Kulture Konnect Blog

Inbound marketing–a marketing strategy focused on providing valuable content and information to potential customers, drawing them to your business, rather than a marketing strategy advertising outwards–is an immensely effective marketing strategy.​​ That’s why it’s essential for all businesses, but especially small businesses, to utilize inbound marketing in their advertising campaigns. 

However, inbound marketing is not something you should just jump into. It requires careful research and insight in order to successfully resonate with your target audience and keep them continuously engaged with your brand. Keep reading to determine how to plan an inbound marketing strategy, and why it’s so crucial to spend time properly developing your strategies!

What is the flywheel in an inbound marketing strategy

The flywheel is a marketing model that self-sustains customer interaction in order to achieve more growth. Leads begin as strangers, who are then attracted to your business by either word-of-mouth or direct promotion. Once they’ve arrived, they engage with content and can convert into prospects. After enough engagement, the prospects can then convert into customers. 

But that’s not all.

In order to keep customers loyal to your brand and proud to partner with your business, you’ll need to constantly delight them with valuable content, useful products or services, and excellent customer service, among other factors. Once you get the flywheel moving, it should keep spinning, providing your company with dedicated customers and a high rate of conversion, from strangers to sales. 

The flywheel model breaks free from the traditional sales funnel marketing model and prioritizes continuous growth and engagement over a general purchase. The three stages of the buying process –attracting, engaging, and delighting– all work together to sustain marketing momentum and keep customers interacting with your business. 

In order to successfully switch over from a sales funnel model to a flywheel model, businesses should start by:

1. Plan your flywheel: Consider potential points of friction that might disengage customers. Identify the types of strategies, platforms, and content that you can use to entice customers to positively interact with your brand. Lastly, see if you can utilize any of your brand’s essential KPIs to the different stages of the flywheel.
2. Spread delight: Delight keeps customers happy and the flywheel spinning. Examine your business for ways to improve customer experiences, such as by providing more assistance during check-out or a 24/7 chatbot in addition to live support.  
3. Focus on the friction: Remove potential points of friction in order to truly make the most of the flywheel model. Create valuable content intended for the right buyer stage at the critical points of the buying journey. Determine ways to smooth the sales experience, such as by designating a single point of contact for clients or giving them a choice of paths to encourage engagement and dissuade them from opting out of purchase.

How does the flywheel work in an inbound marketing strategy?

As an essential aspect of an inbound marketing strategy, the flywheel model is an alternative to the more traditional sales funnel framework commonly used in marketing. While the sales funnel model focuses primarily on the outcome, the flywheel model used in inbound marketing strategies pays more attention to the customer experience.

By continuously attracting, engaging, and delighting viewers, marketing momentum is sustained and keeps generating leads and genuine interaction. By using a flywheel model instead of a simple sales funnel model to form your inbound marketing strategy, you can develop more effective marketing tactics that lead to more success for your company, especially by focusing on inbound content that provides value to prospective customers and draws them to your business.

Why is it important to have an inbound marketing strategy before implementation?

When it comes to effective inbound marketing, the most important factor that contributes to success is carefully researching what topics and content would resonate best with your target market. This requires deep thought and in-depth planning. Without careful preparation and a well-planned inbound marketing strategy, your flywheel won’t keep spinning on its own–in fact, customers might not even be attracted to your marketing in the first place! In order to truly benefit from inbound marketing and the flywheel framework, determining precisely what things attract, engage, and delight your potential clients is key!

Therefore, don’t implement your advertising campaign until every detail of your inbound marketing strategy has been researched and finalized.

Conclusion

Planning an inbound marketing strategy takes quite a bit of research and effort, but the rewards are more than worth it. Developing an inbound marketing strategy based on the flywheel framework, and utilizing the core values of attracting, engaging, and delighting customers, can lead to huge success for your business if done correctly. By planning your inbound marketing strategy ahead of time–rather than jumping right into advertising–you can easily build a self-sustaining marketing model that pays off big in the long run.

Now that you’ve learned everything you need to know about planning an inbound marketing strategy, keep your eye open for article to discover 5 inbound marketing tactics that are truly effective for businesses in every type of niche!

Get our Inbound Marketing Cheat Sheet and learn how to get your inbound marketing program started.