Inbound marketing is essentially marketing of services and products that is supported by rich content written by professional freelance marketing writers. The ability to craft content that leads potential customers to your website via blogs, social media sites, referrals and search engine results distinguishes savvy inbound marketing writers from content farm hacks who have no idea how to write effective SEO copy. In fact, with Google’s stricter algorithms in place, a website’s content must now be polished, error-free and dynamic, or suffer a fate worse than languishing on page 20 of any search engine—the theoretical Google sandbox.
Another way to understand inbound marketing is to contrast it with “outbound” marketing, or the use of cold-calling, newspaper advertising, radio commercials, email marketing and sales flyers to buy consumers’ attention. Although the most common forms of inbound marketing strategies used by marketing agencies are blogs and website content, other outlets include podcasts, press releases, e-newsletters, videos, eBooks and whitepapers. Of course, marketing agencies need to have the best writers on their roster to provide professionally optimized content capable of retaining customers and fueling sales.
The primary purpose of inbound marketing content is to attract traffic (consumers) by reaching as many consumers as possible with well-written content that is focused on persuading visitors to follow a lead, which is then converted to a sale. Additionally, a plan implementing inbound marketing strategies needs to include methods such as web analytic software for analyzing the program as a whole in order to promote continuous improvement of the program.
More sophisticated inbound marketing strategies tend to target consumers who exist at varying levels of awareness regarding the service or product. Expanded tactics endeavor to funnel potential customers who are already familar with the associated market subdivision, but may be unaware of the product or may not intend to buy the product. By deliberately taking these consumers along information-rich pathways consisting of inbound marketing techniques, businesses can nurture awareness of their products and precipitate increased sales and revenue.
Successful Inbound Marketing Results Needs Quality SEO Content
Businesses planning to integrate inbound marketing with their advertising schemes will not experience good results unless all content is optimized for recognition by Google. Correct implementation of SEO techniques is also paramount to achieving levels of success differentiating lucrative and virtually indestructible businesses from those that struggle to maintain legitimacy within the algorithms of the most popular search engines.
Marketing agencies should never hire marketing writers who regularly resort to “black hat” SEO techniques just because these writers claim they can put a website on the first page of a Google search result. It won’t happen! In addition to making a website appear unprofessional and suspicious due to keyword stuffing, spammy link building, clumsily written sentences and unreadable content, unethical SEO content will be picked up by Google’s stringent algorithm rules and penalized with removal from its search service. Instead, marketing agencies need to stick to established, reputable professionals when hiring freelance writers, even though their services may cost more than a shady, bush-league writer wanting to make a few quick bucks at your agency’s expense.
Kimberly M is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
