The future of Inbound Marketing is drastically changing where constant innovations, evolutions in technology and evolving algorithms determine how users distribute content and ads. Due to the change, we need to rely more on quality of branding, data and messaging.
Sarah wants coffee before her meeting, and she removes her phone and says "Hey Siri, find the quickest coffee for me". Later, results come up, and she uses Starbucks app that quickly places her order and skips straight to the pickup area. Sarah is the modern buyer and Starbucks understood Sarah's problem and gave a quick, convenient solution which motivated her decision over other options. That's why the future of Inbound Marketing looks like where brands need to adapt as per the buyer's behaviour. Let us discuss in detail the fate of Inbound Marketing.
1.Facebook Ads create an impact
Earlier for any new digital marketing trend marketers used to shrug it off as another trend that will not work for B2B. For example, if you take Facebook advertising, everyone thought it was not the right platform for B2B because it is a personal platform. But, now B2B agencies have understood that only 9-5 do not help professional development and improve companies. There is an incredible opportunity for Facebook advertising especially the messenger bot which provides messaging and conversation in conversions. B2B agencies are looking forward to new innovative ways like Demystifying AI to drive growth for their clients. Going ahead, for successful inbound marketing marketers will ensure that they will not deny any new trend but will dig in and see how this strategy or approach could benefit the agency as well as their clients. In future, marketers will use Facebook Ads and tools to create or nurture qualified leads. Facebook Messenger will be used to encourage real conversations with prospects and direct the leads to the right place at the right time.
2.Inbound has become more technically oriented.
The future trend is off-site publishing because companies reach to an entirely new audience. Most users use apps than a browser, so they more likely use off-site publishing apps like the medium which changes content marketing and SEO plan to be on a new platform. With the increasing competition, inbound becomes complicated, and new channels as AI or ABM emerge.
3.Customer Experience is the future.
For successful Inbound marketing, companies are planning to involve customer experience as more significant part of marketing. B2B agencies are helping their clients by providing profound insights of their customer beyond the usual persona. In future, to have a competitive edge brand must focus on creating the unique customer experience.
4.Building brand awareness
Nowadays, people want to purchase from brands they trust and the days of using the search engines to stumbleupon products are gone. It means that brand awareness is gaining importance people should know your brand even before they make it on a search engine. Why is it important? People generally make a purchase decision with brands they know, and it is necessary you build your brand's trust before the competition. You can create brand awareness in following ways:
- Need buyer personas to become familiar with your audience
- Create content based on customer needs
- Develop creative campaigns that connect your customers with brand's story
- Daily engage with your customers using some social media.
5.Analyse which marketing works the best and then invest
If you are looking to generate maximum leads through campaigns then testing is going to be a priority for future of inbound marketing. To fund it is important to understand best performing content or types of the campaign which creates an impact. Let us discuss how to analyse in detail
- See which content your audience gets most engaged during the testing phase
- Make use of Google analytics to understand the number of people viewing the content, time taken and where they go next
- Provide a promotional offer which is low risk and high value to understand which type of audience is engaged, what kind of messaging works and which landing page works best.
- Once we know which content works best then test different audience, social platform and campaigns
6.Artificial Intelligence is the future.
Artificial Intelligence is changing the world and influencing Inbound marketing. Currently, in Inbound marketing, sales are the customer where companies use data from total strangers and convert them into customers by solving their problems. In future, data will go to next level where AI tools like bots, Siri, Messenger and Google now will marketers think beyond and develop processes which include artificial intelligence. With the rise of Chatbots, sales and marketing team can create qualified lead within 5 minutes of their conversation. Through Artificial intelligence, robots can provide unassisted learning and information in less time. With the help of chatbots, salespeople will interact with only qualified leads and not waste time.
7.Context shapes inbound marketing.
Context shapes the content people want to read and also influence the way people shop and buy. Data like role, industry, stage of the customer lifecycle and many more need to be stored as memory because it defines your customer and it can create the context to influence your customer. Having a background and controlling it through all channels helps to connect and changes the relationship between company and prospects. The future of Inbound marketing is understanding characteristics of the viewer which will depend upon creating adaptive content. Sidekick is new app launched by HubSpot which provides salespeople with the context they need to know to follow up when a lead is showing interest. If you add context to customer support, then your customers do not need to recap what they have already told you, and you will not feed them with information that is not relevant to them. In future, marketers will target to provide relevant content across the customer lifecycle.
8.Psychologists will play a key role
The future of inbound marketing agency is using psychologists to understand customer persona. In a data-driven world, customer needs will become more specific, and companies will be looking at psychology hacks for better results for their campaigns. By involving psychologists, Hyper-personalization will become an easy task. Customer experience is going to play the next battleground in Inbound Marketing.
The future of Inbound marketing is changing, and importance of good quality content and branding is rising. Customers want a more personalised experience, and companies are adapting to stay in the competition. Evolution of technology is giving marketers a clear insight of their customers. The best Inbound Marketing in future for companies will be knowing their customers deeply, developing personal relationships and driving content and context accordingly. Is your company ready for future of Inbound Marketing?