A common question we get about how inbound marketing works is how it works with marketing a service business.
It makes sense that this question would come up, as some service businesses tend to be a little less internet savvy as other industries, but that doesn't make online marketing work any less for them.
Does inbound marketing work with service businesses? Absolutely!
In fact many B2B and B2C service businesses have active Hubspot accounts, because they understand the importance of content marketing, persona targeting and sales funnels.
What are some of the real benefits these companies see?
Sharing Your Expertise- When you sell a service, you have to also sell the fact that you know enough about the industry to be able to support the fact that you know what you are doing. Inbound marketing helps this because you quickly fill your website with articles and blog posts that support your expertise.
Each piece shows the visitor you know what you are talking about, and can answer their questions with the right answers and the confidence.
Easily Accessible Frequently Asked Questions- Selling a service guarantees someone will have questions to ask. What better way than your website to give them the answer. Not only can they easily access a frequently asked questions page, but it will cut down the time you focus on customer service to answer these questions individually.
You’ll also be able to easily pull up links to answers to questions as you search on Facebook and Twitter who are looking for your kind of help. Instead of typing things out over and over, you can grab a link or copy the text from your FAQs and move on. This is a big time saver.
Local SEO- Many services are still geographically focused. If your service is specifically for 
your local area, inbound marketing is a great way to reach out to people in your local area online.
First, as you are local, you’ll use your city and area names in your articles, then search engines like Google will pick them up to be used in searches for your area.
This helps Google match your articles to the searches people around you make when they are looking for someone close to provide the service you do. This is a very effective model to connecting with those people.
Market Research- As you build a following through email and social media, you’ll have access to people who can help your business grow. When you want to discuss a new service or product, reach out to these people to get their opinions.
Writing the content you do for inbound marketing really adds to this because it brings in new followers you can access later. Now you don’t have to worry about spending thousands on market research and product development, you can garner real interest before ever spending a dime, thanks to Facebook, Twitter and email marketing.
Recognition- A nice benefit to being active in inbound marketing is how your company is perceived by industry players. The more you provide content, the more visitors to your website, and the more people hear of your name in correlation to the industry.
By being active you can show the big names in your industry that you are a serious player, and as they hear more about you, they’ll visit your website to learn more about you. You’ll be able to develop relationships that can lead to later business relationships, you might have missed otherwise.
Inbound marketing helps companies like service providers and software solutions save time and money on leads and conversions. We love helping companies like your own use inbound marketing to save money, get more sales and enjoy more of their everyday lives. If we can help you, please contact us today.
photo credit: chefranden via photopin cc
photo credit: williamcho via photopin cc
