The 5 Worldly Elements of Inbound Marketing
There are five components of inbound marketing that can be compared to the elements: earth, air, fire, water, and aether. These five elements can be used to explain how your email, SEO, social media, content, and design aspects of your marketing can work together to help your business succeed.
Earth: Email
Nowadays, many business deals are negotiated through email, making it a common method for communication. Email marketing, like the Earth, can provide fertile grounds for the growth of your business. Here are list of platforms you can use to help execute your email campaigns.
Exact Target
Mailchiimp
Constant Contact
iContact
Madmimi
Active Campaign
Aweber
Benchmark
Pinpoint
Mailigen
Emma
Vertical Response
Air: SEO
Search engine optimization can breathe life into your website with highly targeted and organic traffic. SEO is similar to air in that it is a vital component, but can be easy to forget about. Here are a list of practices and tools to use to have a stronger SEO foundation and track your progress.
Practices
Content Marketing
On-Page Optimization
Off-Page Optimization
Keyword Research
Competitive Analysis
Tools
Google Analytics
Raventools
SEOMoz
Buzzstream
Kapost
Fire: Social Media
Social media is the spark in your community that can spread your message like wildfire, provided that whatever you have to say is valuable and powerful. If you have great pieces of content, your audience will share them and they will spread quickly throughout their networks. Here are list of common platforms and tools many businesses use to host their social media needs.
Platforms
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn
Google+
Tools
Hootsuite
Tweetdeck
Wildfire
Shoutlet
Sprout Social
Water: Content
Content brings life to your internet marketing and flows through your channels to create a prosperous and efficient ecosystem. In the way that life needs water to sustain itself, so does your website business. Here are different types of content you can come up with in order to get your internet marketing flowing:
Types of Content
Blogs/Articles
White Papers
Videos
Podcasts
Webinars
Tutorials
Commercials
Press Releases
Infographics
Aether: Design
Aether, the air breathed by the Gods up above, can be symbolized by design. Design is an important aspect to your website that whirls all of your elements of inbound marketing together. A well designed site and user experience is a foundational element that directly affects your conversion rate. Here are some practices and tools that you can do to raise your business levels to the sky:
Practices
Branding/Identity
Website Design
Mobile Design
Interface Design
Infographics
Tools
Coda
Photoshop
Illustrator
Wordpress
Drupal
The 5 Stage Buyer Process
1. Finding Your Site
At this stage, your potential customers make their first judgments about your website. To keep them from leaving and to build a strong search engine presence, create relevant content that they will find useful. Another idea to consider is to start conversations and solve problems using social media as a platform.
2. Exploring Your Content
When a visitor decides to look through your website, it is important to have enough interesting content for them to read through. Publish content through blogging and promote your posts on social networks to bring traffic to your articles. This will also bring in new users by letting readers share what you have to say.
3. Making a Decision
Once a potential customer decides to keep surfing through your pages, it is important to stay consistent. Be relevant with your customer’s experience and don’t make any unneeded changes. At this point it is also a good idea to solve problems that your visitors have and direct them to interact with your content.
4. Acting on Their Decision
Once you have met the needs of your consumer’s interest, it is vital to show how your product/service can benefit them. A good idea would be to come up with remarketing and email strategies in order to repeat the process and stay in the minds of your customers for repeat business.
5. Supporting Your Site
Converting your consumers into supporters sounds difficult but can be easily done with great customer service. In addition, you can accumulate supporters through message and content personalization.
Now that you know the five elements of inbound marketing and the five stages of the buyer process, you will have a better understanding of how different aspects of marketing can work together to bring more traffic to your business. By focusing on your email, SEO, social media, content, and design aspects of marketing and using the practices and tools mentioned, your results will be higher conversion rates and a better sales turn out.
