Inbound marketing — using creative content designed specifically for your business to attract online leads and customers — has surged in popularity as a proven method for driving sales traffic in recent years. However, many decision-makers are still lagging behind when it comes to full management buy-in of the process. There are plenty of studies proving the ROI when it comes to investing your marketing dollars in Inbound marketing.
Here is one of our favorites, from the Content Marketing Institute
If you are in the middle of championing an inbound marketing initiative, here are a few points that may make your job easier.
Inbound Marketing is Effective
Look at the chart below from Ascend2 for a moment or two.
[line] There is no question that the components of a comprehensive inbound marketing program combine the most effective marketing tactics available to digital marketers.
There is also no question that these same tactics — with the exception of email campaigns – rank high on the “difficult to implement” scale.
Why?
- Content marketing requires, quite obviously, a steady stream of high-quality and relevant content.
- Deciding to produce that content requires an ongoing commitment from your department. Content creation takes time.
- You need a broad understanding of inbound marketing to build an effective editorial calendar that solves problems for your target audience.
- The company website can not be a static, set-it and forget-it project. The website needs to become a source of updated information.
- Your blog must be top priority in your inbound marketing efforts.
- All the components of the inbound marketing campaign need to be tied together in a cohesive approach that showcases your brand archetype and company initiatives.
- Your email marketing must drive traffic back to your website, blog and lead generation funnel.
- Social media must be targeted according to your buyer personas. Focus on the channels where your customer demographic spends their time. To do this, you may need some buyer persona research and development.
Inbound Marketing is difficult to implement…now what?
Don’t forget the “most effective” component of the chart above. Inbound marketing, done right, is easily the most effective method of positioning your company as an industry thought leader. You just need to approach your inbound marketing strategically. There is a methodology involved, and when implemented, the process yields results.
- Educate yourself. Read everything you can from trusted sources such as HubSpot, CopyBlogger or Content Marketing Institute. Read enough to at least get a solid understanding of terms, topics, opportunities and challenges.
- Appoint an inbound marketing point person. This person will be responsible for the final implementation and editorial control of the marketing program.
- Involve the entire staff. The most effective inbound marketing programs take advantage of the breadth of experience from across the company. Get as many staff as possible writing blogs — or at least giving you detailed bullet points for you to write up.
- Ask your sales staff for a list of the most common questions they are asked during their day-to-day conversations with prospects. These questions can now become the subjects and titles for your blog posts.
- Use an inbound marketing agency if you don’t have the personnel with excess capacity or qualifications to move your inbound marketing campaign forward with excellence, or if you want to accelerate the speed of your lead generation.
- Set reasonable expectations for your boss or upper level management. The inbound marketing methodology will require months to return the top-of-funnel numbers you require for lead generation.
- Above all, be consistent in posting new content for both your human searchers and your Google SEO. Consistent blog posting 2-3 times a week yields results over time.
