There are a lot of strategies in inbound marketing that business enterprises can adopt in order to stay ahead of the curve and scale the business. This is the following part of Volume I on inbound marketing trends that every business must know in 2016.

Ads are getting prohibitively costly with each passing day even on the digital platform. This puts it out of reach of most small and medium businesses. So the only way to reach out to the target audience is using some smart inbound marketing strategies that can provide stellar results in a short duration of time when done the right way.

Inbound marketing is more about earned media wherein you first capture the attention of the audience which then leads to earning their trust. These brand advocates then start to inevitably promote your business every time they share or initiate a conversation revolving around your brand.

Inbound marketing does not come across as intrusive to people and most people actually like to engage with your brand. The cost of inbound marketing is very less compared to outbound marketing and also the quality of leads is much better for the former. So here are some of the strategies that can be implemented for a successful inbound marketing campaign:

#Reach out on social media

Today over two billion people are using social media channels for various purposes. So this would be the best place to meet your current and prospective customers without having to shell out huge amounts of money. But the most important thing to do is not to go all out on all social channels at once. It does not work that way. Also managing your presence on various networks would be tough if you are just about venturing out in this space.

Choose one or two channels that you think are most frequented by your target audience and start developing content with the needs of this group in mind. Sooner than later people will find your content to be interesting and engaging. Thanks to the viral nature of social media it won’t be long before you will see people sharing and liking your content thus providing some free publicity in the process for your brand.

#Organic search is still crucial

Over 100 billion searches are made on the Google search engine alone every single month. A big portion of that are unique searches that have never been done before. So search engine optimization is more important than ever today. Searching on the web is one of the most popular activities that people do online and brands better take cognizance of that. If done the right way search engine optimization can deliver windfall profits.

Your content is still the most important parameter for getting ranked higher on search engines. The Google bots are today so smart that they can easily distinguish between content that is actually written for the human user and one that is meant to dupe the search engine algorithm. So write it like you would write for normal people who are going to visit your website. Make it rich in content, use multimedia features like images, video, slides, audio and graphics to your advantage to provide meaningful and highly engaging content to your end users.

#Good old email works wonders

Most people start their day by going through their email inbox and carefully reading what is important to them. Naysayers might have sounded the death knell for email in a world fast veering towards social media, long time ago. But one thing is for sure that email marketing is not going anywhere. Social media might be good for grabbing the attention of your target audience but there is nothing like connecting and engaging with your audience on a whole new level thanks to the personal and one-on-one nature of email marketing.

People still hold, immaculately drafted emails, in high regard. The email subject line has to be chosen very carefully and has to convey the intent of the email in as few words as possible. Solicit email IDs from your website users and only provide them with articles and content that will add value to their business. Email cannot be used to spam people with irrelevant and overly promotional content. When used responsibly email can be a great inbound marketing tool, unlike any.