10 Tips on Inbound Marketing

Anybody involved in digital marketing will tell you how important inbound marketing is today. Inbound can generate an ROI that’s three times higher than outbound marketing, which is why you should absolutely get started today. And in case you aren't completely familiar with inbound or how to get started, here are 10 tips that can get you going on a strategy today.

Inbound Marketing is an ongoing process that can bring you more

traffic, leads,and opportunities for conversions.

1. Learn Where to Learn

Inbound marketing is a subtle art that has a number of different components, and there are a lot of tools to master if you want to take full advantage of its benefits. Luckily, there are plenty of resources out there you can use to teach yourself everything you need to know including:

• HubSpot
• Unbounce
• Kissmetrics
• Copy Hackers
• Social Media Examiner
• Neil Patel

2. Find the Right People

Your inbound marketing team should include a marketing strategist and marketing coordinator who can make a plan of action, a content writer who can create your amazing content, and a designer and web developer who can ensure your site is optimized for conversions.

3. Determine How to Bolster Current Efforts

Your inbound efforts should complement your existing marketing strategy. Sit down and evaluate your current marketing, including what your budget looks like, what marketing assets you can leverage—such as your website, content, presentations, and videos—what your current marketing efforts entail, and what is and isn't performing.

4. Set Your Goals

When you first get started with inbound marketing, it's important to have a realistic understanding of what to expect from your efforts, and to set appropriate goals that are in line with those expectations. Just remember to make all goals SMART goals: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.

SMART goals can be used as the blueprint for developing efficient marketing campaign.

Buyer personas are representations of your ideal customers, and they can help you better understand the needs, wants, and motivations of your key audience. The personas should include demographic information as well as data about each buyer’s job, community role, goals, pain points, and how you can solve their problems.

6. Get Going on a Strategic Plan

On top of outlining the kinds of technologies you'll need to attain your objectives, the plan should also detail SEO information like keywords, a blogging schedule, the type of content you want to create, which social media networks to use, how you plan to generate and attract leads, and how you're going to convert leads into customers.

7. Create an Optimized Website

One of the biggest keys to converting visitors is having an optimized website that’s designed to move them into and through the sales funnel. Here are some key things to remember when building the site:

• SEO optimization
• Mobile and multiple-platform responsive
• Professionalism
• Ease of navigation
• Landing pages
• Strategic calls to actions

8. Write and Distribute Your Amazing Content

Try blogging at least twice every week, publish the content on your site and elsewhere, and create other content as well that’s hosted outside your site, such as guest blogs, whitepapers, videos, webinars, and more.

9. Promote It!

It’s not enough to just create great content: you do have to promote it as well. This includes sharing on social media, sharing with influencers in your industry, emailing contacts and subscribers, and possibly advertising on social media and with paid search.

10. Track Your Successes and Progress

Inbound marketing is an ongoing project, and it’s essential that you always track, evaluate, test, and tweak your efforts. There are lots of places you can go to collect data, including Google Analytics, A/B testing, user interviews and surveys, and feedback from your sales and customer support teams.

Inbound marketing isn't something you can accomplish in a day, a week, or even a year. In fact, it’s an ongoing process, but perseverance will bring you more traffic, more leads, and more opportunities for conversions.