The marketing landscape has changed. Here are some ways to master the modern world of introverted marketing.
When we think of introversion, we often think of shyness, but that’s not what the word means. Introversion is merely looking inward instead of outward. Introverted people tend to spend a lot of time wrapped up in their own thoughts, drawing people to themselves more often than they seek people out.
The same concept applies to inbound, or introverted, marketing. Introverted marketing uses content that engages customers rather than delivering authoritative, intrusive messages through traditional marketing methods. So instead of billboards, television commercials, and magazine ads, introverted marketing uses blogs, social media posts, white papers, infographics, and other means of drawing customers to them through engagement. They attract, rather than approach.
Meaningful content
But introverted marketing isn’t that simple. To be effective, it has to be intriguing, informative, and timeless, among other things. In other words, the content must be meaningful to your customers.
In a world of accessible media, like blog posts and social media outlets, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that meaningful content can be created and distributed for free. Here’s where the adage, “you get what you pay for” rears it’s ugly head. If you want content that’s going to engage your customers, you have to invest in it.
Investing in your content
Just as you invest in the people who create and distribute your product, so also should you invest in the content used to draw in new customers. The good news is that introverted marketing costs roughly a third of traditional marketing, which means you’re already saving money by changing your marketing tactics.
For example, let’s say you sell an advertising analytics SaaS, and you decide to start a company blog to attract would-be customers. If you do it right, you’ll spend money on SEO as well as talented writers who understand your field. You’ll also spend on the layout of the blog and the content calendar that you’ll use to update the blog.
These costs can add up. But let’s say you spend $2,500 on your content creation and marketing every month, and your SaaS product costs a subscriber $100 per month. That means you only need to acquire 25 customers one time, not per month, to meet the cost of creating content every content. All additional customers turn into profit, and those 25 subscribers pay for your monthly content creation costs every month.
Sustainable content
What’s more is that with introverted marketing, the content lasts longer. You could take that same $2,500 and spend it on booths at conferences or direct mail, but when the conference is over, and you send that letter, the content is gone. A blog post properly optimized for search will show up again and again. You can also repost evergreen content after six months or a year has passed, as long as the information is still relevant, which it probably will be for at least a couple of years.
You can distribute your content in multiple places. If you have a blog you want customers to visit, create a company Facebook page, a Twitter account, an Instagram account, or even a Snapchat account and promote your blog content through there. Each platform has different capabilities for linking to blog content, but you’ll be sure to reach significantly more eyes than you would with a single conference booth installation. (And the social media posting is free.)
Blogging is best
According to HubSpot, over 90 percent of companies that blog daily reported acquiring customers through blogging. Our own internal stats show that with an evergreen content schedule of at least 2x per week, your blog can become your #1 source of new leads within a year (as it has for many of our clients—even those with large sales teams!) Equally staggering statistics exist on lead generation, customer acquisition, and usefulness of blogs for business.
Blogging has even launched some businesses into relevance. River Pools and Spas reported just 20% organic website traffic before blogging. Eighteen months (and many sales) after they began blogging, they found themselves consistently on the first page of Google search results with the majority of their traffic from organic search. Yes, that last part has to do with SEO more than blogging, but without the blog, there would have been little content to optimize.
Steps towards mastery
Mastering introverted marketing takes a lot of work, but in the end, it pays off. Here are five things you can do to get started turning your company blog into a profound sales tool:
1. Create buyer personas. These are the different types of people who will read your blog.
2. Create a keyword universe by researching which keywords these personas will be looking for on any given topic.
3. Create an editorial calendar for the next 6-12 months and identify which persona each post is written for. You should aim for at least 2-3 posts per week.
4. Come up with a list of calls to action to put at the bottom of your post. Are you offering a free trial of something? This is the place to say so. Giving away a how-to guide or a white paper? End your post with the link.
5. Hire an editor or agency to stay on top of your introverted marketing full-time. Your readers will be glad you did (and we bet you will be, too).
Introverted marketing is still evolving, but follow the advice of this article and you’ll be well on your way down the road to mastery.
