketing could improve your marketing efforts, attract more leads, and likely increase your sales.

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