Why SMEs should Opt for Inbound Marketing?

When you’re about to start a small or medium enterprise of your own, it’s important to make people aware of your venture and the products and services you offer.  Inbound marketing is the new marketing method that uses the latest technology to attract customers. This marketing method is opposed to the traditional, interrupting and less effective outbound marketing. This method uses the new strategy of reaching costumers by providing them precise and useful information reaching them according to their convenience. As traditional marketing is focused on finding costumers, inbound marketing is focused on the idea of getting found by costumers. So inbound marketing brings qualified costumers to the SMEs.

Next Gen Marketing
Inbound marketing is the result of some recent changes in the behavior of consumers. It does not involve the conventional and expensive methods of regular newspapers and television advertisements, billboards on roads and telemarketing calls. It is mainly based on three things--good content, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and social media.

The primary advantage of inbound marketing is its target audience which is all the persons who access the internet. A good content is the key to successful inbound marketing. Users will browse away from your page if they do not find the right information or get confused by the presentation. Similarly, SEO helps the consumer locate the site and its content. SEO practices, on-page and off-page, help SMEs in achieving a higher position in search engines. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. prove to be the first platform for a potential buyer or customer.

Social media networks form another important aspect in inbound marketing. Their range is spread across many channels where people browse on a regular basis. With a substantial sharing of the content, potential buyers are attracted to company's products or services.

Saves Time
A survey has established that inbound marketing, even though time consuming, costs 62 per cent less than outbound marketing or related efforts. It grows over a period of time and only improves in its quality. Also, with inbound marketing, one is directly connected to the target audience. In inbound marketing, one only approaches leads which are interested in the product and provides better chance for selling. It also works as a wisely investment, whereby SMEs can benefit from a long-term marketing strategy rather than a short-lived one such as print ads or video presentations, etc. The right investment on optimized content which can show up on various search engines confers a long lasting touch to the marketing effort.

Flexible Solution
Inbound marketing also offers a flexible solution to SMEs which can modify its campaign from time-to-time as per their requirement. Adopting closed loop marketing analytics from possible leads also helps SMEs to improve their marketing month after month. The system works much better than conventional e-mailing systems where the company has to spend quite an amount just to reach out rather than waiting for consumers to connect with them in the inbound marketing methodology. Often, these e-mails create negative publicity for the SME as the message is branded as a spam or unwanted forwards.

As a power pack of all these advantages, Inbound marketing could benefit SMEs in multiple ways making them more successful.