In today’s fast-paced, high-tech world of Internet marketing, there are many techniques from which you can choose that will benefit your business by increasing your reach, boosting your online presence and bolstering your sales. And while there is a large debate about which method is best, there is certainly no denying that attraction marketing has become one of the biggest and most successful online marketing strategies to date, by and large. But what makes this a little bit confusing is that attraction marketing in and of itself is a little confusing to define. That’s because so many people have different interpretations of attraction marketing, mostly because of its versatility.
Attraction marketing can be tailored to just about any business and business model you can think of, adapting its core values to help individuals and corporations attain their marketing goals. From multi-level marketing strategies (MLM) to inbound marketing campaigns, attraction marketing is defined so differently because it is used so differently. Still, there are a few basic tenets of attraction marketing that we can use to help define its essence, if not pin down its exactness.
The Many Faces of Attraction Marketing
To start off with, it should be noted that attraction marketing is not a new concept. Overall, the basis of attraction marketing is to reach new customers and leads through the demonstration of value through affiliates and spokesmen. Perhaps one of the most classic-and successful-examples of attraction marketing would be a company hiring a celebrity to endorse their product or service. To this day, this marketing strategy is still used, though mostly in print and television.
But with the integration of online marketing strategies, companies have refined their techniques and thus, redefined attraction marketing. While the message of value is still at the underlying core of the strategy, it is now done in a manner that is far more cost-effective, utilizing the viral capabilities of the internet instead. In a nutshell, the social aspect of the internet has taken the cost-and the celebrity-out of attraction marketing and replaced them with webpages and sales representatives.
Inbound Marketing versus Outbound Marketing-The New Attraction Marketing
Still, the ultimate goal of attracting leads to your business or website rather than going out and actively recruiting them is the main focus of modern day attraction marketing on the internet. For example, rather than cold-calling customers or sending out individual emails (or even email blasts), it has become far more prevalent to create content that attracts leads to your site. This can be accomplished in any number of ways.
For example, affiliate marketing is a great way to leverage the work of others to boost traffic to your site. Essentially, you provide your affiliate partners with personalized links to your site and when they drive traffic to your site that results in a conversion, you pay them a commission. The affiliate partners will then go create their own sites, content and social media pages which increase not only your perceived value, but also your reach. In a nutshell, your attraction rating is instantly extended by extension of your affiliate sites.
Overall, the point here is that your marketing dollar is going to be better served by inbound marketing than outbound marketing. Given that internet searches mainly bring in your targeted audience (thanks to search engine algorithms that promote relevancy over bulk traffic), it’s generally accepted that spending money on attraction marketing is going to spend your marketing dollar on your targeted audience, rather than say a print ad which would reach more people, but not necessarily more potential leads that are high-conversion customers.
Becoming a Thought Leader and Authority Figure in your Industry
Another method of attraction marketing is establishing yourself as an industry leader in your particular niche. Once again, there are many ways to go about this, but some of the most popular are blogging and social media sites. Both are equally effective when utilized correctly, but for some businesses, blogging fits better than social media-and vice versa-for establishing authority. In the end, it really comes down to tailoring your message across multiple mediums to get your brand across in the manner that you want it to.
With blogging, there are many goals, all of which are served simply by creating keyword-centric blogs that provide value, interesting and fresh viewpoints, and are consistently churned out. When this happens:
- You rank higher in search engine result pages (SERPs) thanks to increased keyword reach and fresh, relevant content. This means more incoming traffic and higher perceived value because of ranking position on the SERPs.
- Your content has a higher chance of going viral because of value and viewpoint, thus further increasing your reach and attraction fact.
With social media marketing, your attraction factor is spread through organic and paid reach, giving you a better chance to not only recruit potential customers, but also establish stronger bonds with your current ones. Social media is all about interaction and engagement, both of which serve to give you a chance to get your value-based message out there to your potential leads and current customers. This is integral to attraction marketing. Plus, when you engage your fans, followers, etc., you also show up on their friends and family’s social media sites, further increasing your reach. Because they are closely related to your target audience, there’s a good chance they are part of your target audience as well.
How to Get Started
As you can see, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact definition and usage of attraction marketing because it is so fluid and wide-ranging a concept. No matter what your business is, what your goal is or what your current online marketing strategy is, attraction marketing can fit right in, helping you to boost sales and achieve all of your current and future goals.