Small businesses on Cape Cod and the Islands have two methods for driving awareness and thus sales – inbound and outbound marketing.

Outbound marketing includes digital and print newspaper ads, TV ads, billboards, cold calling, and display ads in local magazines like Cape Cod Life or Cape & Plymouth Business media, while inbound relies on slow-burn content marketing, such as blogs, opt-in email nurture flows and native recommendations. Inbound marketing is a unified strategy for generating traffic, converting leads and analyzing marketing initiatives. It is the opposite of flooding potential buyers with advertising, post cards and email messaging.

If you are truly going to understand the concept of inbound marketing, you need to recall the buying continuum approach to building awareness: Unawareness to Awareness to Understanding to Believability to Trust then Trial/Purchase and Repurchase and/or Referral.

The entire process begins with original content that drives potential buyers to Google the business and ultimately to your website. It is a unified strategy that combines the various marketing tactics in the communications toolbox to raise awareness and understanding of your offer – your products/services/brand. When the content has appropriate call-to-action options, then there is the ability to convert those potential visitors to viewers to buyers.

Inbound marketing strategy has five ordered segments: Owned and Earned Media, Landing Pages, Lead Nurturing, Sales Interaction and Client Retention.

In marketing we look at the sales funnel – the number of leads it takes to close one sale. When looking at inbound marketing we can also consider a funnel as a way of organizing our work. SmartInsights looks at three stages of the funnel – TOFU, MOFU and BOFU – top, middle and bottom of the funnel. TOFU generates leads, MOFU generates prospects and BOFU generates closed sales. For the first stage TOFU, the relevant content earns permission to sell. Content is the conversation starter that drives readers to your website – your front door.

In the MOFU stage, we publish and promote original content and allow sharing so others with like interest can take advantage of the postings. We measure this stage with fans, followers, visitors and inbound links. This stage also forms the foundation for decision-making. Your content is worth finding. The original or curated content you post is relevant, inspirational, useful and problem-solving. Metrics are leads and shares.

The BOFU stage is where the purchases are consummated. This is where the conversion from leads to customers takes place and is measured by orders, revenue and average order value. Once the exchange passes through the BOFU stage advocacy is the focus for repeat purchase and referral.

Grass Roots Marketing, Inc. has studied the impact of inbound marketing activities. The firm has found that (1) companies that blog have 97% more links to their websites. (2) 46% of daily searches are for products or services. (3) 72% of business owners/executives said social media helps with closing business deals. (4) 74% of US adults prefer email marketing for commercial communications. The key is to generate website traffic that features your solution(s) to their problems with a call-to-action so they can continue the conversation moving them through the buying continuum.

If inbound marketing is in your plan to achieve 2023 sales objectives then consider Guido Bartolacci’s advice. Standardize. Make your story consistent across all platforms that you are using for inbound and outbound marketing.

Relevancy. Although you want standardization and consistency, the story needs to resonate with the right people in the right space. Each different segment of the customer base has different pain points and therefore varying pain gains being offered.

Optimize. As the inbound marketing activity increases, additional data is learned about each target customer, and you should tailor your messaging and channels to meet the specific needs, wants and desires of each customer segment.

Personalize. Make each and every target customer feel special. There are estimates that almost everyone is exposed to 1,500-2,000 marketing messages per day. In order to not be ignored your messaging needs to be personalized so they feel the message is directed to them alone.

Empathize. To avoid being blinded by data, show you understand your target customers’ challenges and they aren’t alone in facing those challenges. When an emotional connection is made, the interchange ceases to be transactional and moves to relational.

The goal is generating inbound leads that consummate in closed sales, build revenues and profits and thus sustainability of the enterprise. Bartolacci reminds us, “remember, standardization is important for scalability of your marketing team. Optimizing your strategy takes time and experimentation. Gathering enough information about your buyers to personalize and contextualize your content effectively involves a level of trial and error, as well.”

Contributed by Marc L. Goldberg, Certified Mentor, SCORE Cape Cod & the Islands. www.score.org/capecod, capecodscore@scorevolunteer.org, 508-775-4884. Sources: Guido Bartolacci, New Breed, Grass Roots Marketing, Inc., Inbound Marketing Strategy, Slingshot SEO, Grass Roots Marketing, www.inboundmarketingforsales.com, Inbound Marketing Funnel, First 10 and SmartInsights.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Inbound marketing is a unified strategy for generating traffic