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Inbound marketing for the built environment: the basics

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The term "inbound marketing" was coined by internet marketing guru Brian Halligan in 2005. Although a decade may be a long time in marketing, it's still a relatively new method that many firms in the construction and built environment sectors are still getting to grips with.

That's no reflection on them, it's the nature of an industry which tends to take an understandably reactive approach to new marketing trends. After all, everyone's got their day job to do.

However, the benefits of inbound marketing are now well-documented, so there's no need to treat it with trepidation. The only thing left to do is to work on your inbound marketing techniques in order to grow your business.

First of all, let's just make it clear what inbound marketing is, to avoid any confusion. Inbound marketing involves attracting prospects to your business, rather than going out to find those prospects. Blogs, video, social media marketing, SEO – they all come under the umbrella of inbound marketing, as do any other forms of content marketing which serve to attract prospects at some point during the customer journey.

So let's take a look at some inbound marketing techniques that have proven themselves over the last few years:

Create a personality

More and more companies are building their business on the back of a personal brand – to great success, we might add. Why has it proved so effective? The online world thrives on personalities, and people have come to expect a high degree of the personal from brands.

What does that mean in the real world? Well, you need to ensure you're being your authentic self, which should also be in keeping with the tone of your business. Get that right and you'll be well on your way to building a structurally sound online personality.

Be active on social media

It's not just enough to post a link to your blog posts on social media and hope that your followers click on them – they will probably need a bit of coercing. In a noisy online world, you have to go the extra mile to make your profile one that stands out.

Asking questions is a great way to engage your followers, as it asks them to participate, as opposed to merely spectate. And when a reply to your question is forthcoming, don't simply feel satisfaction in getting a response – fire back with a reply of your own.

Optimise your keywords

Inbound marketing and SEO go hand in hand. While some might argue that keywords are not the force they once were, not too many would suggest eliminating them from your strategy altogether.

The fact of the matter is, Google directs users based on the keywords they have put into the search bar. If you can align your keywords with the terms your customers are using, you're on to a winner. The trick is to focus on a few keywords that are valuable, creating specific pages on your website that are for those keywords specifically.

Want to learn more about how you can build quality sales leads through inbound marketing, download our free E-book here.


Download Building Sales Leads with Inbound Marketing Ebook

  

 

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