As a business, you can’t be all things to all people. With market segmentation, you can divide and conquer (so to speak) to own your specific share of the market. To do this, you divide the market into subsets of people with particular characteristics, interests, and needs in common. You can complete your segmentation by selecting your target market segment from these groups of people. If you’re considering an acting business, segmentation can help determine your target market size and whether your services will be desirable.

In prior posts, you've learned how inbound marketing practices can be highly effective when it comes to catching the eye of a desired visitor. It is essential to apply these methods to keep visitors, leads, or existing clients interested in learning more.  You must delight readers with fresh, relevant content to keep their attention. 

Does your lead need a little nudge to close the deal?  Deciding to commit business resources is a considerable step for many business owners, but some owners have an easier time than others.  If you’re having difficulty closing leads developed through inbound marketing methods, the following describes a few easy steps that can be taken to encourage them in the right direction. 

When nurturing relationships with website visitors, you must get beyond the initial attraction and impress audiences with content that keeps them interested.  The next step is to convert visitors into leads for business development by gathering their contact information.  Contact information is essential to continuing engagement.  The question is…“how will visitors voluntarily provide their contact information?"  The answer to this question is that you need to give them something in return in the form of content. Content can be in ebooks, whitepapers, or tip sheets – whatever information would interest the industries you serve and associated client profiles.  Once you master content, you will have as many leads as possible.

While the rules of attraction for the human species are not clearly understood, the rules of attraction in the game of inbound marketing are clear-cut.  The scientific rules have already emerged.  Inbound marketing works on a conscious level to motivate strangers to take action for reasons that are tucked inside your firm’s content. 

Think back to when your long-term client relationships began with a spark.  That spark is that initial message or action that caught their attention.  What is that spark? What caught your client’s eye?  It may not be just one thing; it may be a series of things that initially attracted your clients to your firm.  In an attempt to understand client attraction further, refer to the definition (source: dictionary.com) provided below:

Inbound marketing aims to create content people love. 

Traditional prospecting and go/no-go practices take time to analyze.  During the prospecting phase, knowing which messages are on target and which need to be included in the boat is difficult.  At the go/no-go phase, you cannot quantify a prospect's interest level. Inbound marketing methods make it possible to determine which messages resonate with your audience and also gauge the level of interest. This post aims to help you set the stages for your firm's inbound marketing funnel.

Mapping a process will provide vital insight.  As a consultant who applies new and exciting technologies to energize marketing activities, I like to work with client teams to develop process maps.  The way a team works, and its unique processes, drive each new technology initiative.  Without this understanding or discovering the process, it will negatively impact the rollout.