Rule Marketing Like Genghis Khan With Inbound Marketing
The moment we talk on the lines of 'Ruling the World', you begin to have almost everyone’s attention there for a second. Who wouldn’t be interested in ruling the world, right?
So, here's a topic that you would relate to the most (as told by most of the Inbound experts around the world). Ever heard of Genghis Khan? One of the world’s greatest ruler from Mongolia ruled the greatest land mass on earth from the period of 1176-1227. He wasn’t special, wasn’t born with superhero skills (just like our team) but his conquests began with the most basic and fundamental elements - uniting the fronts, and that helped him rule the world. Who would have thought about that?
Just like who would have thought about outbound marketing slowly dying one day and inbound marketing rising like a phoenix (just not from the ashes). Even though people still use outbound marketing and some even experience success with it, Inbound marketing is quickly becoming the holy grail of almost every business.
Changing Buyer’s Journey and Inbound Marketing - Attract Them Now
It is because of the digital space that consumers can look for information wherever they like. They have full control over how they choose to communicate with the brands and they like to keep it that way. They are simply more informed than they ever were and they feel more empowered. For ex, how did you get attracted to this blog post? Sure, it wasn’t the Mongols! You were probably looking for information on Inbound marketing, lead generation, content marketing, and the like. And so, you must have searched on google by typing a keyword or browsed social media. Wait till you know that these are all actually inbound marketing tactics. They attract you. They attract consumers. They attract everyone when they do a relevant search.
Learn how to build customer focus with personas and buyer’s journey
Beyond Finding Customers and Them Being Found
Any business’s goal starts with this and every customer’s goal ends with this. But seriously, what is anyone trying to accomplish here? The right content and social media marketing are helping you connect with the customers and your ‘human’ approach is making them stay with your brand. By generating quality content and using social media tactics, you are helping them find the information they are looking for and thereby, eventually converting them. When your marketing efforts become customer-centric and data-driven and you start converting with relevant content, that’s when you have won the war (Well, not the Mongolian one!).
No heads rolling in the battle but you’d be surprised by how Genghis Khan’s strategies could actually be pretty useful in conquering the online marketing activities today. How? Read on.
Coordinated Attacks
His army had a pretty good command structure, which was also quite dynamic and flexible with a good sense of instinct. They were delegated streamlined responsibilities and the soldiers were trained to look after their weapons, horses and other useful equipment on their own.
The lesson
Your marketing activities will only bear fruits if run by a cohesive team, meaning the ones who are willing to take responsibility for their actions, work, schedule, and can own the projects end-to-end. Just like the soldiers were aware of each other’s weaknesses and strengths, your team members need to acquire the same sort of understanding. Since Inbound has a lot to do with content, social media, SEO, email campaigns, etc; it would make sense to start forming a coordinated unit of soldiers who would take on the tasks head-on and display consistent and focused attacks with the right content.
A Great Communication System
Horses and speed somehow just go together, don’t they? The Mongols had got it right and they trained their soldiers to be swift riders who would deliver across the chain of relay systems before their king missed out on anything important that might harm his empire. Can you imagine an empire-wide communication system?
The lesson
It goes without saying that communication is one of the most important aspects of any marketing activity - inbound or outbound. Since the complexity of everything online is only getting stronger each day, it would be pretty easy to be swallowed by the great web. But not if you can stop it! Customers who are loyal to you, or are new, need just one thing, apart from great products - great services. They need personal attention to their queries and a swift resolution. Sure, you cannot really gallop but you can give them timely information if you want to keep them for good. This is where inbound marketing plays a great part. The key is to keep them informed and engaged.
The Great Walls (not of China)
The Mongol army had to break down the walls of cities and at a lot of times, quite unexpectedly. In fact, many times their traditional and usual tactics didn’t work and they had to devise new methods to win the battle. They used large siege weapons, which proved to be so effective that even the highly protective cities were in pebbles soon enough.
The lesson
When it comes to inbound marketing, where you have fairly planned and laid out activities, something unexpected might come up and you might need to change the course of your actions. Unfortunately, you can’t use the Chinese inspired siege weapons, but the art of adapting to changing situations would just do the trick. Don’t break the walls if something doesn’t go as planned and make peace with success or failure without getting personal with a campaign. Accept the outcome, detach yourself from it and move forward.
So, Can You Rule in 2020 With Inbound Marketing?
The idea of effective inbound marketing is pretty simple - good content brings traction and a part of that surely converts into leads. At the core of inbound marketing, there is content marketing and it’s only a matter of time that all walls of outbound marketing turn into pebbles. From becoming a way to translate your products, content has become the most important part of a business today. It has become more user-friendly and customer-centric. And just like content marketing, social media marketing is just another flap in the umbrella of inbound marketing - a combination of which could be used effectively to device some great inbound strategies. So, the answer is yes!
Quick Refresher
It’s been some time since organisations have started accepting the idea of inbound marketing resolving their biggest lead generation problem and it is definitely here to stay! Be it today or 2020, the battle has already begun and we are all perpetual participants. The good news is, you don’t need to be violent and bloodthirsty at all to learn from the Mongols. All you need to do is show dedication to your vision, even if it keeps changing from time to time, have well-coordinated soldiers, well-connected units, and the right weapons.
