To build a successful inbound marketing strategy for your FinTech company, it's important to not only focus on providing quality content, but also to develop and execute effective inbound marketing campaigns. Additionally, your sales team should be closely involved in the process to ensure that your inbound efforts are aligned with your sales goals. With the right team in place, you can implement an effective inbound marketing strategy that drives leads and helps grow your business.
Inbound marketing focuses on content, unlike outbound marketing, is an ongoing strategic process and your tactics will constantly evolve, but there are certain principles like providing quality content, which will always remain constant. It can be broken down into loads of component parts, but the approach is holistic. To make things easy, we are going to break it down into five simple steps.
Let’s start with:
1. Attraction
Going out looking for the things we want is a chore, isn’t it? And when you are a seeker, you have to join the queue along with everyone else. Looking for a job? Put in your application and have it assessed along with the other 250 they received.
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Fancy meeting a new partner. If they are the superstar, you think they are, you may be one of many interested parties all vying for your crush’s attention.
Life’s much easier when those that are interested come to you, and that is where your inbound marketing efforts will come into play?
Be Conveniently Available
One of the primary purposes of inbound marketing is to ensure that those people who would benefit most from your FinTech services can find you easily, when they want to find you, where they want to find you, which is to say, online.
At this stage of building an effective inbound marketing strategy, it's important to consider the use of relevant keywords and search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. By identifying and using the right keywords in your content, you can increase your online visibility and drive more traffic to your website. Incorporating SEO tactics into your inbound marketing strategy can help you rank higher in search results and attract more qualified leads to your business.
At this stage, if you know a little about inbound marketing you may be thinking keywords, SEO (search engine optimization) and all that jazz.
And yes, it is important that within your inbound strategy, you prioritise recognising the search terms that your target audience customers will be using while looking for online answers to their questions, but if you tick all the other boxes, some of which will follow this step, then those search terms will happen all by themselves.
Define Who You Want to Attract
Make sure you understand, in detail, who your typical clients are to provide them with relevant content. Know what they are more likely to need from you and why you are the best provider of their solution. Understand their other interests and what makes them tick. You can’t attract anybody unless you know what they want, and inbound marketing is all about attracting the right audience.
Give Them What They Want
When it comes to attracting potential customers, content truly is king. By following the inbound methodology and creating quality content that addresses your target audience's pain points and interests, you can establish your business as a thought leader in your industry. This will not only help you attract potential customers but also build trust and credibility with them. Providing valuable content that meets the needs of your audience is the foundation of a successful inbound marketing strategy.
Surely, if you are producing infographics, blog posts and downloadable assets that match the interests of your prospects, the search terms that are most frequently used will tend to pop up naturally.
So attraction is all about understanding whom you want to appeal to and ensuring that when they find you, you meet their expectation. To do this, you need a clear content marketing strategy. This brings us to the next step of the inbound marketing process.
2. User Experience (UX)
Meet Their Expectation
Nobody is interested in a one-hit wonder. If your clients visit your site because you hooked them with the promise of an asset, they are not going to stick around if the information doesn’t meet expectations or if the rest of the site does not gel with them.
If your inbound marketing strategies focus on creating valuable content, they will retain an audience and get in the good side of most search engines.
A Presentation That is Aligned With Their Preference
Once they arrive at your site, your customers need to feel at home. Welcome them with open arms. Make them comfortable. Bring them a metaphorical cup of tea.
See what else they need. Translated into inbound marketing strategic terms, this means a well-constructed, easy to navigate and fast mobile-responsive site, with an emphasis on mobile phone use as that is the way of the future.
And don't forget to ask yourself (and others,) does your site actually look good? You shouldn't underestimate the power of an attractive website on your bottom line. The below example from Australian company Coloured Lines has a very clear navigation which they've made into the main feature of their design.
Read Their Likely Requirements
An intuitive design should be almost telepathic in how it meets the needs and curiosity of your guests. If your guest is already a customer, let them know and show them the red carpet. Perhaps you have an exclusive offering just for them.
Nobody goes on a second date if their first one does not stimulate, so ensure that your site is rich in content with videos, images and infographics etc while being easy to navigate.
This needs to be juggled with your own inbound marketing needs, to guide your online friends through the funnel towards sales. At the very least it would be great if they left their details.
So far, so good?
3. The Funnel
Make it Work For You
Everything included in your FinTech inbound marketing tactics should be geared towards working for you as well as your customers. You are not doing this for the fun of it. So consider what you can do to make the most of their stay on your site.
Think "Data Capture"
This is particularly useful if you intend to look for alternative finance from an angel. Use the appropriate analytical tools, such as Google Analytics, to keep track of who is visiting your site, how long they stay, how many pages they visit, where your traffic is coming from. Keep track of sales leads and score them to make them meaningful.
The HubSpot sales funnel below gives a general idea of what you need to provide for each stage of the customer life cycle.
4. Conversion
Ask Them Questions
As part of understanding your customers and developing the ongoing relationship with them, think about how you can ask them what they need. If you can capture email addresses when they visit your site, perhaps you can drop them a line later on and ask them a couple of questions to show interest in them and gain further insight. Relationships last longer when all parties show a mutual interest in each other.
Prompt Them
A wise person once said that selling is a way of helping people make a decision. Sometimes we spend too much time working on our image, appearing authoritative, supplying resources and not actually asking for business. Ensure that the mechanisms are in place to help your prospects along. Appropriate calls to action (CTA’s) are a must, and clear signing to where they can find what they need.
Remember that they have probably come to your site because of a relevant blog post they found through search when they were trying to find a solution to a specific problem. If you are going to offer them more goodies on your site, you need to ensure that you get something in return; contact details, comments, meaningful information or feedback.
Once you have won the interest or business from a prospect, what happens next?
5. Retention
If you have ticked the other boxes that make up an effective inbound marketing strategy, then you have already made a great impression on your customers. They have bought from you, enjoyed some of your content, downloaded an earth-shattering asset or left you an email address.
Win an Invitation to Reconnect
If you played your cards right you won a buy-in for you to contact them with news and offers that may interest them, but there are other things you can do to make them feel loved.
Offer Them Membership
Give them privileged access to certain parts of the site. They can become a special member of your club where they will receive discounts, unique access to useful information, and shortcuts to their favourite things.
Create an Online Community
Do you have a LinkedIn group that they can be a part of where they can mix with like-minded people in the FinTech community? Or maybe there is a forum on your website. Creating an online community gives you the opportunity to talk to your brand advocates as a group, deliver news, offer new products or invite them to events.
Be the Authority
Why go to the trouble of being heard on someone else’s industry site when you can create your own with your content marketing and social media? This gives you an amazing opportunity to hear your customers talking among themselves, raising concerns, highlighting opportunities and needs that you could address. It makes you into the authority for your sector.
So there you have it. 5 wonderful steps to building your Inbound Marketing Strategy. If you want to learn more about creating your own bespoke Marketing strategy, then book your mini or full free strategic consultation today. Just fill your details in on the sidebar.
