Inbound Marketing in Dubai:  There is no better time than now for forward thinking businesses to separate themselves from the rest

Inbound Marketing isn't by any means a new phenomena nor a new way of marketing.  Since the dawn of the internet age, smart marketers have been employing this marketing philosophy and have gained huge success by following the basic principles of Inbound.  Unlike traditional marketing and sales methodologies, Inbound Marketing is an approach that potential customers love, without often realising what it is.  

What is Inbound Marketing?

This is our definition (and we like it):

Inbound Marketing is a way of pulling customers towards you or your business.  A way of sharing meaningful and important content and information about your industry that answers difficult questions, which in turn helps build trust towards your brand and as a consequence, brings customers closer to you.

Think how different this is to traditional marketing.  Rather than placing large, often-intrusive adverts across all types of media, Inbound Marketing often focuses on content based elements such as blogging whether this be in the form of thought leadership content or general how-to information.  Content can also be in the form of images, videos, infographics, podcasts or anything that allows a brand to publish and share meaningful information to potential customers. 

Inbound Marketing is how all businesses should be marketing their businesses today

We now live in a world where approximately 70% of consumers research a product or service online BEFORE they speak to a company, sales representative or consultant.  Customers today are more educated and in the digital age, they will continue to be more and more educated about any product or service they invest in.  This creates a huge opportunity for brands.

How can businesses take advantage of Inbound Marketing Opportunities?

If we consider the above statistic and assume that most people now research online before making buying decisions, we should also consider that most people therefore start there purchasing journey at one specific location:  Google!

When people want to know the answer to something or are searching for a product or service, they go to their favourite Search Engines.  In Dubai and in most parts of the world, this place is either Google.com or a local equivalent such as Google.ae or Google.co.uk.  Now, more than ever, if your business isn't there to help answer a question or to provide specific information on a product or service, you will lose new business opportunities.  Your business needs to be visible on a search engine results page for multiple search queries related to your business, your products and your services.

How can this be achieved?

The answer is Content.  Search engines love businesses who create the type of content that is meaningful to those searching for this.  That's why they exist.  If your business creates the type of content that answers the types of specific questions that actual users are asking, you have every chance of ranking highly within a search engine for these types of searches.  For local businesses, this opportunity is even stronger.  Even if you don't rank organically, spending a small amount of money to advertise your content on a search engine will also provide a almost immediate impact.

Let's look at the following example: 

Part of our business is designing and developing websites and in our industry, there are literally thousands of others who offer these types of services.  Obviously quality and service are key differentiators and we pride ourselves on providing the very best products and services at a fair price.  But how we do translate that across the web?  How can we differentiate ourselves in such a cluttered and competitive industry?  We do this using Inbound Marketing and by creating the type of content that helps potential customers during the buying journey.  

We understand that many potential customers check online for price or budget related questions.  We therefore create content that helps to answer these, which in turn creates trust in our brand.  Below are 2 examples of this.

As well as "how-much" related searches, people also search for "cost" related searches too:

There are very few businesses that like answering these types of price-based questions on a public forum, let alone on the internet, but for businesses that do want to build trust and loyalty, why wouldn't you answer these types of questions?  In the 4 or 5 months that these articles have been ranking, we have not only had vast amounts of traffic that have been driven to our website, but have actually tracked a return on investment directly from them.

The point is, businesses should create the type of content that people are searching for and then use this as an opportunity to build stronger relationships.  This is the future of not only marketing but also sales and those businesses that understand this, leverage this and start to build relationships with customers before they become a customer are the ones that will benefit the most.

Learn how your business can benefit from a Inbound or Content Marketing Strategy by downloading the FREE E-book below: