54% more leads are generated by inbound tactics than traditional paid marketing. (HubSpot)
Organic channels can be a major source of traffic for your business.
A good marketing strategy is one that relies on multiple sources of leads and new clients.
When I worked in the catalog industry we monitored where our new customers came from. New customers obviously came mostly from catalogs, but we had different sources of lists to send catalogs too.
That was important to monitor.
But sending a catalog to potential new customers was outbound marketing (unless someone inquired about getting a catalog).
With business today, there are multiple sources of new clients especially with online marketing.
And that’s what we’re talking about today with setting up multiple sources of organic inbound marketing channels to bring new customers to your business.
1. Website Content (Short & Long-Term)
The first most businesses take when it comes to online marketing is getting the website setup.
That’s a good first step.
However, often overlooked in the website setup is the content.
You’ve heard that content is king, yes?
It is, but most don’t treat it that way. When it comes to creating the content for the website people kind of focus on the design and mostly throw whatever content they can put together in 10 minutes and call it good.
Design is certainly important, but you’ll get the best results if you create the content before starting the design.
Don’t believe me?
Tell your designer that you have your content ready when they begin the site. They’ll kiss you and bow down at your feet in thanks.
Ok, maybe that’s not entirely true, but they’ll be happy. It will make their job easier. You can pare back on the content and make some tweaks, but starting with content is the way to go.
The best way to approach your website is to treat it like a salesperson.
Start by creating your sales process or sales funnel. Note each of the most common steps a customer takes from discovering you to becoming a paying customer.
Now take that path and map out the pages you need for your website.
Then create the content for each page.
The rule of thumb is to answer all the common questions your customers ask throughout the sales process. If they ask you in person they will be wondering while on your website.
Here is a quick breakdown:
Homepage: Who we are and what we can do for you
About Page: Our history, a few personal details, mission and vision, etc.
Services Page: Detailed description of what we can do for you
Contact Page: Contact us, we need this info from you…
Now setup a reminder to audit your website at least every six months. Tweak content as necessary and the same with design.
Your website is never “done”.
2. Ongoing, Fresh Website Content (Long-Term)
Next up on your website is the next item business owners usually check off on their inbound channel list: ongoing content.
It’s usually blogging and that’s a great way to build content and fresh content on your website.
However, you have to temper your expectations. With a new website or even an established website it will take time to build authority with a blog.
BUT, it can pay off in a big way if you stick with it.
The main reason is that with a blog you focus on the questions your target clients are asking in relation to your industry. If you do that over and over you’ll be seen as valuable and that is the ultimate form of SEO or whatever channel you bring in traffic as a result of blogging including social media, email and more.
The other reason is that most businesses will give up on blogging after a few months. That’s not enough time, but their loss is your gain.
You can also add in regular video, ebooks and other forms of content.
3. Guest Posting (Short & Long-Term)
Next up for building traffic to your site, often while you’re blogging on your own site, is guest posting. It’s a great way to find existing audiences. You provide the site and the audience with something valuable (answers to their questions and challenges) and in return you get some visitors to your site and even potential new leads and clients.
This is a good strategy to do in the short and in the long-term. You can aim to send out 3-5 outreach emails each month or even each week hoping that over time you get 1 guest post per month.
It does take effort to write posts and you won’t always hear back from every website you reach out to. That’s why I like to set a certain number of outreach emails because you can control that while having the goal of getting one guest post published per month once you’re rolling.
4. Content Partnerships (Short & Long-Term)
Next up on the list of new channels for bringing in new customers the organic ways is content partnerships. This would be like guest posting, but in this case you’re partnering with another business or marketer to build something that your shared audience will find valuable.
These often are webinars, guides, ebooks, white papers and things like that. It could even be an ongoing series of videos or podcast or something like that too.
There are a number of podcasts I’ve listened to in the past where two people with complementary businesses get together and provide insight and answers on audience questions. The two people bring their own knowledge and their own existing audiences if they have them and together they offer a great product and increase each of their own audiences.
It’s a way to team up and offer something more than what you could offer on your own.
And don’t be afraid to reach out to people that have a large, established audience. You might need to offer to do a little more of the work on a guide or whatever, but that will be worth it because the other person will be bringing the audience to the table.
5. Business Partnerships (Short & Long-Term)
Next up is business partnerships. So many business in general are built on partnerships. It’s finding a way that you and another business can put together what you offer and offer something great that neither of you could offer as one.
Or it’s you offering something that would make an established business’s product better. That’s like an add-on I guess, but it’s done all the time and can be very successful.
Again, it can be a short-term thing if you find the right partner right away, but make it part of your ongoing efforts to look for business partnership opportunities.
Conclusion
These are all organic channels and shouldn’t cost much in terms of buying advertising or interrupting your customers. It’s about inbound marketing and earning your customers’ attention by providing them with value and answers to the questions they have in relation to your industry.
If you want to build organic channels of new clients this is the way to do it.