Inbound Marketing has transformed the world of marketing and has no intention of slowing down or looking back. By concentrating all marketing efforts to focus on a deep understanding of who your target audience is, what their unmet needs include, and how they aim to solve their problems, inbound has enhanced the way that businesses engage in a more human, social, and consumer-centric way.

Two thousand eighteen is the year of the consumer. Every aspect of your marketing should be rooted in delivering a delightful experience for not only your customers, but every single visitor and potential lead that comes to your website or engages with you and your content. Inbound is rapidly becoming the gold standard in marketing as consumers develop higher expectations and demand more value from companies that they decide to form relationships with. Let’s take a look at how to utilize some exciting new methods to succeed in delighting our audience in the coming years through inbound marketing.

Optimize your content for today’s consumers.

Remarkable content grounded in context that provides value to your audience needs an upgrade. The way that we obtain and analyze information has evolved and we, as marketers in 2018, need to keep up. Extensive improvements in search technology have allowed us to improve upon our searches by no longer searching for simple keywords. We are now becoming more conversational in our searches and algorithms are being taught to recognize user intent over keywords or phrases. With Siri, Alexa, Google Homes, Apple’s HomePods, and the like becoming more common household items, people are now utilizing voice search as a more convenient alternative to typing in a query. This means that your content needs to be more focused on user intent versus keywords. Try to think like your ideal customers, or buyer personas would think and ask yourself if your content will provide them with the value they are looking for. Optimize your website, articles, blogs, etc. to be featured in search engines so that these robotic assistants will share your content in their responses.

Pillar Pages

Try a new tactic in organizing the content on your website by creating Pillar pages. Online, search engines are looking to encourage those websites whose content is organized by topics and linked to topic clusters. Pillar pages are becoming an important element of websites and may be the next big thing for your SEO strategy. These website pages cover all aspects of one topic on one page and then allow visitors to access more in-depth, detailed content such as blogs and other resources through hyperlinks. Offering ungated, complimentary resources on Pillar pages is gaining a lot of traction today. Arranging your content in this way caters to our new intent-based search behaviors. These pages focus on topics versus keywords and exist to be the all-in-one, go to resource on a topic, with easily accessible paths to related content. While you may be concerned about not obtaining any personal contact information, you are increasing organic traffic, positioning yourself as the subject matter expert, and improving your overall brand perception. You are also putting your audience before your business and in turn, gaining their trust and loyalty.

Create and align your content so that it meets a demonstrated need. Don’t just saturate the market for the sake of exposure. If you are able to provide actual value in the places that your ideal consumers already spend their time, you are on the right track to success.

Related Blog: Introducing SEO Topic Clusters and HubSpot's Strategy Tool

It’s all about delight.

In 2018, buyers all have high expectations and rightfully so! There is a tremendous amount of information available and they hold the power. Consumers are looking for VALUE above all and ultimately, the most direct, simplistic solutions to their problems. Don’t settle for only taking care of your current customers. Widen your gaze to delighting your entire audience at every stage of their lifecycle! Make it clear to your entire audience what it looks like to work with your company and how well they will be taken care of as a valued customer, or more importantly, partner. By approaching all of your marketing efforts in this experiential way, there is no question that growth will come.

Video

As I mentioned before, high-value educational content is not enough, these helpful and informative pieces need to have interactive elements to improve the overall user experience. Be human and open yourself up to letting people see your uniqueness as a company. One way to do this is through video. You are truly missing out if you have not introduced video marketing into your content strategy. Show your audience the amazing people behind your business with engaging, informative video. Also, consider live-streaming to create an even more human interaction with your consumers on social media. Real-time video streaming on platforms such as Facebook Live allows you to loosely track views, feedback/responses, and also promotes company transparency. Through this tool, your audience will see what you look like and gain insight into who you are instead of just what your company can do for them. People have craved connections ever since snail mail was invented. Tools such as videos, live streaming, animation, cinemagraphs, quizzes, and surveys enable the consumer to go beyond simply reading your content to connecting, socializing, and engaging with it. Content that goes beyond being informative, to being aesthetically interesting and interactive is almost at the point of becoming expected. Creating additional attraction to your organization will intrigue and encourage your audience to grow their knowledge and share with their friends. Word of mouth or today, social media resharing, is a powerful thing. By creating this interesting content that your followers want to share, your exposure will organically increase, creating more growth opportunity for you.

Coffee Talks #2 | Video Marketing Tips + Workshop Review 

Website chat feature

Our websites need to host more human engagement and interaction instead of simply presenting the features and benefits of your company. Utilizing on-site messaging instead of lead forms is one way to accomplish this goal. Artificial intelligence in the form of advanced chatbots allows us to connect with improved efficiency even when we are not there to solve our audience’s problems. Messaging bots can address user issues without having a person sitting behind a computer 24/7. We can now be there for our audience when they need us. People have become less resistant to bots and are starting to experience the ease of simply typing a question into a chat box on the page that they are on and receiving an answer or article that can help solve their problem immediately. While all of the kinks may not be worked out just yet, advancements in the functionality of messaging bots are leading to a better understanding of complex user requests and more personalized, custom responses. The benefit of users having a more responsive and personalized experience on your website should not be overlooked. Drift is one of the leaders in bot technology. Check out our own Mr. Bot or try it for yourself to customize a unique user experience for your visitors.  

Never stop learning and listening.

There are always going to be new, trendy, technologically advanced resources to utilize in order to attract, convert, close, and delight your audience. The key is to not lose focus on your target audience and be open to new ways of reaching them on the platforms they use on a daily basis. Maybe start off by improving one aspect of your content or introducing one new feature to optimize your website and measure the results. Take it slow and delight your audience in ways that only you can. Show them that you are willing to go the extra mile for them in every stage of their relationship with you. Exceed expectations by providing that extra value that they won’t typically expect. Stand out from the crowd and position your company ahead of the competition by being transparent. Monitor results of new changes to your marketing strategies and listen to your audience to understand how they engage, react, and interact with your content. Find creative ways to escape the norm and dare to be different in 2018 and beyond!