Why Outdoor Wilderness Programs Should Use Inbound Marketing
In the past, most outdoor wilderness programs focused their marketing efforts on traditional outbound strategies, including trade shows, telemarketing, print ads, and radio or television ads. But with the availability of technology, the focus has quickly shifted to inbound marketing strategies such as blogging, podcasts, webinars, search engine optimization, infographics, YouTube videos, and eBooks. The focus of inbound marketing is being discovered by customers, rather than going out to find them.
Inbound marketing helps draw prospects to your wilderness site, and gradually converting them into customers. Here are a few ways you can use inbound marketing for success.
1. Create Brand Awareness For Your Outdoor Wilderness Program
Outdoor wilderness sites can dramatically improve their brand awareness especially around the different programs you offer. You can tell success stories and highlight unique aspects of your trips that sets you apart from your competition. Potential clients are spending a lot of time researching options and comparing data points. Use videos, social media, and blog posts to start attracting those clients to your website.
Once you turn the money off for a pay per click campaign those leads stop filtering in.
2. Get More Leads With Less Money
Just like outbound marketing methods, inbound marketing requires some upfront investment. However, as your marketing resources grow, leads are pulled to the site over time compounding your growth. Unlike a paid-for-click (PPC) campaign where the leads go away once the money stops flowing, an inbound marketing plan will continue to organically attract users to the site over time.
3. Establish Credibility
Before people sign up to go on one of your trips, they want to be sure they are reserving a spot with a credible outfit. Inbound marketing offers outdoor wilderness programs a great opportunity to establish credibility with their customers.
For instance, if you are booking a month-long trip, you could create a series of blogs or videos that offer an overview of experiences that happen on a typical trip. In the process, you could answer common questions asked by families and prospects in the research phase. The more prospects see you as an authority in your industry, the higher your chance are of obtaining that business.
4. Target Qualified Customers
Inbound marketing is all about pulling in already interested customers. Unlike outbound marketing, you’re not throwing money at advertising that is marketed to everyone. Instead, you are using specific keywords, blogs, and social media posts to attract the perfect customer. When you create content that your customers are searching for, it makes it easier for them to find you. They’ll sign up for your newsletters since you’ve established yourself as a thought leader. You’ll also save money since these leads are more qualified than leads coming from TV ads or other traditional marketing strategies.
5. Enhance Organic Search
Getting people to your website organically is all about SEO. And how do you increase your SEO? Blogs, keywords, social media, videos. When people are searching for wilderness therapy companies, they might start by Googling, “What is Wilderness Therapy?” “How can Wilderness Therapy Help My Teenager?” When you create blogs addressing these questions, you’re able to get these prospects on your website…organically.
Inbound marketing is a new way to approach prospects. While leaving the comfort of traditional marketing is scary, inbound marketing will help you gain more qualified leads, nurture those leads at the right time, increase brand awareness, and so much more. Are you ready to dip your toes into inbound marketing? Check out our blog on how inbound marketing can help you attract the right clients.