If you’re facing those perennial problems of tenacious competition, tidal waves of digital clutter and a limited budget to deal with it all, you might be asking yourself how 2025 is going to be any better.
But asking the question is the first step to solving the problem – and inbound marketing may be part of your answer.
Don’t believe it?
The marketing guys at Old Spice might beg to differ. In the 2000’s the company was in decline, with competitors Axe and Dove Men taking great bites out of their market share. The brand appeared dated and associated with an older, bygone generation.
But in 2010, Old Spice turned things around. Using fresh marketing strategies to revitalise its image, they leapfrogged the competition with their “Smell Like a Man, Man” campaign. The ads were funny, memorable and specifically targeted younger men. The commercial went viral, generating millions of views on YouTube and sparking significant media buzz. The campaign revitalised the brand’s image and redefined its relationship with a younger demographic.
And If Old Spice can do it, you can too…
So first things first, let’s understand what inbound marketing is.
Ok. So what is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is a way of attracting customers by creating unique content that helps solve their problems. If they have questions, your content has the answers. You don’t go to them, they come to you. No pushing products or services on customers. You simply make your business easy to find and give genuine value to customers; in return, they will come to you.
For example, a user is searching for “how to fix a tyre.” If a mechanic company has already posted a blog or video that explains how it’s done, they have outdone the competition. Because what they just gave is value upfront.
This gesture would tempt the user to click on the website, for more information and might call on them for their service.
There are three main ways of excelling at inbound marketing:
- Attracting customers to your business by giving content they search for.
- Engaging them with useful tools and resources.
- Delighting them so they become loyal customers who bring in more.
Now with the new year closing in, here are 15 inbound marketing strategies to boost your inbound game in the new year.
Get your writers together, ideate and develop high-quality, relevant, informative blog posts which bring online traffic, engage readers and position you as an authority on a topic.
If you’re selling skin care products, your writers could be posting about skincare routines, benefits of natural ingredients, skin care tips or even why J-Lo continues to look twenty-five in her fifties.
Publishing regularly will place you among the companies that are significantly more likely to achieve a positive ROI. Maintaining your blogs consistency and quality will boost its SEO rankings. Speaking of which…
Everyone is Googling for answers, so the aim should be to organically appear in the first two pages of Google. Targeting relevant long as well as short-tail keywords is your first step to doing this. You can also optimise on-page elements including meta tags, headings and images while building backlinks.
An example of this is a burger joint optimising its website by using keywords such as ‘best burgers in Midtown Manhattan.’
Currently, 70% of marketers list improving SEO as their top inbound marketing priority. Better join that club.
Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or X, each of these platforms connect you with your target audience. You can post updates, respond to comments, run polls, even host live sessions. Humanising your brand builds customer loyalty, so don’t shy away from showing behind-the-scenes footage, new collections and customer feedback.
If anyone tells you social media is dying, show them that it is used by 91% of marketing companies. Harness that power to reach new audiences.
Add value by giving away gated, downloadable content to your site visitors. This could include e-books, checklists, whitepapers or templates; all content that everyone would benefit from, whilst giving you valuable leads that you could then nurture through your pipeline.
Let’s say you have a culinary business and you wrote an E-book called ‘The Best 25 Dishes for the Holidays.’ You could offer this to your target audience, in exchange for their emails. This way, you’ll be generating warm leads as well as adding credibility to your brand.
A lot in inbound marketing revolves around developing and nurturing relationships with your customers. That can be done by personalising communication, and what better way than email. Start by developing customer personas that help you identify themes relevant to each or groups of personas. Use tools such as MailChimp to develop newsletters with content that is relevant to these persona and send these periodically, with consent or opt-out functionality.
You are great at what you do. Show people that by giving a few lessons.
By being forthcoming with your expertise, you’ve automatically established your credibility, lowered the audiences guard, given them genuine value and most importantly made a connection with a customer. Seeing or hearing you, makes them feel invested because it’s not just a brand on the other side, but rather a person.
Whether long form or short, video content grabs attention like static content never can. Use the medium for tutorials, demonstrations, customer testimonials or just some light hearted banter for social media consumption.
Video has the unique advantage of pushing your message in an entertaining and informative manner, on-demand. Depending on your area of work, “How-to” videos could be a good start. You could even share those on social media platforms such as YouTube and TikTok.
People want easy to digest content. Intersperse your written content with design elements. Imagine reading a blog post that’s two thousand words of back to back text versus the same text nicely broken up with supporting visuals, illustration or maybe even a gif or two. Much easier on the eyes, reduced fatigue and greater engagement – all wins.
Whether you agree or disagree with Joe Rogan, you can’t deny his influence and reach. He isn’t alone, so many podcasters are dominating the content market. Currently 51% of the U.S. population has listened to a podcast, indicating a growing audience for this medium.
Develop podcasts to give insights about your industry, interview experts and connect with listeners. People are on a tight schedule on a daily basis. A podcast is an effective tool that gives value, grabs attention and keeps you top of mind.
Most business’ websites only talk about the business; about who they are, what they do et cetera.
Adding in engaging interactive elements sets you apart and makes visitors spend more time on the site and most likely leave their details. For example if you are a mortgage consultant, you could put up an automated mortgage calculator on the website, which people could use in exchange for leaving their email address. Similarly a nutritionist could put up a calorie counter widget. Interactive content such as this proves to be a great lead magnet and constantly keeps topping up your sales pipeline.
Nothing quite comes close to the power of referrals when it comes to generating new business. Folks trust other people they know or recognise and have a higher likelihood of making a purchase decision based on their testimonial or referral. In fact, 92% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase decision. Reach out to old customers and seek testimonials or referrals.
Landing pages are focused, standalone web pages with a single defined objective and call to action. Think Christmas sale promotion, discounted pre-order opportunities or even that mortgage calculator we mentioned earlier.
Make sure that your campaigns have a set landing page, which is optimised with compelling headlines, CTAs and minimal distractions to increase conversions. If you have several landing pages set up, your leads go up significantly.
Automated workflows assist leads through the buyer’s journey, by delivering target content at the right time. Suppose a new lead downloaded one of your videos. You can add that lead to an email chain that sends him or her more videos sharing information about your products, testimonials and even discounts. This keeps the lead engaged and you top of mind till they decide to purchase.
Case studies are a great way to show your capability while setting expectations. People would love to see the results you’ve managed to achieve for others similar to them and that offers them confidence in your ability to deliver similarly for them.
You can take content and use it in alternative areas. This allows it to reach its fullest potential and reach. Suppose you record a webinar. Instead of giving the full length version, you cut and edit it down into shorter clips for social media, blog posts and email campaigns.
As we step into 2025, these 15 inbound marketing strategies could offer you a roadmap to success. By focusing on high-quality content, SEO optimization, and building strong relationships with your audience, you can attract, engage, and convert more customers. Remember, consistency is key. By implementing these strategies yourself or partnering with us to help you implement them, you’ll position your business for long-term growth.
