LinkedIn inbound marketing: strategy in 6 easy steps

Inbound marketing: definition. What is inbound marketing?

In the past, traditional marketing focused only on products and services. Today , with the democratization of the internet and social networks, things have changed. Marketing is more interested in people, social, brand development and expertise .

Traditional prospecting is being overtaken by new digital tools that allow you to create a digital identity and use it to sell.

If prospecting in the past led to direct sales and the relentless search for prospects through mass phone calls or emails, inbound marketing is a strategy that brings the customer to you through the internet and social networks.

This strategy is softer and much less intrusive than traditional prospecting.

With l’ inbound marketing , you let your prospects come to you instead of trying to sell them a service or a product at any cost!

Inbound marketing is a method that allows you to become the main media for your brand in order to create an audience around it. Audience you will need to convert to prospects , then into clients.

Inbound marketing, as well as social selling, are just some of the methods among many to develop your business and achieve more sales.

How? ‘Or’ What ? By becoming your own medium and by communicating effectively around your brand, through a blog , a website, relevant content … and LinkedIn !

Regularly sharing content to demonstrate your expertise and added value can generate customers without even having to seek them out personally.

As you can see, inbound marketing is closely linked to content marketing.

Why is inbound marketing so effective?

People no longer like to be interrupted in their business by pop-up ads. In other words, they no longer wish to receive ads without having requested them.

Thus, inbound marketing is a much more effective method to generate leads because, if they come to you, it is because they have a real interest in being interested in your brand.

This is the case, for example, with the principle of newsletters on a blog. You invite people to subscribe to your email list only if they are interested in your content. You don’t impose anything. In this way, you create an audience interested in your services.

Inbound marketing is less aggressive, less intrusive, but much more effective in the long run. Inbound marketing reverses the traditional model. Focused on the customer experience, it allows you to create a long-term commitment between you and your prospects by creating content with high added value.

Inbound marketing allows you to start an exchange and a commitment with your prospects in order to demonstrate your expertise and respond to the problems encountered by your prospects. The sale is no longer the immediate end. It is a long term process, unlike traditional marketing.

Inbound Marketing: the 3 objectives

Objective No. 1 of inbound marketing: generate traffic

Inbound marketing consists of converting your audience into a customer. Beforehand, you must create this audience. You will be able to achieve this if you get enough traffic to your blog or LinkedIn profile.

How to do ? To drive traffic, you need to regularly post content to build engagement. You must use the keywords usually searched by your target to strengthen your referencing (SEO). The more you optimize your content for SEO, the more you increase your visibility on the web.

You can also insert external links to your blog on your LinkedIn profile, in particular in your content or in your posts (Be careful to do this properly so as not to penalize your publications because of theLinkedIn algorithm .) A good way is to partially duplicate an article from your blog on your perfect LinkedIn profile and invite the reader to look further by redirecting them to your blog.

Objective 2 of inbound marketing: convert the audience into prospects

Once you’ve created an audience for yourself, you’ll need to keep it and convert it to leads.

In order for a content consumer to become a prospect, they need to feel like you can help them solve their problems.

For this, you must succeed in labeling yourself as an expert in your field by regularly creating relevant content, adapted to the typical profile of your target. The main purpose of this content should be to help your prospects for free without putting your services at the center of your strategy.

Don’t be intrusive when trying to sell at all costs. Most marketers offer as much free content as possible before offering paid content.

You can also engage with your potential prospects by commenting or liking their own content. The interaction, which is more regular, creates engagement and promotes the conversion rate.

Objective 3 of inbound marketing: convert prospects into customers

During this step, you will have to convert your prospects into customers. Once your prospects are convinced of your expertise and your ability to help them with their problem, they will accept your help in deciding to buy your services or products. This is the final step in the inbound marketing process.

As this strategy is slower and less intrusive, the chances of successfully retaining a customer are greater.

Once you’ve managed to get more customers, why not ask them to recommend ? In this way, you capitalize on this customer experience. Remember, recommendations are a powerful tool in generating even more leads and interest in your brand. Especially since these features are native to LinkedIn!

This strategy is therefore much more effective than the marketing strategies of the past, especially if it is combined with a prospecting plan effective.

How to make inbound marketing a concrete strategy?

1. Inbound marketing strategy: analyze your target

Before doing inbound marketing, it is essential to determine your main target of prospects and to study their typical profile. You must be able to answer several questions:

• What is their typical profile?
• What are their professional and personal goals?
• What are their prospects for development in their field?
• What are their concerns, their major challenges?
• What are their expectations ?

For that, nothing very complicated.

Once you have established your target prospects, you can connect with them by first inviting them to join your LinkedIn network and sending them a personalized message in which you explain the reason for this addition. This technique allows you to increase your favorable response rate.

Then, it is advisable to follow their news feed in order to better understand the information in which they are interested, their concerns, etc. You can also join LinkedIn groups by topic in which your prospects are located. You will be able to understand the problems they are facing and try to answer them in a relevant way.

2. Inbound marketing strategy: get in touch on LinkedIn

Once your target has joined your network and you have analyzed them, you can get in touch with them.

There are several ways to get in touch

• Send one LinkedIn personalized message ;
• Participate in LinkedIn groups;
• Like, share or comment on their publications.

All these techniques make it possible to create a first exchange. This is a good opportunity to start showing your expertise and your ability to respond to their issues.

3. Inbound marketing strategy: produce content

You can answer your target’s questions, directly by responding to their publications, or you can create your own content (post, video, carousel , articles, etc.) to answer their problems.

You can either post videos on LinkedIn , publish LinkedIn articles or post a relevant message on LinkedIn groups to try to solve your target’s problem.

You need to create regular, relevant and free content to engage your prospects in your brand while helping them solve their problem. To help you gain visibility, you must integrate the keywords usually sought by your prospects.

If the content is irrelevant, your target will not consume it to the end and you risk losing your chances of converting your prospects into customers.

Once you’ve analyzed your target, got in touch with them, and produced content for them, you’ll take your inbound marketing strategy to the next level.

To read : LinkedIn ™ and social selling: 7 tips to go further.

LinkedIn inbound marketing: fr conclusion

LinkedIn is one of the best platforms for inbound marketing

LinkedIn is one of the best platforms for inbound marketing because your target is already there.

• To read : who is on LinkedIn?

Excellent tool for B2B, you have access to thousands of profiles potentially interested in your theme and your business. However, it is easier to attract them to you than to contact them one by one. For this, inbound marketing is one of the best strategies to adopt. By regularly creating relevant content and having in mind the desire to solve the problems of your prospects, you ensure long-term engagement and loyalty. Consider coupling this with a strategy of social selling LinkedIn to promote your content to professionals.

If you are in BtoB then you would like to generate leads continuously through LinkedIn and your website. Know that it is possible, I have developed a method and training for prospecting on LinkedIn , which generates 200 leads per month in 45 minutes per day!

Did you know about inbound marketing?