In a world where everything is increasingly tailored to people’s needs, inbound marketing is crucial to getting your brand out there. However, as with everything in business, the right strategies constantly change (even when the fundamentals stay the same).

Today’s online environment is noisy and foggy. Identifying which digital marketing strategies will move the needle from so many viral trends is a real challenge:

• Is video marketing content as effective as they say?
• Should I use AI to help with a blog?
• What about social media?

These are the questions on your mind when thinking about the best way to approach an inbound marketing plan—so let’s address them!

Let’s dive into the top inbound marketing strategies for 2024 and onward, alongside some stats and insights, to give you a better sense of what these tools bring to the table.

Top inbound marketing strategies for 2024

When creating an inbound marketing plan, focus on content creation and distribution. While there’s a lot of advice available in those areas, we’ll concentrate on a few inbound strategies that remain consistently reliable (and promising) for 2024 and beyond.

1. Local SEO

How often have you searched stores or services near your location on Google Maps? More importantly, how often do you look beyond the first few business options at the top of the results?

Local SEO refers to an optimization strategy focused on getting your business to appear in the top three results on Google Maps when people search for solutions on the web. Optimizing your site for Local SEO is an ideal approach if you want to attract clients near your real-world locations.

Core strategies for local optimization include:

• Set up your business information in Google My Business, a free tool powered by Google specifically designed to ensure your business appears in Google Maps when people search for solutions you provide.
• Create a specific landing page on your website leading to your Google Maps address and targeting specific keywords related to your business.
• Including that landing page in your Google My Business profile.
• Asking clients or customers to post reviews of their experience on your Google Maps profile.

2. Video marketing

We’ve seen a rise in engagement with social media and video marketing implementations over the past couple of years. Video content has been a staple of inbound marketing for a while now—and for good reasons. 

Video marketing success relies on its effectiveness at engaging viewers on an emotional level and giving you ample opportunity to inform and convert while entertaining them.

It’s worth noting that producing video content is a big deal due to the substantial effort invested into the process. A one-minute video can take four to ten days to shoot and between 45 and 60 minutes to edit.

That said, video content drives traffic, boosts engagement and increases conversions, so adding targeted explainers, how-tos, and other educational videos to your website, YouTube Channel, and social media profiles is an effective way to get more leads with your inbound marketing strategy.

Check out these 25 best explainer video examples.

3. Artificial Intelligence

This year, marketers are also increasing their focus on Artificial Intelligence, which in terms of inbound marketing, can be used as a source of inspiration, to spur creativity, or to assist in content generation efforts.

AI can analyze large amounts of information, so you can use it to qualify leads and make data-based decisions that enhance your content based on users’ behavior and interests to boost conversions.

Tools like ChatGPT can help you research ideas and improve drafting for content creation—from blog posts to educational video scripts. 

However tempting it may be to copy and paste AI-generated text, remember that the tool is not always accurate and could give similar or even the exact text to other people introducing similar prompts!

Since the goal of content creation is to connect with your audience in a unique way by creating original content, it’s best to use AI apps as a research assistant and source of inspiration for content ideas.

4. Marketing automation

Carrying out an inbound marketing strategy requires performing a sometimes overwhelming amount of tasks: Searching for ideas, creating, editing, and distributing content, scheduling posts, answering emails and comments on social media, analyzing metrics, and drawing conclusions to adjust the marketing plan.

Marketing automation is a process to help optimize your marketing tasks and save precious time. Some popular marketing automation tools include:

• Create personalized email workflows to send highly targeted emails to different segments of your audience.
• Schedule social media posts in advance with social media automation tools to optimize your content creation and distribution process.
• Use chatbots to answer potential clients’ questions and personalize the experience on your website.
• Get performance reports in your email at regular intervals.

By automating and standardizing these processes, you’ll be able to provide a much more enjoyable user experience while using the bulk of your time and energy for content creation, networking, and other tasks to keep improving your business and expanding your brand.

5. Blogging

Even today, a blog can represent a dramatic increase in lead generation. Creating a blog section on your website and regularly publishing fresh content can help you:

• Increase conversion by adding Calls To Action (CTAs) to your blog posts to get people to join your email list, download a lead magnet, or buy a product or service.
• Improve SEO by creating content targeting relevant keywords that help drive more traffic to your website.
• Build brand authority by talking about niche topics from an expert point of view.

Overall, getting leads is increasingly challenging due to the noise and information overload reaching us from all fronts. The best way to reach your target audience is by connecting deeply with their most profound needs and wants.

Explore these successful inbound marketing trends for 2024 to start getting more leads and see how your audience responds.

Contributed to EO by Victor Blasco, an audiovisual designer, video marketing expert, and founder/CEO of the explainer video production company Yum Yum Videos. Besides running the business, he’s a lifelong student of Chinese philosophy and a passionate geek for all things sci-fi. He has also shared his expertise with EO on How To Leverage Video Content To Enhance Internal Communications and 5 key elements of effective whiteboard videos and How to use creative videos to transform email marketing from basic to bustling and Audience Research 101: The key to creating marketing videos that convert.

For more insights and inspiration from today’s leading entrepreneurs, check out EO on Inc. and more articles from the EO blog.