One of the best ways to improve customer engagement is to focus on the people that are actually telling you they want to hear from you. This is a key aspect of inbound marketing. You produce information in an educational manner without forcing your product or service into attention.
The aim is to attract rather than interrupt.
By doing this you build a relationship with customers who grow to trust and appreciate your business. People who are delighted by what you've offered can sign up to receive mail about other tips, solutions or similar topics.
And you have a lead that has already shown they have a problem, which later on your product/service can be the solution for.
Most qualified leads are readers of your blogs. To find out more about blogging click here.
Buyers today have all the power. They have access to answers for virtually any questions at the flick of a few fingers. They can get detailed information about topics, compare prices and, perhaps most importantly, reviews.
If you can provide answers to these queries, you can build trust, reputation and authority for the niche your business is operating in. For example, if people frequently search for IT problems and your IT Support company is giving them the answers, they are much more likely to engage further with you, giving you the opportunity to convert them into customers.
When you are seen as an authority in your industry, leads will have more trust in you.
The main difference with this method compared to the outbound model is you are mainly interacting with qualified leads. In outbound you are trying to reach the biggest audience possible, interrupting their media use. This means a large portion of the audience will have no interest in your product or service.
The inbound audience is smaller than mass media, but because the audience is more friendly and has given you permission to message them, the audience converts at a 750% higher rate than interruption-based marketing.
Qualified leads help your sales team boost your profit.
The marketing team can pass on warm leads that are ready to be converted, giving them a much better chance at closing the deal. But this doesn't mean those not ready are thrown out. They are guided through problems until they are also ready to be passed onto sales. By doing this the sales team deals with a much friendly audience, as it reduces cold leads.
Qualified leads also save you time and money as you are not wasting efforts contacting people that are in no way interested, even if you got their information for free (which itself is a terrible idea).
If you are tired of interacting with unqualified, cold, sometimes hostile leads then download our Free Inbound Marketing Guide and find out how you can turn that around: