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Is Inbound Marketing Free? How Startups Can Benefit

The business world loves buzzwords because they create a lot of business and presently inbound marketing seems to be the timely word. Companies big and small are trying to figure out how this new method of marketing will help them increase their bottom line.

 

This is especially important to startups with very little capital who want to make their presence felt in their industry. Although inbound marketing for startups can be accomplished by anyone it is not free because it takes time and manpower, which amount to money for most business people and if you want high quality content and proper optimization it is definitely not free.

What Is Free?

Free is gratis and costing absolutely nothing and inbound marketing is not free unless someone does it for you without charging you. People say inbound is free because the tools are available for free you can learn all the different methods with relative ease and apply it to your business. If you have the time the only thing you have to pay is for your website and your computer.

 

What Is The Purpose Of Inbound Marketing?

Just like outbound marketing the purpose of inbound marketing is to generate leads which will hopefully result in sales. Inbound marketing is not in your face advertising we are all accustomed too on radio, television and billboards. With this type of marketing the consumer finds you by looking at your site, blog, eBook, whitepaper and social media sites for the information they want and the content you provide. The expectation is the content on your site is reliable enough to persuade people to talk about your site with others and encourage them to do the same providing you with great leads.

Interacting With Leads

You will only make the sale if you follow up the leads you receive from your marketing. The communication is generally initiated through email after they have read, viewed or downloaded content on your site. By the time you start communicating with the customer they have grown to trust you as a reliable source in your industry and your product is something they want to buy or will like to buy sometime in the future. If you start talking to the customer on the phone remember how you got the customer, through inbound marketing so do not attempt a hard sell or all your hard work will be for naught.

 

The Campaign

Whether you learn it yourself or hire a professional inbound marketing should accomplish the following goals:

  • Create very high quality SEO content on your site, blog, eBook, whitepaper and other outlets
  • Link all of your sites
  • Optimize your pages with keywords
  • Create email, pay per click and call to action campaigns

You can use more tools depending on your budget or experience. When you are finished go over all your content to make sure all the sites, links and content work without any mistakes. You know the adage about first impression, it is more critical online. If one of your links sends the viewer to the wrong site you will probably never see them again.

The ROI on inbound marketing is much higher because it is more than 60% cheaper than traditional advertising. If you are a startup doing all the legwork the return will be even higher.

Photo and Video Credits

Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

SalesForce  / YouTube.com

HN London / Vimeo.com

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