What are the Four Stages of Inbound Marketing?

Mitch Tor Picture

by Mitch Tor | Last Updated: Jul 4, 2022

Inbound marketing is a strategy that focuses on drawing customers in through quality content instead of bombarding them with ads. It's a more natural way to connect with potential customers, and it produces better results than traditional outbound marketing techniques. If you want to deploy an inbound marketing strategy you need to understand four crucial stages that make up an inbound marketing campaign.   The Four Stages of Inbound Marketing are:
  1. Attracting strangers to turn them into visitors
  2. Converting visitors into leads
  3. Closing leads to customers
  4. Delighting customers so they become promoters
To execute an effective inbound marketing strategy, your team needs to be proficient in each stage. Let's take a more detailed look at each stage.

Attracting strangers to turn them into visitors

The first stage of inbound marketing is all about getting your brand in front of the right people. You need to generate traffic to your website through SEO, content marketing, social media, and paid advertising. The key to this stage is to create content that is engaging enough to pull in your target audience. This means becoming a leading resource in whatever topic you are trying to position yourself as. If you can become a valuable resource you will pull your target audience to your content without spending hundreds to thousands of dollars pushing ads to people who may not care about your product or service. Once you've attracted visitors to your site, it's time to convert them into leads.

Converting visitors into leads

The second stage of inbound marketing is converting visitors into leads. A lead is a person who has shown interest in your products or services by filling out a form on your website. To convert visitors into leads, you need to have forms on your website and offer something of value in exchange for their contact information. This could be an ebook, a white paper, or a free trial of your product. In this stage, it's important to have calls to action built into your content so interested viewers have something to notify your company that they are verifiable leads. Once you've captured a lead's information, it's time to close them as customers.

Closing leads to customers

The third stage of inbound marketing is closing leads as customers. This is where the sales team comes in. The sales team's job is to contact the lead and attempt to sell them your product or service. During this stage, customer resource management (CRM) software can be a helpful tool. CRMs help sales teams keep track of their leads and customers so they can better manage their time and resources. It is also important to have a developed sales cadence and process in place. This will ensure that leads are contacted on time and that nothing falls through the cracks. Using a CRM will also help with this. Once you've closed a lead as a customer, it's important to keep them happy so they become promoters of your brand.

Delighting customers so they become promoters

Once a sale is made, it's time to move on to the fourth and final stage of inbound marketing: delighting customers. The fourth stage of inbound marketing is delighting customers so they become promoters of your brand. This means going above and beyond to make sure your customers are happy with their purchases. It also means staying in touch with them after the sale and offering help if they need it. Sending customer satisfaction surveys is a great way to stay in touch and get feedback on how you're doing. This is the step in the process where customer service is so important. By offering stellar customer support, you can turn one-time buyers into lifelong customers and brand promoters. Another way to delight customers and turn them into promoters is by offering them exclusive deals or early access to new products. This will make them feel special and valued, which will keep them coming back for more. To review, the four stages of inbound marketing are: attracting strangers to turn them into visitors, converting visitors into leads, closing leads to customers, and delighting customers so they become promoters. Remember: Inbound marketing is a process, not a one-time event. It's important to remember that inbound marketing is a process. It's something that needs to be continually worked on so you can attract more visitors, convert more leads, close more customers, and delight more promoters. The main way to track this is by asking customers for feedback at different stages of the process. This will help you see what's working and what needs to be improved. By following these steps and continually working on your inbound marketing, you can build a strong foundation for your business that will attract customers and help you grow.
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