You’re doing everything you should: posting on social media, keeping up with blogs, and utilizing SEO. Why is your inbound marketing strategy not leading your company to success? Well, it’s probably because there’s more to inbound marketing than regularly publishing relevant, quality content. Here’s what you should be including in your strategy to up your chances of inbound marketing success.
The very first step in any marketing campaign is to set a reachable goal. Know that inbound marketing tactics are there to HELP you reach that goal—but they won’t do all of the work for you. If you set too lofty of a goal, you can’t expect writing blogs for a month to make all of your wishes come true. Inbound marketing is an organic process that takes time, and your goal should be reflective of your company size and your product/service.
Finding leads can be easy, but finding quality leads is what will help you meet you meet your inbound goals. First, you need to establish your target market. This is a wide range of people that will potentially be interested in your products and services. From this target market, establish your company’s personas. The people who you would like to target most strongly with your marketing efforts because you feel they are most likely to purchase your products and services.
After recognizing you identify your personas, find where they are on the Internet. Explore social media, blogs, and different platforms online to create a list of your findings. Using keywords, go through Google and research them. Utilize Facebook, LinkedIn, and various blogs to come up with a list with links to these sites for reference. It is important to note that a solid persona research is vital for the success of your inbound marketing strategy.
At this point, you have a set goal and researched your personas. Now it’s time to unbury the problems those personas may have and establish how your product or service will help them solve it.
Revisit some website from your research and pay close attention to the discussion sections. Look for issues and complaints people have and write them all down. Knowing the concerns of consumers will help you establish a better relationship with them. You will also be able to clarify things beforehand to reassure your audience.
Using the information you’ve just collected, compile applicable blog and social content that will attract leads to your website. You can also gather potential ideas for webinars and e-books.
Part of any inbound strategy is consistency. If you’re blogging, you’re going to need to decide how many times a week you’d like to post. Establish a schedule of how frequently you will be posting and create blog content to fill it. It’s better to write content well in advance so you are not caught without content on a day you should be posting.
After you’ve created your content, create a promotional plan to get the most mileage possible out of it. Get ready to spend time perfecting your content with images, photos, and calls-to-action.
Reach out to your current leads by sending out emails with your article included in it. Another inbound trick is to contribute to forums, blogs, and social media collections with your own content for backing. Blog titles will speak to your target audience because you’ve planted your content in the right place.
Also, keep in mind the different audiences on different platforms, so vary your message to cater to them. For example, hashtag usage will be beneficial for Twitter when sharing your article, but maybe not so useful on Facebook.
You have just successfully built an inbound marketing strategy! How does it feel? (;
P.S. It all starts with knowing your personas - get your FREE persona workbook now to develop them for your business.