Inbound marketing strategies do not need to totally replace your traditional marketing.  But a well-planned, expertly integrated inbound marketing campaign offers your business the chance to experience an impressive marketing ROI, more practical implementation of your marketing budget and the consistent generation of leads that provides your business with a steady flow of new customers and higher retention of existing customers.

Start with Quality Content

While people may not read as many "offline" books as they used to, consumers still read and they are definitely influenced by what they read on the Internet. Over a decade ago, website content existed solely as the means for attracting the attention of search engines. Spammy, boring and stuffed with senseless keywords, website content offered nothing to consumers except a hard pitch and bad grammar.

In a fascinating article published on the Custom Content Council website, survey results found that:

• 80 percent of consumers say they are aware of electronic or printed "custom" media, e.g., media created just for that company
• 70 percent surveyed say they would rather learn about a business through reading articles instead of being inundated by advertisements
• 75 percent said that well-written, interesting content influences their decision to buy a product or service because it enhances their perception and trust of the business offering the product

Getting Consumers to Share Your Content on Social Media

Nearly 90 percent of businesses plan to increase or maintain their inbound marketing budgets simply because inbound marketing campaign costs are lower than outbound marketing costs (Hubspot’s 20 Fresh Stats About the State of Inbound Marketing in 2012).

5 affordable (and painless) methods to incorporate social media into your inbound marketing campaign include:

1. Place social media icons on your website that open in a new window. You want to keep people on your website as long as possible, not send them off into cyberspace where sites are easily forgotten.

2. Establish comment features that work through Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Tumblr, etc.

3. Develop a strong landing page reinforced by a persuasive call to action that can be easily shared on social media sites

4. Customers who provide contact information have been positively impacted by your website. While you have their attention, add a thank you page after they have entered their information that requests they follow you (via a call to action statement).

5. Keep customers delighted and intrigued by what you are going to do next, specifically by offering deals, freebies, sales, free download, dynamic content. People love using social media because there is always something different happening on these sites. Your business will effortlessly convert consumers to customers if you consistently pique their curiosity by providing trending, energetic content.

Marketing Analytics, Not Web Analytics

HubSpot's Chief Marketing Officer Mike Volpe differentiates marketing analytics from web analytics by defining web analytics as

"measuring data incoming from your website, email, social media and offline events...marketing analytics are also usually people-centric, featuring the prospect, lead, or customer as the unit of focus, whereas web analytics usually regard the page view as the unit of focus in its reports."

Marketing analytic tools such as Google Analytics and Google URL Builder offer information about your website's bounce rates, the latest trends that are influencing consumer behavior, monitoring of results stemming from recent campaigns and whether your site's content is attractive to Google's search algorithm as well as consumers.

Transitioning to Inbound Marketing is an Exciting and Rewarding Experience

Although developing a good inbound marketing campaign may seem overwhelming, it simply optimizes techniques that you should have already been using to improve your company's ROI. Things like content and website SEO, landing page design, email and text marketing and publishing press releases should always be part of any website's strategy to reach, attract and retain as many customers as possible.

Transitioning to inbound marketing may take some time and research but it won't compromise your company's budget and it will give you the lucrative results you've been searching for but never received through outbound marketing techniques.