As technology shifts, inbound marketing pushes us all to conduct business humanly and helpfully. It’s a better way to market, sell, and serve your customers.  

Here are some examples of how you can also attract, engage, and delight customers to improve your overall content strategy.

Episode Transcript:

Jeff Lambert (00:01):

As technology shifts, inbound marketing pushes us all to conduct business humanly and helpfully. It's a better way to market, to sell, and to serve your customers. We're going to give you some examples of how you can successfully attract, engage and delight customers to improve your overall content strategy on today's show.

Jeff Lambert (00:22):

Hello everybody and welcome to Inbound Academy, brought to you by Rizen. My name, as always, is Jeff Lambert. So before we start our conversation for today's show, there's just a few things that I want to mention to our audience. I'm excited to share with you that our distribution base is growing so we just recently got on Google Podcasts which launched a few months ago. So if you have any friends that are Google fanatics and they use their podcasts through that platform, let them know about us so they can subscribe. Or if you decide to switch up your platform for listening to podcasts, you can follow us now on Google.

Jeff Lambert (00:57):

The other interesting status I was going through the other day for our podcast is we are growing in the United Kingdom, so top of the morning until all of our listeners joining us from that part of the world. We certainly are happy to have you. I don't know if it was all of our engaging discussion about Brexit or what Nichole, but-

Nichole Mena (01:16):

Okay. Why not.?

Jeff Lambert (01:19):

Yeah, we're happy for your listenership, so welcome to the show. That's where the podcast is going right now, so that's great. As I mentioned just previously, joining me in the virtual studio this morning is Nichole Mena who's the creative director at Rizen. Nichole, thanks for joining us.

Nichole Mena (01:36):

Thanks for having me. Hello everyone.

Jeff Lambert (01:39):

And we are going to discuss today about the Inbound Methodology and the idea of attracting and engaging and delighting your customers and how you can actually do that. You know, we talk about this methodology, this philosophy, we talk about it in general terms a lot but we don't talk about it in terms of concrete, what does that look like? So we're going to jump into that topic today. And Nichole, who has been doing this for quite a while, I think has some great examples that she can share. So, Nichole, we're starting off, let's lay out just the basics of what the Inbound Methodology is tied into inbound marketing and really going back to putting the customer first.

Jeff Lambert (02:19):

So I think as marketers we, a lot of times we forget to place ourselves in the audience's shoes and forget what they need and what they're looking for and how we can reach them where they're at. So can you talk about the type of environment the average customer experiences on a daily basis? What is it like for them on the other side of the keyboard?

Nichole Mena (02:40):

Of course. So really, our digitized economy, today's customers have the world's information at their fingertips, right? The everyday person has the power and the ability to make the decisions, without a sales person really. So they can do research on a company's reviews, stockholders, their credibility, and even their competition. Even with this power, the average person still has so many entities, companies trying to sell them things every minute of every single day. And it can really be overwhelming and really inflict that desire to just block everything out. I know I've felt that, and I'm sure you have, too.

Jeff Lambert (03:27):

Sure.

Nichole Mena (03:29):

So inbound is more of that customer friendly approach. Inbound marketing is all about attracting an audience by presenting them really with the useful, valuable information on their schedule. So it's organic, it's non-intrusive, and it's helpful, first and foremost. It's really designed for businesses to genuinely develop a relationship with the customer` and build trust in doing so.

Jeff Lambert (03:58):

Yeah. And I think as marketers, we have to remember that because we ourselves, when we punch out, we're on social media, we're on the internet and there's only so many popups and advertisements and phone calls and TV commercials that we can deal with before we're just skipping through and glossing over it because it's overload.

Nichole Mena (04:16):

It is overload and it gets so overwhelming. And I know sometimes I just want it to stop. So we really have to think about that when we're trying to market to our target audience.

Jeff Lambert (04:26):

Yeah. And as you mentioned, inbound marketing is trying to do it differently where they're saying let's be where the customer is going to be looking instead of just trying to shove it in their face essentially. And the Inbound Methodology, which is really one of the cornerstones of this philosophy, talks about you work with individuals through multiple stages. It's not just, "Hey, here's my product, buy it." There's a process to the stages they go through, what we need to do in order to be able to build a relationship with them. Can you talk a little bit about what these stages are, what they look like?

Nichole Mena (05:00):

Sure. So acquiring new customers is really similar to a romantic pursuit in some ways. You can think about that way. The inbound philosophy teaches the steps of attract, engage and delight. And you need to take your time and grow with them as the relationship grows.

Jeff Lambert (05:21):

That's a good point. Yeah, absolutely. You know, you can't jump right to the end, especially if you don't want to develop a quality relationship. You want customers to buy from you, but you want them to keep coming back. You want them to speak highly of your brand or your service with other people to grow your customer base. And just by being a high pressure used car salesman, that's not the best way to go, as you mentioned.

Nichole Mena (05:43):

No, definitely not.

Jeff Lambert (05:45):

So why don't we start off, you mentioned three stages. Attract, engage and delight. So why don't we start off with the attract stage. Let's go with some concrete examples. What does the attract stage look like as a marketer trying to attract a potential customer?

Nichole Mena (05:59):

Right, so this initial step in the process is to attract customers and followers. Inbound strategies that attract your audience are really rooted in content creation and development. It's crucial here that you position your business as valuable, first and foremost. And what is something your buyers need that you can provide to them? Right? So to start, you really needs to produce the content that speaks to their needs and publish that content on various channels. So some general examples are creating, let's say, a guide on how to solve the challenges and sharing it on social media or creating a blog post explaining why they need your product and how to use it. So that's just a general.

Jeff Lambert (06:53):

And I know we're jumping in a little bit deeper than what we're going to be talking about today, but you want to research the keywords that your audience is looking for. What are they typing into Google, and then building the content around what they need. Correct?

Nichole Mena (07:08):

Absolutely yes.

Jeff Lambert (07:09):

So give me a real life example, a hypothetical of the attract stage.

Nichole Mena (07:14):

Okay. So I think a really good one, especially during this time of this pandemic, let's say a small wedding planner, a planning agency launches a business blog during this COVID-19 pandemic and establishes themselves as a knowledgeable, steady voice for stressed out brides since many brides are navigating wedding cancellations, postponements, or resorting to last minute elopements, even. The agency can really position themselves as an authoritative information source for them.

Jeff Lambert (07:50):

So when these when these brides are searching online for how to be able to book any aspect of a wedding and do it during a time where they can't physically walk into a store, you're creating content that it's going to show up in their search results.

Nichole Mena (08:06):

That's exactly right. So you want to give them that valuable information that they're looking for as soon as they're searching for it.

Jeff Lambert (08:13):

Sure. Do you have another example? So we have a wedding planner that releases a guide, like you said, about how to arrange a wedding during the coronavirus pandemic. Do you have another example?

Nichole Mena (08:24):

Sure. Another example could be a large agency partners with social media influencers who are really well liked by their target audience and associating with something or somebody that appeals to a target audience. This always helps as well.

Jeff Lambert (08:42):

Sure. So I don't know why I'm going to this example because I don't follow her, but it would be like a Kylie Jenner selling makeup for a makeup company?

Nichole Mena (08:53):

Well yeah. Well now she has her own, so [crosstalk 00:08:55].

Jeff Lambert (08:55):

That's true.

Nichole Mena (08:57):

But that's how it started out for sure for her.

Jeff Lambert (09:00):

So there is value in just in speaking to people where they already are, like you said, they're already following these influencers, so companies are going to the influencers and saying, "Hey, promote my product or review it and be honest about it with your audience." And yeah, that's putting you in front of where they already are.

Nichole Mena (09:17):

Yes, yes, exactly.

Jeff Lambert (09:19):

Okay. So those are two really good examples of the attract stage. Let's talk about the engage state. So someone's interested in your product, they know who you are now. That's great. Where do you go from there?

Nichole Mena (09:29):

Okay, the hope with inbound marketing is that once you're able to attract that audience, you can inspire them to invest in you. Right? So once they've developed an interest in starting a relationship with you, you need to work to gain their trust. So let's give you a couple of examples here. One could be a celebrity launches a new hair brand for women with curly hair. The brand voices is really vibrant and bold and speaks to a need in the curly hair community that's been unmet for a long time. And so after attracting a customer, a subscriber, or a follower, they engage with them using newsletters, freebies and interacting with their comments online from time to time. This really connects with them, so that engagement is going to be super important.

Jeff Lambert (10:25):

So this is really the equivalent, going back to the wooing stage I guess you said, this is where you're really talking to them, you're getting to know each other. You both realize you exist and now you're trying to build a foundation.

Nichole Mena (10:39):

That's right. That's right. And that foundation is going to be so important moving forward, and it's really what's going to get them to share their experience with others as well.

Jeff Lambert (10:48):

Do you have any real life examples, companies that are doing this engage part really well?

Nichole Mena (10:52):

Yes. So there is a corporation, I'm sure many people know of Little Debbie, their little cakes. So they're really active on Twitter and Little Debbie is the personality. So her brand voice is that of a sassy but charming Southern belle. It's really nice. She responds to everyone who tweets at her. She's also incredibly humorous and quick-witted. So we have to remember that this is a personality engaging with the customer. Engagement is the underlying strategy here.

Jeff Lambert (11:30):

So I know I'm going to out myself a little bit here for my COVID-19 pound gain, but I got to say the oatmeal patties are my favorite from Little Debbie. Do you have a go-to that you like from them, Nichole?

Nichole Mena (11:42):

I can't say that I do, no.

Jeff Lambert (11:47):

The reason I know Little Debbie very well is they have their main factory right next to the college that I went to. So a lot of the college students, like my friends, they would work there and they had like... You know how they have outlet stores for... I can't think of the word. People that make clothes. Retailers, there you go.

Nichole Mena (12:06):

Yes, retailers.

Jeff Lambert (12:08):

They had outlet stores for Little Debbie products too and they'd sell these things-

Nichole Mena (12:11):

I just think I'm liking this

Jeff Lambert (12:13):

Super cheap, and smart. They put it right on the college campus so if you wanted some junk food you could get it for pretty cheap at the outlet stores. So we all got addicted to Little Debbie's during that time.

Nichole Mena (12:24):

I see. Was delicious.

Jeff Lambert (12:28):

It was great. I love them now. I really have to be careful how many of them I eat, that's for sure. But good point, Nichole. So engagement is important. Just really that conversation back and forth, opening them up to asking questions and learning more about your brand and really seeing I guess the soul of your company, which you should have, absolutely. So that moves us into what you mentioned as the delight stage. The final stage before you go back to the beginning of the cycle of the Inbound Methodology. Could you give us an overview of what the delight stage looks like?

Nichole Mena (13:03):

Yeah, so the delight stage is really to establish that genuine longterm relationship with your target audience. You have to show them that you value them, right? So you're intentionally and consistently gaining their loyalty. And satisfied customers are good for your company, but delighted customers are even better because those are the people that are going to share their experiences with others.

Jeff Lambert (13:31):

Sure. So remembering them past the sale, you were saying, right?

Nichole Mena (13:35):

Yes, that's exactly. So I can give you a couple of examples here, too. So a group of customers that you've made a big sale with but you haven't reached out to them or made contact with them maybe in over a month. So you send out an email checking on their satisfaction with their purchase along with maybe a link to a survey to encourage them to provide feedback. And this is really helpful because you make it seem like you truly care about their experience even after the sale and are working proactively to improve your own company with each satisfied customer response. So I think that's key.

Jeff Lambert (14:20):

And this is really such a simple thing to do, right? I mean it just takes kind of a mindset change that you realize that this person can be a repeat customer, that they can refer you to friends and family, that they serve a purpose outside of just giving you their money. I'm thinking like Google forums. I mean, you can create a survey right in there for free if you have a Google account. This shouldn't be a complicated thing, I guess is my point. Right?

Nichole Mena (14:44):

It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. And you could even schedule a calendar. Okay, so after a sale, maybe a week later send them a satisfaction survey to see how they're doing. And getting that feedback from them is going to be really important for your company to grow as well.

Jeff Lambert (15:02):

Yeah, and to our listeners, if you want to learn more about the Inbound Methodology and expanding on some of these examples we gave you, we have a lot of really good content on the Rizen's website on our blog that discusses the Inbound Methodology, discusses more examples of how to do this, tools that you can use. So I'll make sure to include a link to some of those things in the show notes. And, Nichole, thank you for coming by to discuss this. I think it was really good to just have some concrete examples like we were saying what each stage looks like and why it's not just a one-step process. It's a multistep process.

Nichole Mena (15:33):

That's right. Always a pleasure, Jeff. Thanks for having me again.

Jeff Lambert (15:37):

Yep, thanks for your time, Nichole. Well, friends, thank you so much for joining us for another episode, and remember, you can expect a new one every week and it's always going to be filled with advice that's going to help you grow your business. And remember, if you're looking for an experienced, friendly and results driven team that can help you, check out Rizen by going to gorizen.com. That's Rizen with a "z." You can also follow them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn by searching for the username "Rizeninbound." That's one word, Rizeninbound.

Jeff Lambert (16:12):

And remember, you can also help us if you're a current listener of the show by leaving a review on the podcast app that you are using. I mentioned at the beginning of the show that we're on Google Podcasts now. So if you're using that, please just take a minute, leave us four or five stars if you're enjoying what we do. If you can, leave us a little bit longer of a text review. Just by doing that, you're helping increase our show's visibility and getting in front of new people. And that's very helpful because we're doing this really to help people grow, and that's what we want to see ultimately. So overall, thank you for your support. Thank you for your continued listenership, and we will see you on the next episode.