There are so many questions when it comes to Marketing. Do I need it? Why would I need it? Will I get a ROI? How do I know if it’s the right decision for me? Well you’re not alone. Most companies struggle with what type of marketing will work the best for their company.

The most common type of marketing is often called Inbound Marketing. Inbound marketing is an approach focused on attracting customers through content and interactions that are relevant and helpful — not interruptive. With inbound marketing, potential customers find you through channels like blogs, search engines, and social media. Nearly 85% of marketing and communications professionals worldwide are expected to launch at least one type of marketing campaign in the next 12 months and over 80% of marketers who had launched marketing campaigns involving social media influencers found them to be effective for driving both engagement and awareness.

Unlike outbound marketing, inbound marketing does not need to fight for a potential customer’s attention. By creating content designed to address the problems and needs of your ideal customers, inbound marketing attracts compatible prospects and builds trust and credibility for your business.

Want to know if you are ready for Inbound Marketing? Lets look at a few different situations that might arise in your business:

Situation 1: You are launching a new product or service. Using Inbound Marketing you can target specific people that would be interested in and actually use your product. The worst thing you could do is waste resources advertising your product or company to people that would never use your products or be interested in any type of service you offer.

Situation 2: Your advertising is not providing the return you need. If you aren’t getting the return on your investments with advertising, then you aren’t doing it right. Inbound Marketing helps you to target a specific type of customer that guarantees a return.

Situation 3: You don’t know why you are losing customers. If you are losing customers and you’re not sure why, marketing can help to figure that out. A quick Voice of Customer (VoC) email survey will get you the answers you need to start making any corrections necessary. This will provide you with objective data directly from your customers so you can start making changes and stop losing customers.

Situation 4: Your competitors are doing it. It is almost a guarantee that your competitors are using some form of marketing, so you should be too. Companies who apply marketing in their business plan create a competitive edge in their market. In most cases you can bet that whoever knows the customer best, wins. But they also know who to market to, how to market to them, and when to market to them.

Situation 5: Your content marketing has gone stale. Sometimes you need to revamp your marketing strategy to get people noticing you again. Changing things up and staying current with the time and trends is a perfect way to keep your client base coming back for more time and time again.

Sign 6: You haven’t invested heavily in digital/social media. With the continued growth of mobile usage, e-commerce, and shoppers’ embracing of technology to make purchase decisions, it’s critical for brands to have a mobile and social strategy in place.

Sign 7: You’re not driving enough sales during key selling periods. By publishing the right content in the right place at the right time, your marketing becomes relevant and helpful to your customers, not interruptive.

If any of these situations are happening in your business, then it would be wise to invest in a form of marketing that can help drive customers to you and build your customer base.

Written by Kim Ganir