“Inbound marketing strategies open the doorway for creating valuable content that is easily found online by your ideal client. Your potential clients have needs that only you can provide solutions for. They are seeking information, from a trustworthy source, that will educate them.
If you know the questions they will be asking that will lead them to you, then you have already taken your first step to getting found through internet searches.
Your next step is to take this knowledge and apply it to formats that allow you to answer their needs and concerns. One of the most effective and widely used formats is a blog. Blogging provides invaluable content for your website and for your digital marketing strategy.
The role of a blog in an inbound marketing strategy is to guide potential clients along each stage of the buyer’s journey. Blogs nurture prospects by giving them the information they need in order to make choices that lead to them towards making a purchase. Eighty-one percent of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs. Additionally, businesses with active blogs generate 55% more sites visits and 97% more links to their websites.
Blogs provide more than just statistics. They fit the needs of the potential clients you’re trying to find online.
Consistent Blogging Builds Trustworthiness
Before a future client ever decides to meet face-to-face with you, they learn from you by visiting your website, viewing your postings on social media or reading your blogs. During this phase of their journey, you are helping them find solutions that will help them solve their problems in each stage of the buyer’s journey.
Proactively addressing concerns shows your client that you understand them. When people feel understood, they are more likely to trust. Additionally, when a potential client realizes that their concern is valid they are more likely to engage in conversation with you. This type of conversation and engagement builds your online presence in a way that establishes your expertise as a trustworthy thought leader in your industry. People buy from people they trust.
SEO Is a Virtual Map to Your Website
With inbound marketing, you don’t find your clients; they find you. Inbound marketing starts with blogging. It attracts new visitors to your site, so in order to get found by the right prospects, you need to create educational content that answers their questions.
So how do people find you online? They research keywords on a search engine, like Google. For example, a person just getting started on their journey might use the search term “bonds.” A potential client who is further along in their journey might use the term, “fixed-income security” or “money-market security.” The further along in their journey they are, the more industry-specific their search terms will be. As you create content for your ideal client, use the keywords that they would use during their search.
Blogs that contain these keywords that help your search engine optimization (SEO) ranking. In essence, SEO is how high up your website or blog appears- ranks- on a Google search. The higher your ranking, the higher up your link will appear in a search results. This matters to the finance industry because the click-through-rate (CTR), or how many people click on your link, of the first organic Google result is 64%. This drastically decreases for the second result (12% CTR), and even moreso for the third result (9% CTR).
Lead Generation
A bonus to writing blogs is lead generation. Calls-To-Action (CTAs), like this one here, can be placed within and at the end of your blogs. CTAs are clickable images or links that lead to a landing page with a content offer. If your readers are left wanting more from your blog, they can fill out their information in exchange for an ebook, whitepaper, or worksheet that cover various topics that are important to them.
This information that your potential client provides turns them into a lead. Voila! You now know more about this reader and what types of services they’re looking for based upon the type of information they downloaded and the information they provided in exchange for the download. With this information on your lead, you can further nurture and help them through their buyer’s journey.
Blogs, SEO, calls-to-action, and landing pages are all part of a complex inbound marketing machine. Changing one part will affect the performance of all the others. However, each piece serves one purpose: to build relationships of trust that open channels of communication between client and advisor that result in profitability. Blogs are one of the first touch points that a potential client will have with your company. Don’t underestimate your ability to connect with your clients through blogs and become a trusted industry thought leader.