Linda Handley

WHAT IS INBOUND MARKETING?

Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts the attention of prospects and new customers via strategic content creation and experiences that are tailored to their unique needs and buying journey. Many people wonder what the difference is between inbound marketing versus traditional marketing.

Inbound marketing is about forming connections, answering questions, and solving problems. Inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that pulls people IN to your business and brand. They are already searching for answers online, researching your industry, checking out your competitors, and trying to decide if they really need your service or product. So, the goal is to have content that speaks to all of these scenarios and stages of the buying process in order to capture these interested prospects where they naturally are online.

THE INBOUND MARKETING METHODOLOGY

ATTRACT: We want to attract the right strangers (your target persona) to your website and to your brand with quality, compelling content that answers the questions they have. We’ll use blogging, social media, keyword and SEO strategy, and even outbound advertising to do this. CONVERT: With optimized landing pages, forms, and compelling calls-to-action we’ll convert these visitors into qualified leads. Contact information is the most valuable currency there is to the online marketer so we’ll give them premium content in exchange for it. This includes eBooks, whitepapers, info graphics, and webinars, case studies, and tips sheets.

CLOSE: With the help of tools like lead scoring, closed-loop reporting, lead nurturing, and vast lead intelligence, paired with lead follow up best practices and sales tactics, you’ll then work to transform those leads into new business.

DELIGHT: This sometimes overlooked component of inbound marketing can be your secret weapon in ensuring referrals and renewals. Once someone becomes a customer, you don’t want to forget about them, and you’ll continue to publish and share content that helps them better use your product or services and delight them as a partner and thought leader.

ROI of a successful inbound marketing program:

Inbound marketing is unique in that it generally has less of an up-front cost than other marketing efforts, and it can have a seriously impressive Return on investment (ROI) when used correctly.

• Inbound marketing brings leads to you. Inbound marketing generates three times more leads per dollar than traditional methods (Content Marketing Institute).

• Inbound marketing is easy on your budget. Businesses that mainly rely on Hubspot Inbound Marketing save more than $14 for every newly acquired customer.

• Inbound marketing has a proven ROI. Forty-four percent of brands that use marketing automation software see ROI within six months, while 75% see ROI after one year (Groove Digital Marketing).  

Inbound Marketing Agency:

When it comes to inbound marketing, the more you invest, the greater your return. Creating killer content is about brains and commitment rather than budget. You can’t throw money at content and make it effective, you have to put your head and heart into it. Here’s how to get started:  

• Step 1: Define your business goals and buyer personas. Identify your target audience and learn all you can about them. You can’t write content to inform your customers until you know your audience.

• Step 2: Provide content at every stage. Preemptively answer the questions that your customers are likely to have at each stage of their buying journey. Determine your unique, compelling story. Why should your audience listen to you? The concept of what we call transformational inbound marketing goes beyond traditional inbound marketing techniques. Unlike traditional inbound, transformational inbound leverages valuable content to attract and retain customers throughout their entire lifecycle, not just before they are a customer, but after as well. Additionally, transformational inbound marketing puts a greater emphasis on personalization and relevance.  

• Step 3: Choose your delivery platforms. The more valuable the content you create for you audience, the more likely you are to win them as customers. Determine the best way to reach them, whether it’s through Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, your blog, or elsewhere.

• Step 4: Create and execute your content calendar. It is important to create a schedule that will consistently turn out fresh and relevant content to continue to engage your audience. By keeping a constant stream of content that addresses your customers’ questions, issues, and pain points, you’ll maintain relevance and build your brand as a trusted thought leader.

• Step 5: Analyze results and optimize your inbound marketing program. There’s a variety of metrics to choose from when measuring the success of your inbound marketing efforts. Whether you decide to analyze SEO rankings, inbound links, or the number of articles published, these resources will provide valuable insight into how your campaigns are performing. Set aside time for analysis on a weekly basis. This step will aid you in understanding how effective your inbound marketing efforts have been and how they can improve.

7 ELEMENTS OF AN EFFECTIVE INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGY  

1. Understand your audience

A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is considered to be more likely to convert into a customer compared to other leads. This qualification is based on an agreed definition and criteria, including the type of web pages someone has visited, what they’ve downloaded, and how they’ve engaged with the content. Because MQLs set a high benchmark, it’s crucial to target the right audience. Different people respond to content in different ways, so defining who we’re targeting will enable us to tailor our content plans accordingly.

2. Funnel analysis

The sales funnel is a model most marketers will be familiar with. We know that each stage corresponds with different need states, from initial exposure and discovery through to conversion and loyalty. However, every company is different and it’s therefore important to assess how the funnel works for your organization. How do prospects and customers engage with your brand and what does this mean for each stage of the funnel?

3. Content audit

A large part of developing an inbound strategy involves reviewing and auditing what you’re already doing. Only by knowing where you currently are can you plot a way forward. A content audit is a comprehensive review of how digital content is being used from a content marketing perspective to drive reach, engagement and interest. The main benefits include:

• Evaluate content quality and effectiveness

• Identify content gaps

• Improve user experience

• Enhance search engine optimization

• Enhance content efficiency

4. Campaign audit

While a content audit looks at how content is being used across different channels, a campaign audit looks more holistically at how campaigns have performed and what insights can be used to inform our inbound marketing strategy. An understanding of how previous campaigns have performed will provide you with insight into what content, creative and messaging works. Part of the inbound strategy process is about making decisions as to what should be considered for future campaigns in respect to your objectives and target audience.

5. Define your value proposition

Your value proposition should be a clear statement that describes the benefit of what you offer, how you solve your customers’ needs and what distinguishes you from the competition. Your value proposition should be unique and inform the messaging used as part of the inbound strategy across customer touch points, including website, search, social and email. To define your value proposition, take your campaign insights and evaluate these against the following:

• Points of Parity (POPs)

• Points of Difference (PODs)

• Points of Irrelevance (POIs)

6. Go To Market plan

Once you have defined your value proposition and what you want to communicate, the next step is to create a Go-To-Market plan that brings to life how you will communicate with target prospects and customers. There are two steps to this stage:

• The content calendar

• The promotional plan

7. Measurement framework

The final stage in the inbound strategy is to define your approach to measurement and analytics. It’s important to agree on this early on so you know in advance how you will measure activity, report on performance and gather insight to make optimizations. One recommended approach is to align measurement with the RACE model.

There you have it! Now you know all about inbound marketing.

What it comes down to is that you start taking the steps we outlined here above and consistently move towards your goal.

Next:

Why do you want to focus on inbound marketing?  Do you want to work with a Hubspot inbound marketing agency?

Let me know in the comments below!