1300 71 61 41If you love Inbound marketing as much as we do (which by the way, is A LOT), then you’ll know it’s essentially the bees knees for humanising and personalising your marketing for the 2020 customer. And if you don’t believe me, read this.
So, while we can pretty much agree that inbound marketing is the cream of the crop, if you haven’t tried it, it may seem a bit daunting to begin with. Or maybe you’ve already transitioned your marketing strategies in a more inbound way but aren’t sure if you’re doing it right? Well, it’s a good job I’m here because I’ve put together the following guide to help you maximise your results with 8 best practices that will help you take your inbound marketing to the next level. And by the time you finish this article, Inbound marketing will be like falling off a log. Which (from experience) is very easy thing to do.
1. Nail your SEO strategy and optimising
Heard of a thing called SEO? Of course you have because it is super-duper important especially for an inbound marketing campaign. Nailing your SEO strategy not only contributes to getting quality, organic traffic across all stages of the customer flywheel but is important to help you with lead generation efforts.
Best practice SEO strategy is to ensure you are ticking all the boxes to achieve SEO optimisation. Firstly, from an on-page SEO perspective you should be utilising keyword optimisation, along with internal linking strategies to optimise your pages for both primary and secondary keyword targets. From an off-page SEO perspective, it is oh so important that you are managing your backlink profile too. Having a strategy to gain high authority links from industry-relevant websites is one of the main ranking factors according to the industry – doing this will speed up your growth rate. And finally, for local SEO optimisation, ensure that your citations are all aligned across the web. When executed correctly, this can deliver a swag of organic traffic.
2. Make your content in-depth and high value
Gone are the days of posting endless amounts of content just for the sake of it. Today it is allllll about in-depth and high value content. Quality content provides customers with helpful value they couldn't have found anywhere else. It can take the shape of video, images, a PDF flyer, a written blog or even an infographic! The world's your oyster. It's essentially the art of communicating with consumers without having to sell to them by pulling them through each section of the inbound methodology by being relevant at each stage of their buyers journey.
3. Content that relates to the different stages of the buyer's journey
If you’re this far into reading this, you should know the buyer’s journey and the stages of it. But hey! If you don't, the buyer's journey revolves around tailoring your content to the three stages of the buyer’s journey in the Inbound Methodology. But just incase, here’s a little refresh of the different types of content you should be using.
Firstly, when a customer is in the awareness stage you should look at delivering a stream of content in line with you SEO strategy such as:
- Regular blog posts
- Videos
- Tools
- Guides
To create content targeted at potential customers in the consideration stage you want to show how your company can help them solve their problem. You could deliver content such as:
- Case studies
- Demonstration videos
- How to content (like this article)
Finally, when the customer reaches this decision stage, you’ve got them interested, they’re considering and it’s time to make a decision. You should deliver content which will help them do that by providing content such as:
- Testimonials
- Product and service reviews
- A simple path to buy
4. Use your amazing content to drive leads
So, you have all this amazing quality content, but what to do with it? Are you converting this traffic into leads? If you answered no, then you really need to listen up for this one because getting traffic to your site is one thing. Turning these visits to potential clients is another thing.
This is the point where optimising your content is SO important. Having CTA’s (Call To Actions), such as pop-ups, newsletter sign-ups, gated downloads, find out more’s, gives the opportunity for consumers to act. This is a part that is often overlooked, but if implemented into your inbound marketing strategy it will do wonders to your growth as a business. You can thank me later.
5. Video content
Do we really need to remind you to use video content? Well as it continues to be one of the leading content types, then yes, we do. Especially when it is a type of content that is often ignored, even when it has proven to drive great results. So while it can take time and be somewhat expensive to produce, it’s a really powerful form of content for growth. Not to mention it’s a great way to humanise your brand, as showing off your pretty face shows your consumers who’s behind it all.
6. Build keyword-optimised landing pages
Remember back to the start when I mentioned you need to nail your SEO strategy? Well this is the part where it comes in handy. When buyers are at the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey with your business, creating landing pages which are keyword optimised, is an effective tactic to drive organic traffic. And we all know the way people search today indicates their intent, so each landing page still needs to have valuable content and is unique to each page on site. The key focus is lead generation and keyword optimisation for each individual page by researching and picking the top 10 high volume, low competition keywords, create landing pages and start measuring its success.
7. Don’t forget about emails
Despite the purpose of inbound marketing is to do business in a human way, it doesn’t mean automation isn’t allowed. In fact, marketing automation is a great way for you to create personal and customisable messages to your potential clients. By setting workflows, you can nurture your leads through the stages of their buyers’ journey. By providing high value, relevant content and tying back into your high-quality content, you my friend, are nailing the inbound marketing game and will be turning them into clients in no time.
8. Driving Success Using Data
Finally, the ultimate way to assess if your inbound marketing campaign is kicking goals for your company is to ensure the campaign is data driven. With inbound marketing, Data. Is. King. Without measuring everything, how are you going to know if what you’re doing is working? Well simply put, you won’t. So, get onto it asap and you’ll thank me later.
So there you have it! 8 best practices to add to your marketing toolkit that will set you up for success! While these best practices are tried and tested in helping you nail the art of inbound marketing, remember: the key to a successful inbound marketing campaign is being consistent and regularly measuring your efforts with data. And I hope, for your sake, you do actually nail your inbound marketing goals, instead of falling off a log.
.svg){kind=logo}
