9 Key Components of a Successful Inbound Marketing Strategy
When it comes to building a successful inbound marketing strategy in 2020, there are a number of different components that you need in order to get it right. With that being said, below, we are going to take a look at the nine ingredients you need to blend together to make your inbound marketing strategy a success.
SEO
If you are trying to reach a target audience, one of your most important priorities is to rank high up on the search engine results for potential clients entering your key terms. This means that you need to have a really good understanding of the SEO results and make sure that your website ticks every box.
But SEO isn’t as easy as you might think: if you cram too many key phrases into your website, the search engines will dismiss it as spam. At the opposite end of the spectrum, if it doesn’t have enough relevant terms, it won’t rank very high. Getting a delicate balance is essential, plus there are many other factors that increasingly sophisticated search engines can check for.
It’s, therefore, a good idea to use professional services to squeeze out your full potential; SEO isn’t simply a matter of scattering some important words throughout an article. Look for an SEO expert that can provide extra value services such as feedback on your competitors’ SEO performance and also what your target clients are searching for.
Another important part of SEO that needs to be touched upon is link building. Link building is all about building website authority. After all, when someone links to your website, it is like giving your website a big thumbs up in the eye of the search engines. However, this is only going to be the case if the links are of high quality and are relevant to your site.
Social
Using social media platforms for personal, professional and business use has become ubiquitous. Today no business can survive on the web and engage customers without having a presence on social media. Having profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Linkedin, just to name a few, can be a full time job. This is where social media management tools can help.
Social media makes it easier for business and consumers listen to, interact, engage and collaborate with each other. It is however time and labour intensive.
Social media software can help streamline and consolidate how your business interacts with consumers. Social media managers run both out and inbound social media from creating the messages through to responding to and interacting with customers in an effective manner.
Conversations on social media, forums, web communities and blogs can be time consuming and it requires a dedicated specialist and/or platform. It is also very important to monitor, curate and manage what customers say about your business and how they say it. To become an industry leader and expert it is vital to be part of online conversations about your brand, industry and area of expertise.
Business social media profiles need to be authentic, credible and relate expert advice.
Ads
There are quite a few names for paid search marketing; search engine marketing (SEM) and pay-per-click (PPC) are just a few guises. What do these all mean? Paid search marketing means advertising in the sponsored results part of a search results page. Top digital agencies can help you navigate the complex world of paid search marketing.
Those adverts listed in the sponsored search results are paid for. This works in two ways, you pay the partner site or search engine for your advert either each time the advert is clicked on, often called pay-per-click or PPC. Or the less common cost-per-impression or CPM.
CPM is charged only when your advert is displayed. When you search for something, the paid search results are those which appear in the ad box at the top and in the right-hand side bar. This is the same in the two main search engines, Google and Bing.
For PPC, you pay only when someone clicks on your advert, with CPM you (usually) pay per 1000 impressions.
So, why should you think about adding paid search to your marketing strategy? The biggest win here is getting your business at the top of search engine results pages. Whilst organic results can disappear further down the page, paid results will always feature in the same area and stand a good chance of getting consumers to click through to your site.
Very simply, PPC is the fastest way to get to the top in search results. If you work with digital agencies, it is quick and easy for them to set it up and you should start seeing increased traffic to your website very quickly.
Content
They say content is king, and this is definitely the case! However, you need to make sure that the content you provide is interesting, engaging, and original. You also need to make sure that it is relevant for the buyer stage in question. There are many different ways that content can be delivered, from list posts to infographics, so think about what is going to be most appropriate for the message you are trying to deliver.
Lead capture
A critical part of the process is making sure you have the right tools and information available for potential customers before they are ready to make a purchase. This is where content such as downloads, guides, webinars, and ebooks should be offered and gated so that a user’s information is captured. This is so you can use them to send relevant and timely information that is going to help nurture them into consumers.
Conversational marketing
Conversational marketing is another new buzzword in town! This is a term that is used to describe the use of real-time, targeted messaging and intelligent chatbots, instead of the use of lead capture forms. The purpose of this is making sure that leads do not have to wait around for follow-ups. Instead, they are going to be able to engage with your business when it is convenient for them.
Email and automation
A lot of people assume that email marketing has had its day. However, this is definitely not the case! The trouble is that a lot of people are failing to use email marketing and automation in the manner that it should be. If your emails come across as spam, they are going to go straight into the trash!
Instead, you need to carefully craft your emails, tempting people to open them, and making sure you deliver on your promises once they have clicked the open button.
Furthermore, it is imperative to make sure that you comply with GDPR and that you only send communications to people that you are able to in accordance with the law.
Delighting customers
Not only do you need to help people through the buyer journey when it comes to inbound marketing, but you also need to make sure that you continue to delight them. After all, loyal customers are extremely valuable. Not only will they make repeat purchases but they are going to bring you new business as well via recommending your products and services to others.
At this point in the process, it is critical to make sure that your customer service, sales, and marketing teams are integrated. You may need to have several people across different departments, depending on the set-up of your business. Nevertheless, it is all about bringing everyone together with the right technology and software so that customers can have a seamless experience with your business.
As businesses scale and grow, CRMs become massively important. This is especially the case across different teams. Ideally, your CRM needs to contain every interaction that a company or individual has had with you. This includes the likes of customer support tickets, issues or complaints, information on their background, when they became a customer, when they enquired, live chat, ad clicks, website views, meetings, phone calls, and emails. This is the only way you are going to be able to provide customers with the high level of service they are looking for.
Get buy-in
Last but not least, you need to get buy-in! Sales want leads and to hit revenue targets. PRs care about coverage. Developes build. Of course, this is an oversimplification of what they do. However, you need to make sure that you have buy-in from everyone on the team. Not just the individuals mentioned but also marketing teams, project managers, and CMOs. And, this means appealing to them in different ways because their goals are different. However, if you do not get buy-in, you may as well not bother.
So there you have it: the nine key ingredients that you need to create a successful inbound marketing campaign! If you master these key steps, you’re definitely on your way to inbound marketing success.