When 500+ websites are built each day in the world powering WordPress as their website development platform, one cannot deny the benefits associated with it.
Introduction
WordPress holds 14.7% of the world’s leading websites. In short, WordPress is the success of many International and National brands. It is an exciting job for the developers to create a mind-boggling website for your brand using ‘WordPress.’
Do you know how many people in the world visit WordPress site every month?
‘Around 400 million people.’
To keep these 400 million people engaged on the WordPress website, the site owners try different methods of digital marketing and tips. One of the interesting and proven approaches to keep website owners engaged on your WordPress website is downloading the plugins.
WordPress.Org offers 50K plugins on its official plugin store with 3500+ licensed plugin themes.
We know these facts are unbelievable, but WordPress is indeed the reason behind the success of many startups, entrepreneurs, institutions, and organizations. It is one of the most user-friendly website development platforms providing ease and sound results to both the developers as well as the marketer’s community.
Here’s an interesting graphic depicting the share of WordPress as CMS distribution in the top million sites. Source: David J Berman
Now, it is time to go ahead with the basic understanding and features of Inbound Marketing.
So, what is Inbound Marketing?
Many of us are aware of ‘HUBSPOT’, the powerful marketing and sales tool that helps to grow your business with guaranteed traffic and sales.
According to HUBSPOT, “Inbound Marketing is a methodology, which helps the customer to get attracted with valuable content and experiences.” Just like Inbound Marketing attracts the customer, outbound marketing interrupts the business by distracting the customers. In the long run, inbound marketing is considered both useful and beneficial.
There is a total of three elements of Inbound Marketing, i.e., Attract + Engage + Delight.
Here’s an infographic depicting the elements of inbound marketing with its features/tools.
Inbound Marketing is all about attracting, engaging as well as delighting the customers to help experience a great shopping time on your website. It is the chain of attracting customers through blogs, keywords, calling, prospects, emails, meetings, chatbots, etc.
Later the customers are diverted to the website where they are offered various deals and coupons. The engagement strategy also includes videos, playbooks, email sequences, sales automation, images, landing pages, forms and other iconographical tools.
Delight tools are the elements of quotes, sales automation, smart notifications, conversation inbox, surveys, smart content, and conversation routing.
Attraction + Engagement = Closing
The closing followed by Delight = Inbound Marketing.
Here’s another image depicting the process of Inbound Marketing.
Step 1: Attracting Customers
When we say attracting the customers, we are actually referring to the strangers that we are willing to convert as our website visitors. For converting strangers into website visitors, we attract them through keyword marketing, blog marketing, video marketing, social media marketing and podcasts. Once the customers are successfully convinced with the content part, they try to move further by clicking the link given (preferably website link).
Content plays the role of a king in attracting the customers. When you have a WordPress website for your business or service, you require engaging content on it to help the readers understand about your business or products. Likewise, for enhancing visibility; digital marketing, either organic or paid, require blogging, video publishing, social media posts, etc.
Thus whatever content you use over these different digital marketing platforms, it helps your website with either gain or loss. Hence, you have to be quite apt and intelligent while drafting the content for your different social media platforms. Here’s the final verdict of how the customers are attracted in the first stage of your inbound marketing strategy.
Good Content = Attraction
Poor Content = Distraction
Step 2: Converting the Customers
So, the next step after attracting the customer (strangers) is the ‘Conversion.’ Do you know it takes a lot of effort and execution for helping the customers to come over the website page? To diver the customers on the homepage of your website, you are already winning the first phase of your inbound marketing. But the story doesn’t end here.
Conversion technically means the user is just not a visitor on your website. Conversion means the customer clicks on the CTA or submits the email ID details or contact details for filling up the form. Accepting an offer or signup also means conversion. Conversion is, therefore, one of the most significant steps, and for that, you need an attractive website design, layout, and content.
Website speed also matters for helping the stranger to convert into a customer. Low-speed websites that take a lot of time for the internal or homepage to appear might distract the user. This may spoil the entire inbound marketing strategy. Hence, for helping your customers with a successful conversion, you have to be quite serious with your WordPress website. You need to fix your website’s internal issues so that your visitors can have a good time over your website.
Step 3: Closing the Customers
When the customer as a stranger is attracted to your marketing strategy and visits your website, it is called a ‘lead.’ But, when the lead fills the CTA and signs up for the offer, it is ‘conversion.’ Once the customer accepts your offer and becomes your client, it is known as a successful ‘closure.’ The closure is the big win of your inbound marketing strategy.
The above term is technically known as ‘lead closure.’ It is a big event of success for your inbound marketing and, yes time for the celebration too ☺
After closing the deal, you start working on the client’s requirements. You are a part of the workflow between you and your client. Your brand’s CRM and workflow are dedicated to the successful result delivery of the onboard client.
But again, the story doesn’t end here. Still, a robust way to go; because you never aim to attract the customer once. The customer has to be attracted over and over again.
Step 4: Delighting, the Customers
So, how will you know if the customer is delighted or not? Customer delight is the primary step for helping your brand to retain the customer. In many cases, where it is a one-time service, the customer delight can help your business with good numbers of references. That too, without any effort of marketing. Hence, customer delight is always the right choice!
To understand your customer’s point of view or experience, you can ask the customer to fill the review form, record a written or video testimonial, social media monitoring, taking a short survey, analysis of the work delivered, etc.
A delightful customer brings in a bag a lot more customers for you, along with the repetition of his or her service. Hence, every step of inbound marketing is crucial as each level has its importance and value.
Next, we shall move forward with the detailed guide for Inbound Marketing Strategy.
Step-by-Step Guide for Inbound Marketing
When you are pretty sure about what Inbound Marketing is and how it will help your business. The next thing is the guide, to begin with, your inbound marketing strategy. But it is not a few minutes task. A guide consists of in-depth planning and execution for helping your inbound campaign achieve the heights of success.
So how to initiate with the inbound marketing strategy for attaining the desired results?
1: Setting Goals
Business goals are the very first thing in planning. If you are running a startup or a brand, you must have realized that it all started with defining the goals and executing them one by one. Likewise, the inbound marketing campaign is also set up on the goals. Unless your goals are limited, it is difficult even to predict the results of the campaign.
How will you set the goals for your next inbound marketing campaign?
Identify your competitors + Identify your niche market + Identify your role in the market
Setting goals: The Discovery
During the discovery, it is vital to understand the goals that you wish to accomplish with your inbound marketing campaign. For the same, you need to set up a detailed meeting and analysis of your marketing goals. The goal here is identifying your competition and customers, along with the revenue cost and the sales process.
Settings goals: Identify Buyer Persona
When you are trying to identify the customer, you have to create the buyer’s persona. A deeper understanding of your audience is the buyer persona here. The success of your inbound marketing strategy deeply lies in portraying the correct buyer persona. It will further guide you with the tactics.
Setting goals: Industry Research
The industry reach is mostly the picture of your competitors as well as the niche market. Your campaign is based on the market that you need to cater to. Identifying the correct market is essential for the success of the inbound marketing campaign.
2: Getting Found
Once the goals are set for your next marketing campaign, it is time to explore more. Moving one step ahead means ‘getting found’ in the millions + crowd of the internet. So, do you know how you will reach the right customer? How will your brand get found amongst the millions of other brands sharing the competition?
3: Getting Leads
Generating leads is a must to know the success rate of your inbound marketing campaign. For the same, your brand campaign will require premium content production, landing page design, and an appropriate CTA.
- When your website’s landing page design and layout is excellent, the visitors that have arrived on your webpage will stay longer. Customers will get attracted, and the chances of making them your lead are higher.
- Secondly, premium content on your homepage or website landing page will help the customers to understand your brand’s services and products easily. It will draw the attention of the relevant users towards the features, service benefits, etc.
- Without a CTA, a customer will get confused. To help the customer to do the right action, your blog or article or website must require a CTA. CTA will help your customer to finish the work by signing up, sharing the email or contact details, subscribing or buying.
4: Acquiring Customers
So the next important step after getting leads is ‘acquiring the customers’. Below are the crucial steps that will align your campaign effectively to get the customers on board.
Sales and Marketing Alignment
The sales team has to be notified of making calls based on the leads. Having a great CRM model can help you to integrate your sales team with the lead generation data. However, CRM enables you to keep watch on every step that your customer takes while visiting your website. You shall get to know about the type of product or service that your lead is interested in your website, and the same data can be handed over to the sales team for acquiring the customer successfully.
CRM = Helps understanding lead action = Helps Sales team in acquiring a customer.
Lifecycle Communications
Many website owners believe in preparing a content lifestyle plan that helps them to guide the lead in a very systematic way. It helps the lead to get the right information at the right time to have the right impact of the inbound marketing campaign.
Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing is a wise step to give the right shape to your inbound marketing campaign. For doing so, you can always assign a follow-up email system to help the leads with a reminder for taking the specific action. eCommerce website owners must use the lead nurturing step to gain maximum conversions.
Automated Workflows
The three essential things that a computerized workflow carries forward for getting positive marketing campaign results are sending marketing emails, changing contact details and sending personal notifications.
Not to forget, AI (Artificial Intelligence) helps in designing perfect automated workflows by considering customization as the primary goal for attracting the lead.
Closed-Loop Reporting
Any action without reporting is considered void. A closed-loop reporting helps the marketing manager to understand the status of the qualified leads, the percentage of the leads converted into customers, and a lot more.
5: Retaining Customers
Any marketing campaign is not limited to lead capturing or customer conversion. Repetition of the customer or retaining the customer is equally important. So, now the question is how you will preserve your customers for giving shape to a successful inbound marketing campaign.
We have designed a simple yet communicative graph to know the three essential tips for having a strong influence on your brand on the customer’s mind. Customer retention is, therefore, a strong element to any inbound marketing campaign.
How will you retain customers?
6: Account Analysis
So what is account analysis? If you say you had experienced a successful inbound marketing campaign for your upcoming product or service, how will you justify it? The CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) decides the verdict of your marketing campaign.
As a business owner, you have to follow the steps below to understand the account analysis.
After applying the right inbound marketing steps for achieving your campaign goals, you must be well acknowledged with the ‘Inbound Marketing Tools.’
What are Inbound Marketing Tools?
To make the inbound marketing campaign successful, there are lots of inbound marketing tools available online. These tools make sure that your campaign is carried forward in the right direction for getting maximum leads.
A right inbound marketing tool can cope up with the bad inbound strategy. All you require is a perfect tool for turning your campaign live.
Let’s talk about the top threeInbound Marketing Tools (2020)
1: HUBSPOT All In One Marketing Automation
For successfully converting the leads to ROI, HUBSPOT is one of the potential marketing automation tools available today. It is a single platform that helps the keen business owners with creating, optimizing, and promoting content with the right lead generation funnels. The software also helps with lead nurturing and close-end reporting features. The tool is also available free of cost for the trial period.
2: HUBSPOT CRM, Relationship Management Tool
As discussed above, while explaining the Inbound Marketing Guide, the relationship management with the customers is quite essential for successful inbound marketing. HUBSPOT CRM helps the business owner to understand the pattern of the customer’s thoughts and actions. It helps to maintain a strong relationship with the visitors, leads and nurtures it for converting into the customers.
Customer’s challenges, passions, likes, dislikes, or the behavioral pattern is widely understood with the help of HUBSPOT CRM, inbound marketing tool.
3: GATHERCONTENT, A Complete Content Management Tool
Content is the game-changer. We all know that content and infographics have the power to attract or distract the lead. GATHERCONTENT is none less than an inbound marketing tool for your upcoming marketing campaign as it helps with complete content creation. Using the device, you can design and create eBooks, Website Copy to Podcasts and other essential contents.
Without appointing any extra skills, you can take a full charge of your content marketing for the upcoming inbound marketing campaign using ‘GATHERCONTENT.’
Here’s a screenshot of the software, explaining how it looks inside the software.
Apart from these inbound marketing tools, you can also trust the following marketing giants for automating your business campaign.
- HUBSPOT SALES
- JOTFORM
- BUZZ SUMO
- UNBOUNCE
- ONESIGNAL
- DRIFT
- WISTIA
- MAILCHIMP (EMAIL MARKETING)
- BUFFER (SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT)
- STARTAFIRE (CONTENT CURATION)
- LEADFEEDER (LEAD GENERATION TOOL)
- CLICKMEETING
- SURVEYMONKEY
Changes in the Marketing Strategy Gives Rise to Inbound Marketing Tools
Inbound Marketing is hot today. The marketing industry has experienced massive change over the past many years, with the difference in the taste and preferences of the customer. The content marketing and lead generation tools are now the perfect guide for effectively running your next inbound marketing campaign.
Your brand needs inbound marketing to survive because of the growing competition and existence of modern marketing tools. These advanced marketing tools replaces manual skills and automates your marketing campaign. All the steps of inbound marketing are covered under these tools.
Confused with what Inbound Marketing Practically Looks Like? Let’s discuss a few examples explaining the same.
Inbound Marketing Examples For Getting Customers
The term inbound marketing is quite huge. It is an umbrella term that consists of various strategies and tools to make the campaign successful. Here are the top 9 inbound marketing examples for getting customers.
- Blog Post
- eBook
- Infographics
- Webinars
- Videos
- Podcasts
- Whitepaper
- Case Study
- SEO
Blogs enhance the ROI by 13X times for any business owner. Blogging is a positive way of influential marketing that helps in getting targeted leads on your webpage. If your company updates regular blogs, it is more likely to get customer attention than the company that hardly updates the blogs.
Before you start with blogging, do read the latest google bert update.
Infographics are current trends that help with maximum customer attention. It is a mixture of great content and design to improve the customer with maximum engagement. Infographics is easy to understand, share and download. The other inbound marketing examples such as eBooks, Podcasts, Video Series, SEO, Whitepaper and Case Study are also an essential factor for gaining maximum customer attention.
Currently, the Video Series and Podcasts are the trending inbound marketing examples that help business owners with maximum ROI. However, blogging will never run out of the trend; it is an evergreen inbound marketing example that can help brand owners will be guaranteed website traffic and leads.
So, this is all we have understood about Inbound Marketing. Now, let’s move ahead with the term ‘Outbound Marketing.’
What is Outbound Marketing?
Outbound marketing targets the audience using basic or traditional methods of marketing such as telemarketing, email marketing, direct mail services, TV ads, billboards, radio ads, etc. Though it defines the use of a marketing campaign for showcasing the products or services in a meaningful way, it is an outdated approach.
Outbound Marketing is often referred to as Interruption or Push marketing. Inbound marketing is called a targeted approach.
Outbound marketing cannot target the specific audience eventually as it uses the general medium for showcasing the products and services. Also, few outbound marketing techniques are costly and difficult to afford for the small scale or medium scale business owners.
Investing in newspaper ads, radio ads, or TV commercials is quite expensive. Whereas email marketing and telemarketing also require a handsome budget for effective results of the campaign.
With the introduction of inbound marketing techniques, outbound marketing has started losing its score. Though it has a specific market niche for large scale organizations, it has fewer scope and possibilities for SMEs.
Let’s have a detailed understanding and rating of both inbound and outbound marketing by sharing examples as well as the +points.
Inbound VS Outbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is a systematic plan of attracting customers, whereas outbound marketing is the old school method of attracting customers. Inbound uses new strategies and implementation whereas outbound uses the ancient techniques of marketing without building a targeted audience segment.
Targeted audience: The significant difference between the two sets of marketing programs is the targeted audience. Inbound marketing is specific; it only attracts the audience that is genuinely interested in buying your products or services. On the other hand, outbound marketing is all about the interruption. The best example of the same is radio and TV advertisements.
Leads that are generated via inbound marketing helps close the deal. Leads generated by the outbound marketing needs filtration. Below are the significant differences between the two sets of marketing methods.
Difference between Inbound & Outbound Marketing Techniques
What should you choose, and why?
Considering the effectiveness and the budget that every brand has in mind, inbound marketing is simply the best choice. Be it any brand; inbound marketing helps in getting brand popular amongst the interested audience. It doesn’t interrupt the disinterested audience and even saves a lot of time in filtering and explaining.
Outbound marketing often ends up in non-subscription of emails and advertisements. Inbound marketing regularly engages the audience and you get quick comments & responses from the audience. In the long term, the inbound marketing can serve as a proper business goal.
Key Benefits of Using Inbound Marketing
32% of the global brands are reducing their outbound marketing budgets for giving space to inbound marketing techniques. Inbound marketing has benefits for all types of businesses. Be it small scale industry, medium scale organization, or large scale unit; it has got different programs defined for each example of industry.
The leads generated by inbound marketing are quite specific and approachable. Using the inbound marketing technique, any brand owner can avail the following benefits:
- Increased ROI
- Enhanced brand awareness
- Qualified sales leads
- Lower cost per acquisition
The following graphic will help you understand why a brand owner must invest in an inbound marketing strategy by avoiding the traditional marketing technique.
Source: https://www.blackbeardesign.com
Converting leads into customers with inbound marketing
Inbound marketing is a complete cycle that helps your brand to earn more business and sales using the online website. A website plays a vital role in designing the right inbound marketing strategy. To avail the benefits out of the designed plan, it is essential to have an SEO friendly website with SEO helpful content.
Earning 97% more clicks than every other brand requires regular blogging and social media interaction. Inbound marketing is a complete package of content strategy and execution. We shall learn more such benefits as the blog expands.
Source: https://www.blackbeardesign.com
In the following circumstances, the brand owner resists to utilize inbound marketing techniques:
- Shallow knowledge
- Unsure of how content can add value to the business
- Lack of time for investing in a marketing strategy
- Less ambitious nature
- No hope from the existing business
Well, here the proven benefits of using an inbound marketing strategy
Increased awareness
Small business owners can find the inbound marketing technique as a bonus to their existing marketing package. Small scale brands work hard for brand recognition, which can be easily achieved through the inbound marketing approach. Inbound marketing helps with increased brand awareness and visibility to all scale industries including SMEs.
Simplified sales and marketing approach
The job of a sales and marketing team is divided easily while planning an inbound marketing strategy. The role of the sales team is to design the right audience for the product or the service, whereas the job of the marketing team is to reach the correct type of audience or group. Using the inbound marketing strategy, the organization can have a simplified sales and marketing approach with a clear goal to achieve qualified leads.
Increases trust & credibility
Outbound marketing as we studied earlier, is a kind of interrupt marketing approach. Using outbound marketing the clients or customers feel distracted or disturbed. Whereas, inbound marketing is all about targeting qualified audience. Thus, the customers feel engaged when you try to show your content or advertisement as they are precisely looking for the product or the service that you are trying to sell.
Hence, the inbound marketing approach results in increased trust and credibility. You are not disturbing the customer; you are engaging the customer.
Generating quality leads
Inbound marketing is not a one-time process. It is an entire cycle of producing content and ads that attract the niche or interested audience. It is more like building a relationship than building a sales graph.
When you are using the inbound marketing strategy, you are actually inviting the audience to read your content and get diverted to your website. Your website is again a content production that helps the audience to understand your products or services or solutions. It helps them to visit your website over and again when you keep continuing with the excellent content production activities. It is a never-ending process that actually results with high-quality leads.
Digital education approach
The current generation is the digital generation, where every customer uses the Google or social media engine to fulfil their need to buy any product or service or solution. Inbound marketing is a perfect example of digital or modern marketing. It uses the qualitative digital marketing approach to get maximum sales and profits. Moreover, it educates the prospects in the digital world they live in.
The Forrester Sirius Decisions recently published that the digital world generally carries 67 % of the buyers. Hence, using an inbound marketing model can help your brand to be extremely modern and prosperous.
Cost-effective
There is no budget comparison between the inbound and outbound marketing strategies. Inbound marketing is extremely affordable and cost-effective than any other marketing models. It is a specific, reliable, credible as well as low-budget marketing technique for generating maximum sales (qualified leads).
The cost defines the budget of marketing. Many brand owners don’t invest in marketing methods because of the high budget. Inbound marketing proves cost-effective. It helps in generating engagement as well as sales without spending a considerable amount of capital after the advertisement and marketing unit.
Long term approach
Every marketing approach is defined as a goal. The goal of an inbound marketing strategy is to have a long term approach. In short, inbound marketing is a long-lasting technique. It leaves the impression for quite a long time in the mind of the customer. In the beginning, the results might not please you but as time passes by, the results will astonish you with pleasure. For sure, the numbers will drive you crazy.
So far, we have studied that inbound marketing is the modern and best approach for SMEs as well as large scale organizations. To make the inbound strategy work, you will require to focus on the top marketing elements.
What are Inbound Marketing Elements?
The inbound marketing elements are basically the ‘strategies’ that can be performed to get the desired result of the campaign. The best examples of inbound marketing elements are SEO, PPC, Social Media, Content Marketing and Landing Pages.
Without these elements, you cannot run the inbound marketing campaign. These elements, as a whole, help your marketing campaign to get a direction.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the best ways to generate online traffic. It is about optimizing your website as per the customer’s requirement. The SEO policies are based on the keyword search; the right keyword can help your marketing get a successful platform. It is more like playing with the search engines (Google).
SEO is the organic method of generating website traffic. It is one of the best choices of the business owner as it makes quality leads when done right. Here’s how an SEO search result looks like:
PPC
Don’t be mistaken that paid ads are not a part of inbound marketing. Paid ads like PPC are the best way to get quality leads as it works with the basic SEO strategy that attracts the relevant audience. The advertisement is shown only to the customers who are actively looking for a particular service or product. Here’s what a PPC search looks like:
SMO
The current generation is a social media addict. SMO stands for social media optimization; it is the perfect example of attracting relevant traffic in the mass form. Currently, Instagram and Facebook ads are the most popular way of getting inbound traffic.
A right social media promotion plan can help your business with high sales and profits. You need to have a dedicated social media manager to promote your brand move with the right SMO strategy. It is one of the cost-effective ways of attracting mass yet quality leads.
Amazing Social Media Post = Great Graphic + Communicative Content
Content Marketing
Content is the king of every marketing campaign. Without content, no advertisement can reach to the audience. You will always require content material in different forms to keep the advertisement moving in the market.
Content is an integral part of the inbound marketing strategy. Quality content is the key to a customer’s mind. When you draft content, you have to be the customer itself. Your content should accurately deliver the requirements of the customer. His searched keywords should be primarily optimized in the content.
Landing Pages
A landing page is a page where the customer ends up after clicking on the advertisement that you displayed via organic or paid methods. A landing page is one of the essential elements of the inbound marketing strategy. A landing page is designed with the right CTA (Call to Action) for helping the customers to complete the buying process.
The best landing page has the following three elements
- Relevancy
- Engaging Design
- Right CTA
In short, these five inbound marketing elements help your strategy to be a success or failure in the market. Technically, these elements can be customized for getting more attraction from the audience. One of such customization of an inbound marketing element is a ‘SPIN WHEEL’ promotion.
What is a SPIN WHEEL Promotion?
The spin wheel is gamification, a buzz in the online marketing strategy. For the past few years, the gamification techniques are running successfully in the market. SPIN WHEEL is the best example of the same.
Gamification means involving the customers through joy and enjoyment for creating a successful marketing campaign. It is more like a fun way of marketing your services and products, an indirect approach to get the most of your customer data.
WordPress Spin Wheel offers visitors to fill in their email addresses to spins for prizes (coupon code). This is the best way to collect email from visitors on your site; they will be pleased to fill in their email address.
The spin wheel can be fun for the customers on the initial level of engagement over your website. Imagine customers visiting your site and getting involved in something out of the box rather than talkative and disturbing ads. It helps them to stay longer on your webpage.
TOP REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD CREATE A SPIN THE WHEEL PROMOTION
Spin Wheel is one of the successful digital marketing elements that work for any tricky brand or organization. It is high on the engagement level and hence, it helps in making the first move of connection with your targeted audience.
Here is a perfect example of how a spin wheel promotion looks like:
Here are the top four reasons that make SPIN WHEEL a ideal inbound marketing element for your next marketing campaign.
It is emotive & engaging
The rule of gamification is to trigger human emotions. It is therefore considered as a steady move of engagement. Spin wheel amongst the other gamification elements has the highest level of engagement as it excites the user with its concept, design and offer (whatever is mentioned).
The customers are more likely to respond positively using the Spin Wheel connection. Hence, the first benefit of using it is it is emotive and engaging. It helps to get a quick outcome like the details of the customer that is visiting your webpage.
However, the spin wheel is one of such inbound marketing element that is generally remembered by the clients for long! Repeating it can also prove equally engaging.
It is more fun & less tricky
Some marketing elements prove tricky as the customer doesn’t know much about its use. Spin Wheel, on the other hand, is one of the fantastic inbound marketing elements that indulge the customer into a lot of fun.
Using the spin wheel doesn’t require much time or technical knowledge. It is quite attractive, and everyone would wish to use it (spin it) at least once.
To make it more fun-loving and engaging, you can design a contest alert using the Spin Wheel.
It is satisfying
Spin Wheel is quite gratifying because it is not a bogus promotional campaign like other elements. It assures some gifts or benefits to the user at the end of the spin. So however, the customer is satisfied to get any of the displayed or hidden benefits mentioned on the wheel. The client feels satisfactory for taking a chance to spin the wheel.
Such a spin wheel is quite easy and quick to set as your widget. You can learn about the inbound marketing plugin for availing the same on your WordPress website.
The Wheel really works!
The inbound marketing plugin that offers the WordPress website owner the use of the Spin Wheel often helps with the real-time insights and data of using the widget. Hence, you can keep a check on whether the spin wheel widget has worked for your marketing campaign or not.
The Spin Wheel widget can help you know the total number of entries received, newsletter opt-ins, subscription opt-ins, new users, etc. All these critical data can be retrieved with the use of this amazing inbound marketing element.
Similarly, the countdown timers can also prove as an essential marketing element for your WordPress website. Let me share some fantastic details on using a countdown timer widget for your inbound marketing campaign.
How Countdown Timers Drive Ecommerce Sales?
The countdown timer is the perfect example of playing with the human psyche. It is all about engaging the customer in the timer game, where he/she would like to wait until the red signal turns green. It is more like playing with the urge of the customer. Hence, it is an active inbound marketing element for driving e-commerce sales.
Countdown timer defines the power of urgency
Jim Rohn has rightly said, ‘Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.’ The countdown timer works like the power of urgency for inducing sales. Marketing managers have understood that the urgent need to be excited to grab full engagement from the customers. For the same, the countdown timer is designed.
How does the power of urgency help?
- It quickly brings the product or service to the attention of the users
- It motivates the customer for buying the product
- The countdown urge makes it unforgettable, and it keeps clicking in the customer’s brain.
How can the countdown timer be used for driving eCommerce sales?
The Opt-in emails and landing pages are the perfect examples of inbound marketing. The countdown timers can best be used to drive sales on landing pages as well as the opt-in emails. Moreover, the countdown timer directs the customer of taking the buying action within the prescribed period for getting maximum benefit or offer.
Most of the brand owners aren’t fully aware of how to use the countdown timers for enhancing their WordPress website. But, do not worry; we shall help you understand the in-depth benefits of utilizing the countdown timers for your online business website.
The countdown is the patience killers! Yes, it makes the brain eager to know more as the mind cannot digest the suspense of anything; it applies in the business and marketing segment too. We are always conscious of knowing something more critical or keener. We still want to know the other half, and hence, we become impatient quite early.
The two most important benefits of using a countdown timer WordPress plugin are:
- It helps with relaxed attention. It is an attention grabber.
- It helps with quick inspiration. It is a motivating factor.
Here’s how the countdown timer proves as a motivating factor for driving more sales!
Here I will share a real example that helps you understand how the countdown timers are the real motivating factors.
This is the image of a landing page from ConversionXL that shows the basic offer price, the actual price before the offer, and the details of the product or service.
Below is the second landing page image from ConversionXL that shows the basic offer price, the actual price before the offer and the details of the product or service. But, one more thing is added here, ‘Countdown timer.’
Because it has the timer reflecting the power of urgency, the results of this landing page were quite efficient than the previous one. Emergency as a sales tactic has always won, and in this case, too, it defines the power of crisis.
How must a business owner use the countdown timer for enhancing sales?
Well, be it any business or service industry, the goal is the same, i.e., increasing sales. For enhancing the sales volume, it is crucial to play with the customer’s mind. To play with the customer’s mind, it is vital to do something unusual that can tickle their thoughts. We call it the power of urgency and for creating the same, you need to have a countdown timer plugin.
- As a business owner, you can follow the simple rule for creating a sensation in the market. You can showcase your business product or service with a timer offer. A timer offer means the offer is valid for a particular time.
- As a business owner, you can play with your customer’s emotions by showing the scarcity countdown. You can show the minimum numbers of product left below the price of the product. It will surely help your business with an ample amount of sales.
- Also, as a smart business owner, you can use the countdown for the opening of any new offer. You can create awareness amongst the customers that a particular offer will be available soon on the following date and will be closed in a few hours. Hence, to avail the benefit of the same, the customers will quickly take advantage of the offer.
- Additionally, you can use the countdown as an attribute with another offer. E.g., if a customer orders within the given time limit, he will be benefited with free delivery or some free prize or additional discount, etc.
Here is an example of how a countdown timer can be utilized for an offer to enhance eCommerce sales.
Countdown timers for Claiming the Deal
The countdown timers can be best used for increasing eCommerce sales with the help of Shopping Cart Deals. As a business owner, you can display a vital countdown notification on the top of the shopping cart, ‘The following items will be displayed in your cart for the following minutes only.’
Practically, when you give a specific deadline to the customers for claiming the offer or deal, they become impatient. This will make them (customers) inspire with a quick action to claim the deal.
To make your concept clear about countdown timer and eCommerce sales here is one more example. The image below shows the sales offer from Ernest Jones. The countdown timer was planned on their website with the help of a plugin to enhance the business sales on the Mother’s Day occasion.
The key to a successful countdown timer by WPONLINESUPPORT CEO, MR Minesh Shah.
A countdown timer will deliver effective results when you make the most of the plugin. You should utilize the art of urgency or offer or timer at the time of the festival, new product launch, new offer, new deals, etc. Customers understand that occasions are the time when the deals are launched, so without wasting time, you must be up for it.
Secondly, as the business owner, you have to be HONEST. Honesty is the key to win the client over and again. Once the client accepts the offer and is up for it, you have to fulfill it as per the displayed promise. You can win your client during every new offer with honesty.
Thirdly, never make countdown timer as an excessive deal on your website. You cannot use it every now and then. The timer plugin is used for urgency or curiosity, so use it only twice a year or thrice a year.
If you follow the above three points as said by our CEO, you can surely make the most of the countdown timer plugin.
How Can Social Proof be used for increasing website sales?
Worried customers always look for social proof before accepting any deals or buying any products. Social proof is indeed the best way to make your sales booming. Before moving ahead, let me discuss what actual social proof that the customers are looking for before making any purchase is.
What is Social Proof under the inbound marketing strategy?
Social proof is better termed as a psychological phenomenon where a person is relying on someone’s actions and reactions for placing his response. A sensation where others’ actions and reaction can reflect in your assumptions or way of thinking for a particular brand or product.
92% of online customers are influenced by social proof. A product that has product reviews by the customers are more likely to get sold than those without any review.
To make it easier for you, let me share some real-life examples where social proof actually drives your buying or visiting decision.
Restaurants or food outlets are the perfect examples to help you understand the importance of social proof. The online food delivery applications have the top restaurants on their list. A customer is more likely to order food or visit the outlet by reading the reviews of the food and service. More numbers of positive reviews will drive you towards your buying decision. The same can be understood for the restaurant service and ambiance.
The above example can be applied to malls, grocery stores, movies, television series, etc. Anything that is followed by reviews is more likely to be used, seen, bought, share, etc. than the things that are lacking reviews/responses. So this is the perfect example in our offline life too that how social proof helps in motivating the buying decision of the buyer.
Online website sales and Social Proof
I am sure you must have visited Amazon and other websites where online products are being sold at huge volumes. Amazon is an open platform for the customers to buy things and each customer (90% of the customers) is reading the reviews before purchasing any product. Social Proof is very important in shaping the buying decision because online sales lack confidence without social proof.
Social proof enhances online website sales. It helps in motivating the buyer before he/she purchases the product or service.
Only Social Proof cannot help in generating business. A right set of social proof strategies must be applied to increase the conversion rates. If you are wondering about the type of social proof strategies that can help to increase the conversion rates, here is what you should know.
The top 4 social proof that always works in enhancing online sales are:
- Real-time stats
- Customer Testimonials
- Certifications
- Customer Base
The real-time stats must be accurate and genuine to win the customer’s trust. You can show the customers different types of statistics like how many customers have already bought the product, how many customers are currently online, how many customers have shared their interest for the same, etc.
The customer testimonials are the perfect way to win customer’s trust. The Inbound Marketing Plugin helps with customer testimonials design that can enhance your WordPress website’s design.
Being a site owner, you can display the top customer reviews on your WordPress website. The posted reviews are the social proof that works like wonder for gaining visitor’s trust. It will help them to get an overview of your website’s services and products from the horse’s mouth.
The Customer Testimonials and Reviews
Certifications are the best way to aware the customers about the tie-ups, partnerships, alliances, and memberships of the councils or organizations that your brand is associated with. Certifications also include assurance or rewards that your brand has earned to date.
Likewise, the customer base can also be displayed by showing the logo of the companies that you have served or serving so far. If you have a renowned clientele, you can display the logo as the social proof. In short, it helps in building the confidence of the customers and helps them understand your existing client base in a transparent way.
Top 5 Inbound Plugins for your WordPress website
We will discuss different inbound marketing plugins that are categorized as the top-notch inbound plugins for enhancing your WordPress website sales and conversion.
The HubSpot Connector is much for customizing the blog and landing pages. The significant features of the plugin include automatic posts from HubSpot blog via API, Numbers of columns configurable and numbers of posts configurable. We cannot rate it as a complete inbound marketing pack, but still, many website owners use it for their conversion.
InboundWP – Complete Inbound Marketing Pack
A perfect inbound strategy is about delivering right and relevant solutions with a positive impact on your business and website visitors. To help your business grow faster, marketers have developed a three-tier strategy with InboundWP Marketing Plugin. The plugin helps in attracting, delighting, and engaging the visitors to convert potential leads into customers.
InboundWP is a total marketing solution for WordPress websites, who want to increase their website conversions. InboundWP Marketing Plugin offers full 7 key features that help websites to convert leads into customers.
LeadBI’s WordPress plugin allows existing LeadBI customers and trial users to install the LeadBI tracking code on their existing WordPress blogs and websites. It offers 30 days free trial to the customers. A customer can sign up for the same agreeing on the terms and conditions.
Inbound Marketing Brew plugin offers both SEO and inbound marketing tools that help with content marketing and lead management. It provides CTA, social media management, custom forms and lead capturing, automate emails, etc. features to make your inbound marketing strategy work faster.
It is inbound marketing that creates a content magnet along with promotion planning. The plugin also allows easy and quick implementation of the web forms. It includes CRM, marketing, form, cloud AI, tasks, books and clock.
InboundWP Plugin – A Complete Inbound Marketing Pack
Before reviewing the InboundWP plugin, it is vital to understand why Inbound Marketing plugins are necessary for your website. What is Inbound Marketing as a whole concept, and how does it help to convert visitors into leads?
What do the experts have to say?
Delivering valuable content and experience to your customers while they visit your webpage is called ‘Inbound Marketing.’ Inbound is all about interacting with your customers with the content of their interest and choice. It never interrupts your visitors; instead it helps in enhancing your website’s session time.
7 Features: InboundWP Marketing Plugin
- Spin Wheel
- Marketing Popup (Similar to Hellobar or Optinmonster)
- Testimonials
- Social Proof
- WhatsApp Chat Support to increase conversions
- Countdown Timer
- Better Heading to test multiple headings
1 Plugin = 7 major benefits
Normally to get all these features, you need to install 7 different plugins, which will cost you more and impact your website speed. InboundWP offers all of these features at an affordable price and without impacting website speed – as you only need to install 1 plugin.
Let’s talk about each of the plugin features in detail.
1) Spin Wheel
Spin Wheel is a kind of ‘Gamification’ that has become a trend in the last many years. With its proper inbound strategy, gamification is still alive and kicking in the online marketing world. So what do you understand by the tech term ‘Gamification’?
If we follow the Google definition, ‘Gamification’ is all about implementing the gaming techniques of enjoyment and amusement in the technical scenario for gaining the attention of the visitors engagingly. It is more or less structuring the play game for utilizing the attention and engagement of the visitors in enhancing our business/sales.
What our Digital Marketing Expert has to say about ‘Gamification’?
Businesses need creative marketing strategies to convert more visitors into customers. Gamification has become a popular marketing strategy, which engages website visitors in various actions. Spin Wheel is also one of the best gamification techniques you can use on your website.
Website visitors spin the wheel to get product discounts OR win the products/rewards. You can use a spin wheel with various scenarios to engage your visitors.
The Spin Wheel Connection
People willingly enter their name and email address to spin the wheel, which you can use later to market them your products and services. This is just one of the ways that spin wheel connects with your audience, let’s discuss all the major benefits that spin wheel gamification provides to your business website.
4 reasons why SPIN WHEEL is essential for your website
- Emotive: Creates engagement, excitement, anticipation, and competition
- Fun: Free Spin is always fun to play.
- Real-time Performance
- Satisfying and Thrilling
2) Marketing Popup
Popups convert at 5.9% average, which is a lot higher than standard email subscriber widget which we embed in website sidebar or footer area.
Practicing Inbound Marketing with Pop-ups
There is always a debate amongst the marketers whether to use pop-ups for practicing inbound marketing or not. Often pop-ups are implemented or guessed as spam or disguised material on the internet.
But one cannot ignore the most salient fact that ‘Popups build your email list.’
According to the Litmus survey, email marketing has Return on Investment is 38:1 which is a lot compared to other marketing channels. But to send emails, you first need to build your email list. Popups help you build email list lot fasters.
And, as per the market reports – ‘Email Marketing is the second most effective B2B lead generation technique’.
Source: https://www.engagebay.com
Coming back to our topic, ‘Marketing Pop-ups’, lets, in general, discuss the overall benefits of having one embedded on our business website.
The Many Benefits of Using Marketing Pop-ups
- Enhancing the email lists
- Increasing the blog RSS subscriptions
- Promoting new blogs or products
- Generating leads
3) Testimonial/Review
Testimonials are the best way to gain trust from the new customer base. They are the best social proof to display on your webpage. When we purchase any products online, we prefer to check user testimonials and reviews as they are mostly unbiased. Which helps us make our purchase decision about the product. Using testimonials on your website will help you increase product sales, conversions.
With this testimonials module, you can create a total of 16 types of testimonial designs on your website.
4) Social Proof
Recommendations are the best way to enhance leads. And, to help your customers recommend your brand or product to new customers- you need to concentrate on quality and customer service.
Ask yourself, have you ever purchased a product after a recommendation from somebody else? That is the best example of social proof.
If your answer is yes, you are influenced by social proof, and it is a good marketing strategy that you should use on your website to sell your products and services. People trust social proof more than any type of product advertising.
This feature helps you showcase recent product purchase OR recent product reviews on your website. This provides website visitors social proof that people are purchasing these products and writing reports about it, which leads to higher conversion in sales.
5) WhatsApp Chat Support
According to statista.com data, Whatsapp has 1.5 Billion active users. There are lots of people to market your products. If your website offers a function to Whatsapp chat, users can chat with your business using their WhatsApp application on the smartphone.
The many benefits of using Whatsapp chat on the website
- Live chat enhances the chance of turning lead into a customer
- Approx. 60-65% of customers return to the site after experiencing live chat.
- Around 62% of customers are more likely to buy from live chat.
- Focussing on international customers
- WhatsApp offers a secure chat with customers.
6) Deal Countdown Timer
Count down timers are great at capturing user attention. Countdown timers prompt users to take action as it is available only for a certain time.
According to data from Neuroscience Marketing, only using a countdown timer increased its revenue by 9 percent. Which is a good number considering you are not making much change in your website.
7) Better Heading
With better heading feature, you can create multiple headings of each blog post. This will help you to test which heading is working best and generating enough clicks and views. This way, you can always get maximum output from your blog posts.
With this version, you can test up-to 10 unique headings, while free version offers you options for 3 headings. Even the free version is valuable for bloggers and marketers who spend lots of time and money on content marketing.
Top benefits of using the Better Heading plugin are:
A fully responsive plugin to set multiple titles for a blog. It allows you to set various heading for your blog, so you can choose the best title amongst them after analyzing. Able to check daily, a weekly and monthly report of every title.
Why Inbound Marketing Plugin for your WordPress site?
InboundWP plugins help with marketing for enhancing the sales of our business. InboundWP Marketing Plugin increases the reach of your customers creatively. Using the different marketing features, this said the plugin tries to create a communication link with your customers without any interference from any sales personnel. This is quite effective and useful for gaining the trust of the customers. Also, the engagement increases 50-80% depending upon your website design and development.
Other marketing plugins fail to highlight the importance of inbound tools and strategies. The other brands only focus on the content marketing strategies, and it fails to bring the other inbound marketing tools on board. InboundWP has existing as well as old clientele and is quite huge compared to other inbound marketing plugins.
InboundWP Plugin VS. Other Inbound Plugins
| Advantages | InboundWP Marketing Plugin | Other Plugins available for WordPress |
| Offers Complete Marketing tools & techniques | YES | NO |
| Offers SPIN WHEEL & Whatsapp Chat Support | YES | NO |
| Helps with better heading & SEO | YES | May be |
| Offers countdown timer | YES | NO |
| Displays Social Proof on webpage | YES | May be |
| Offers Online Support & Expert Call for Plugin Info | YES | May be |
Inbound Marketing Consultation
WP OnlineSupport helps with inbound marketing consultation to the clients worldwide. The brand not only takes care of your WordPress website maintenance and plugins but also helps your business with real-time insights and advice that can help in gaining more leads and visitor footfalls.
They have a team of experienced WordPress plugin developers, experts and a separate digital marketing team to help you understand the inbound marketing consultation in brief. You can log on to www.wponlinesupport.com and place your query for an inbound marketing consultation.
Conclusion
Implementation is always the most significant task than gathering information. I am sure after going through the entire inbound marketing guide; your next question will be on how to implement it! Well, you must understand the following inbound marketing strategies for easy and quick implementation.
So, as a business owner, you must be confused about what type of marketing is the most preferable for converting leads into conversion or for getting leads on the landing pages. Well, we will conclude the blog with top-most effective inbound marketing techniques that every startup or entrepreneur must use in his career.
A. Create an eBook guide and give it away for FREE
Business owners must learn that the audience expects many things free of costs such as email newsletters, guide books, eBooks and other informative material. I am sure that it is one of the essential techniques for getting the contact details of the customer. When you keep a copy of an eBook for download, you cannot ask for money in the first place, but yes, you can always ask for the contact details to download the FREE Guide.
Always keep a CTA download button that is followed by email and contact details before the client receives the eBook or guide copy.
1.1 This doesn’t look effective as it lacks CTA
1.2: This looks effective as it has the required CTA and details form
B. Focus on SEO, target Keywords on your webpage
There is a thin line of difference between SEO and inbound marketing. In other words, inbound marketing can be successful when you have applied the right SEO tactics on your WordPress website. Targeting the right keywords on your website pages, landing pages, social media posts as well as blogs can help you get maximum leads, which can be further converted into customers using the right set of inbound marketing techniques such as Spin Wheel, Social Proof, etc.
The sponsored ads will not get positive attention but the genuine ranking on the search engine pages will attract the customer based on value and trust. How about embedding the right keywords on your website page for getting your website listed on the first page of the search engine results?
Well, never say NO to SEO!
C. Be the Question, Be the Answer
Customers have a lot of questions in their minds regarding your brand’s product, services or infrastructure. How about being in the place of the customer virtually and start listing out the problems that he/she would have for your brand? How about answering those questions genuinely without any filters? Well, if you haven’t tried it till now, try it this month!
Quora Answer and Question will help you understand the importance of it. Quora is, therefore, one of the crucial aspects of digital marketing these days. Digital marketing managers love to use the Quora platform for enhancing their brand visibility. As a startup or a business owner, one can also utilize social media platforms for the same.
D. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging will never run out of fashion. It is an essential way to get leads and is an effective inbound marketing strategy for startups. Guest blogging will help your brand with powerful linkbacks, a large audience and personal brand-building opportunities. Isn’t it amazing to have your brand listed on other websites with compelling content or blog?
Apart from the above top four inbound marketing strategies that startups or SME entrepreneurs can also opt for email popups. Personal brand building and video marketing for gaining online website leads.
Well, I believe that you have understood the most inbound marketing techniques, tools, and strategies by reading our inbound marketing guide. For any queries or questions, you can log on to www.wponlinesupport.com. Our business manager will be happy to assist your queries by applying his intelligence and experience in the digital marketing field.
takeaway
2020 is here, and it has brought a lot of brands under the competition umbrella. As a business owner, you must learn how to be outstanding amongst the other brands that are under the same competition umbrella sharing the market space with your brand.
The only thing that can make your brand different from other brands in your marketing strategy and implementation. Every brand owner learns different techniques of marketing and automation but fails to implement it. Business owners spend a fixed amount of investment for the brand building and lead, but they are not sure of getting the desired ROI.
On the other hand, Inbound Marketing is affordable, effective, and communicative. It helps your brand with recognition, increased awareness or visibility, and yes, an ample amount of leads. Inbound marketing doesn’t end; it is a process that keeps going for acquiring and retaining the customers. If you learn how to execute the inbound marketing strategy well, you are already a winner halfway through. The other half is finding the right plugin for putting your marketing efforts to work!
Thank you for reading our inbound marketing guide. We shall hope to hear from you soon! This time exchanging the same table over a cup of coffee! ☺
