Let’s face it, marketing has kind of a bad rap. Some combination of “intrusive,” “annoying,” “unethical,” “fake,” and “slimey” may immediately spring to mind when you think about marketing.

But the marketing tactics that earned those unflattering connotations are outdated and unnecessary.

You have the opportunity and the ability to market your business in an entirely different way.

Aggro Marketing: A Relic of the Past

Waaaayyyy back before the internet was part of everyone’s daily life, marketing tactics and marketing data were much more limited than they are now.

The elder millennials plus among you might remember your favorite after school TV program being obnoxiously interrupted by the same ad every single commercial break. Or waiting for Z100 to play “Rehab” again and hopefully say the singer’s name so you can remember it this time- only to be thwarted by the same sales pitch over and over again. (Everyone who listened to early aughts pop music radio in the Portland Metro region has this one memorized: "Now you have a friend in the diamond business! The Shane Company, off Highway 217, across from the Warshington Square Mall, open Monday through Friday 'til eight, Saturday and Sunday 'til five.”)

Maybe if you had a ton of money, you could buy an ad in The New York Times or get some prominent product placement on a soapy teen lust fest. Or, if you had merely a lot of money, you could get a shiny pamphlet inserted in the local newspaper. Or, if you wanted to splurge, you could get your face on a bench, billboard, or city bus and hope no one drew a d¡#% on it á la Carrie Bradshaw.

Before we had access to the infinitely vast quantities of data on buyer behavior the age of internet addiction has given us, much of marketing embraced a “spray and pray” philosophy. We had to do the best we could to research our target market and then be as visible as possible where we thought/hoped/prayed they’d be. Yes, the wealthy companies could do market research on demographics and whether the message was landing and could then be a bit more strategic and targeted. But most everyone adopted a sort of point-and-shoot-with-a-super-soaker marketing mentality.

And, yes, this often left consumers feeling annoyed and intruded upon, turning on mute, trying to get the telemarketer off the phone, recycling the ad inserts, and just waiting for the Amy Winehouse song to come back on.

Thankfully, we don’t have to do marketing like this anymore.

The New Way: Inbound Marketing

The internet has gathered unprecedented amounts of data on buyer behavior. This data is accessible to a far broader range of companies than those that have budget for fancy, formal market research.

If we know where to look, we can get a pretty good sense of how our ideal customers look for support for the problems we can help them with.

That means, we have the ability to show up right when they need us with a methodology called inbound marketing.

“Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. While outbound marketing interrupts your audience with content they don’t always want, inbound marketing forms connections they are looking for and solves problems they already have.” - HubSpot

When we really get to know our customers, we can design thoughtful content that will be useful to them. We can optimize our content to show up where our customers are looking at each stage of the buyer’s journey. It’s about helpfulness and being invited in rather than intrusion.

Design Marketing Strategy For Each Stage of The Customer Journey

Let’s illustrate this. Say you are a graphic designer whose ideal customers are new business owners who need help with branding and website launches. After doing some keyword research, you could author blogs with strong search engine optimization for topics like: “What Is Branding?” “Why Do Companies Have Logos?” “Choosing Colors For Your Brand” etc. This type of content is likely to be helpful for new business owners Googling similar topics.

When these posts start showing up top of the search results, more and more new business owners will start to click and form positive associations with your brand when they find your content helpful. When prompted, they may then join your newsletter or follow you on Instagram so they can be notified when you release more helpful content.

Then, when they are ready to get a custom logo, they may reach out directly to you.

For your current customers, you may have content about design best practices, how to keep your visual branding consistent across social media platforms, and helpful tips for dressing up your Instagram posts, etc. That way, your current customers have a reason to stay engaged and keep following you because you have helpful content for them too. (Remember, keeping customers is much cheaper than getting new ones.)

Knowing that people tend to find social proof inherently more trustworthy than marketing and sales messaging, you could also design a marketing strategy to encourage your current customers to rate and review you and recommend you to their friends. That way, your happy customers can attract more prospective new customers.

Of course, you could segment your contact lists so that when you send out your newsletters, existing customers aren’t getting reminders to sign up for things they’ve already bought and you aren’t asking the newbies for testimonials and reviews before they’ve ever worked with you.

When you are planning your content strategy, you can make sure your calendar is coordinated with marketing campaigns designed for each stage of the buyer's journey to encourage customers to make larger and larger investments with you.

You’ll notice that in this example, there is no stampeding into an inbox uninvited. You’re not cold calling or emailing. You’re not necessarily even advertising.

Instead, you are creating helpful content that draws customers to you. The ideal customer finds you when they’re looking for guidance on how to form a visual identity for their brand.

Then, if the content is sufficiently helpful, your ideal customers will opt in to staying connected with you and receiving more content from you.

This is why we love inbound marketing at M.Isa Messaging, LLC. It’s based around consent. And you know how we love consent over here.

To Be Invited In, You Need To Really Know Your Customer

Just like you’re unlikely to let a stranger into your home, your ideal customers are unlikely to consent to connecting with you unless they know you and have reason to like and trust you.

Research shows that customers are less likely to buy the first time they encounter a brand. So, potential customers need to:

• See your brand a number of times

• Form positive associations with your brand

• Remember your brand when they’re ready to buy

Great content is an excellent way to get potential customers to recognize, like, and trust your brand.

But, to create this great content, you need to know your customers well enough to know how they seek support for the pain points you can help them with. You also need to know the messaging that will resonate with them and the method of delivery that will reach them.

You can’t blast content out on channels your customers never frequent and you can’t use messaging that’s going to turn them off.

Then, to create content that continues to delight your existing customers, you need to know where they still need guidance and where they look for support.

It’s the opposite of the super soaker marketing mentality of old. You have to be much more targeted, precise, and strategic.

That means the goal of marketing isn’t just to maximize visibility, it’s to actually help your ideal customer. To help them, you have to know what they need help with, and how they want to be helped.

Yes, this does mean you’ll need to do some research. Ask your current customers how they found you. Depending on what marketing channels you’re using, examine your analytics and engagement statistics. Look at the followers of your competitors and see what topics and thought leaders they’re following. A/B test your messaging.

No matter what digital marketing tactics you’re using, even if you don’t have a lot of money to spend on market researchers or consultants or analytics software- I promise that there is a way to learn more about your customers and how your content can better serve them.

Just Like Any Good Relationship Building, Inbound Marketing Takes Time & Consistency

You’ll have to get used to the idea that inbound marketing is a long game. Though less expensive than traditional forms of marketing, it takes roughly 6-9 months of consistent effort for there to be dramatic yields for content marketing. When you understand this, you’ll be less tempted to adopt more aggressive and obnoxious tactics to make the sale.

When marketing is focused on consent, it’s OK that it takes several times for a prospect to encounter your brand before becoming an active follower and then still more time before they’re ready to buy.

High pressure tactics aren’t a great way to build lasting customer loyalty and trust. Instead, we’re aiming for content that nudges customers towards an enthusiastic “yes!” to the sale rather than a fear-based one.

This is how you do marketing in a way that doesn’t feel like marketing. This is where you ditch the pressure in favor of weaving art, education, creativity, communication, and science into your sales tactics. This is how you use marketing to reinforce your values and create the change you want to see in the world. And that is how you earn customer love and loyalty with their full consent.

Ready for your own, custom, inbound marketing strategy? Let’s hook you up with a plan.