Ready to implement your inbound marketing campaign? We’ve broken it down into eight simple steps to get you on your way.
Step 1: Select your primary goal.
We all have goals, but today we’re starting with just one, singular goal. This will narrow your focus so you don’t take on more than you can handle. Define one area for now, and aim your efforts at that target. Once that campaign is in place, you can begin the next one. You’ll learn things as you go along that you can apply to subsequent marketing goals to improve your success. Develop SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based) goals, and use our Inbound Marketing Goal Planning Worksheet to get started.
Step 2: Develop your customers’ personas.
Identify the needs, interests, challenges, and goals of your ideal customer (for your selected goal). This helps you discover ways to develop content that drives their buying decisions. Use our Persona Development Worksheet as a guide.
Step 3: Document your customers’ journey.
What will your prospective ideal customers need to know as they make their buying decisions? It depends on where they are in their decision process. For each stage, provide content that informs, answers questions, and resolves their concerns. Our Customer’s Journey Worksheet will guide you through the steps.
Step 4: Select your keyword phrases.
What phrases do you think your customers might put into a search engine to find answers? Make sure to weave these keywords throughout your website, social media posts, landing pages, and inbound marketing materials. You’ll want to do everything you can to help potential customers find your content. If they don’t find you, you can’t influence them. Brainstorm possibilities and see if you can get 100 relevant keywords.
Step 5: Create a persona and journey-specific content.
Now it’s time to create the type of informative content your prospective customers can use. Educate them. Solve their concerns. Recommend solutions. You should not promote your product or service at this point. At this stage, it’s about their needs and how to solve them.
Step 6: Document your plan.
Now, put it all together. Seem overwhelming? Just take one step at a time, and you’ll get to that successful marketing campaign. We cover this in detail in our “Inbound Marketing for Business” blog series.
Step 7: Work your plan.
Create a schedule, use a calendar, and then stick to your plan. Inbound marketing won’t give you instant gratification, but it will provide ROI for years to come. Consistency is the key. Once you have created the process and put it into action, it continues to work for you. The more automated you can make it, the easier it is to manage. This is the huge benefit of inbound marketing over traditional- and outbound-marketing methods. If you advertise (TV, radio, or print publication), any benefit ceases the second after the ad runs or the materials get tossed into the trash. That means to see ROI, you must keep throwing marketing dollars at it. When you stop paying, your ROI stops as well. With inbound marketing, you do the hard work once and then enjoy the ongoing benefits. It takes time and effort, but after just five months of consistent inbound marketing, the cost per lead can drop as much as 80% (Thomasnet).
Step 8: Delight for retention.
Now that you’ve done all the work to get the customer, how do you keep them coming back? It all boils down to customer service, effective ongoing communications, and continued marketing efforts to your existing customers. The main players here: your website and social media. Integrate your social media strategy with your retention efforts to take customer service to the next level (of course, you have to deliver on the claims and promises you promoted with your inbound marketing efforts).
Just DO it!
Nike got it right. You need to begin. You must have a digital presence for long-term survival. If all of this feels overwhelming, let Biz Webmasters help you out. We can get you started and you can manage the rest, or partner with us to add more inbound strategies as you need them. We provide the personnel with the skill sets you need at a price point well below what you will pay to bring someone in-house or hire a marketing agency to deliver. Check out our inbound marketing services to see what we can do for you.