5 Ways to be more Customer Centric

With 3 out of 4 marketers across the globe now prioritising an Inbound approach, across B2B, B2C and nonprofit, it’s clear that this is no longer a ‘nice idea’ but something which is actually achieving results.

Let’s recap if you’re unsure of what Inbound actually is. It essentially follows the practice of using relevant, engaging content to attract the right prospects to your site and nurturing them with a personalised approach in order to convert, close and eventually delight them as customers. The buyer’s journey has changed drastically in recent years, with 70% of the journey completed before they even reach out to you. The buyer is in control, and simply trying to shout the loudest in a sea of marketers online with PPC, social media posts and SEO won’t work. Regardless of company type, we are all ultimately speaking to humans who deserve a tailored approach to helping them solve their problems.

Here are five ways an Inbound Marketing approach can make your company more customer centric, and more successful in return.

1. More qualified leads.

The aim of any campaign is to get leads, but even better if they’re the right ones. By drawing visitors to your site with valuable content, which doesn’t just sell but also helps them and by nurturing them if they’re not quite ready to buy, when you pass to sales, these leads won’t just be warm they’ll be hot.

2. It keeps you on your toes.

Don’t fear failure, learn from it. Being open to change it will make it easier for you to be flexible with your communication to customers. A newsletter not getting as many click throughs as you’d like? Assess the format, timings and content, make changes and try again!

3. Evergreen content.

Quality content keeps attracting and converting long after a specific campaign has ended. Just because something is a past campaign, doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant to your prospects. The forms will continue to capture information and nurture sequences can keep you engaging with those leads, without needing to take your eye off the next project (other than to pass qualified leads to sales!)

4. More referrals.

It’s a bit of a no brainer that if you treat your customers well, personalise your communication and continue to delight them long after the sale closes, they are far more likely to recommend you to others. Good customer service needs to apply to all stages of the buyer journey and through automated nurture sequences you can keep that contact going without hounding them with unwanted emails.

5. Close the marketing and sales loop.

These two departments should be working together. To make sure you’re passing the right leads to sales, there needs to be an open line of communication. If another step is needed before they get passed over, it’s easy to implement that into a nurture sequence to make sure they’re fully qualified. The added bonus? If sales know that they get good leads from marketing, they will be sure to pick them up rather than rendering them useless before even looking at them.

To learn more about Inbound Marketing as it stands in 2015, take a look at the free report, ‘State of Inbound 2015’