Inbound marketing is different than outbound marketing. In turn, your tactics should be too. Some companies still struggle with content creation and content strategy. The techniques outlined here are easily done ...
Stop struggling with inbound marketing. Follow these steps.
Inbound marketing is an amazing tool for modern businesses, but many companies dabble in it and find it’s not as easy as they first thought. If you’re going to get the most out of this marketing strategy, you have to commit to it and keep optimizing until you find the strategy that works for your brand.
One way you can get more out of your inbound marketing is by streamlining. You will find you can:
- Reach your target audience more efficiently
- Make each piece of content go further
- Convert more leads
So, what steps do you need to be taking? Here are seven tips for streamlining your inbound marketing.
1. Inbound Marketing 101: Have A Solid Plan
If you’re going to implement an inbound marketing strategy, it needs to be well planned. You’ve got to bring together a lot of moving parts, and it’s just not possible to do this efficiently unless you’re organized.
To streamline your inbound marketing, you’ve got to have a very clear sense of:
- What you’re trying to achieve
- Who you are trying to reach
- How you are going to do it
You can put out content all you like, but if it’s not focused, then it’s not going to have the desired effect.
Every piece of content you publish should be very deliberate and timed to achieve maximum effect. If you’re skipping the planning stage then this won’t be possible.
2. Be A Better Project Manager
As mentioned, there are several steps to inbound marketing:
- Planning
- Content creation
- Editing
- Post optimization
- Lead generation
- Following up on leads
All of this needs to be done seamlessly. If you’re going to grow your inbound marketing campaigns, then you need to be working closely with your team to manage the project well.
Thanks to modern technology we can work with people from all corners of the globe. But to do this the right software is needed. An AWS certification is an excellent option to get you and your team working more efficiently with cloud software. In turn, you can manage your projects more efficiently.
When you’re working with freelancers and colleagues around the world, a team-friendly software helps you to stay on top of everything and keep things consistent throughout your campaign.
3. Allow People To Specialize
For maximum effect from your inbound marketing, your brand content must be of high quality. Whether you’re aiming to:
- Rank in the search engines
- Dominate social media
- Reach customers through PPC
People respond to quality. This means that you’ve got to take great care with everything step and give it the time and attention it needs.
Why publish average content when you have the ability to generate some of the best material on the internet? Only when you prioritize and commit to quality will you start seeing the full benefits of inbound marketing.
To create this all-conquering content, you need to correctly utilize people’s skills. Let them do the things they do well. Say you have someone who is a great writer but you want to add infographics. Find a graphic designer rather than getting less than optimal infographics from the writer.
Remember, you have options and can get great work from freelancers on a project by project basis.
4. Quality Vs. Quantity In Inbound Marketing
There’s always going to be the question of which tactic is more efficient – producing less content but at a higher quality, or putting out lots of content. Ideally, the answer would be lots of high-quality content, but sometimes our budgets do not allow it.
When it comes down to it, quality should always win.
That extra bit of time and attention can easily be the difference between your page ranking in the top three for your keyword versus sitting on page two of the rankings. It can be the difference of that first share that leads to a thousand more, and it can be the difference between someone filling out a contact form ... or not.
The internet is a huge place, and the competition is tough. If you’re creating average content, then it’s going be overshadowed. No matter how much you produce, it’s not going to bring you the maximum ROI for your inbound marketing.
If you’re looking to streamline your inbound marketing, then make sure you’re getting maximum impact from each piece of content by focusing on quality.
5. Share More
When you’re creating amazing content, you want to share it on all possible channels. Luckily, you’ve got so many opportunities to do this.
You may create your content with specific platforms in mind. Most often your website, but that doesn’t mean your content can’t be tweaked and optimized for other platforms too. For example, you might have produced a 2,000-word article on ‘The 5 Most Important SEO Practices,’ but there’s nothing stopping you from turning it into a Pinterest Story pin on the same subject.
Social media gives you so many different ways to share your work and reach a slightly different audience each time. Recognize what works on each platform and make the required changes to your content. You’ve put all this hard work into creating a great piece, absolutely give it as much exposure as possible.
Too many businesses create blogs and just let them sit on their website. Instead, champion your amazing content. his means optimizing how you share it.
6. Encourage Action
If you’re going to achieve your goals through inbound marketing then you need people to do more than just read your content - you need them to take action. This action might come in many different forms depending on your goals. First and foremost, you want people to take action before they leave your page.
One of the best actions they can take is to give you their contact details. If someone leaves your website, they could be gone forever. But when you have their email address, you then have the opportunity to build more touch points with them.
Great content is going to go part of the way to convincing people to give you their email address. You’ve also need to use strong CTAs (Calls To Action) and make it easy for them to become a lead.
7. The Most Important Step: Follow-Up
You may generate many leads through your inbound marketing, but if you’re not converting them, there’s little value in it. When you get a lead you’ve only done half the job. To make your inbound marketing worthwhile, you’ve really got to follow-up.
From your inbound marketing tools and planning you should have some great insights into your target audience. So, devise a strategy that will allow you to convert more leads.
Automation can help, allowing you to build more touch points with your leads and gradually build them into real customers. The right email sequence can allow you to filter the most promising leads, allowing you to use your time more efficiently when personally reaching out to your new contacts.
