As your agency marketing services provider probably already informed you, inbound marketing results take time. This isn’t an easy pill to swallow for many veteran business owners or marketers, who have grown used to placing an ad and waiting for the phone to ring the very next day.
If you simply can’t wait months and months to see results from your marketing efforts, it’s important to balance those agency marketing services. Equally important, is to take certain steps to ensure quicker payoff.
4 Steps To Faster Inbound Marketing Results:
1) Build up and build upon a solid foundation
Unlike traditional outbound marketing, there are no one-offs in the content marketing world. Inbound marketing is an ongoing process, and you’ll lose momentum if you’re not ready to take the next step.
That means building out content across all stages of the funnel, from landing pages and initial offers through nurturing campaigns to content designed to help close the deal. Don’t make the mistake of throwing out an e-book offer or other one-time inbound effort without the structure to support it.
2) Blog more frequently
Ramping up your blogging efforts will help your inbound efforts in the present and the future. It's that simple. Companies that increase from 3-5 blog posts per month to 6-8 posts per month nearly double their leads. And, the aggregate number of posts has an impact, too: companies with more than 200 blog posts have five times the leads of companies with 10 posts or fewer.
3) Make the most of social media
Social media is a key element of inbound agency marketing services, and a clear illustration of the way inbound efforts must be built up over time. Social media engagement can help draw traffic to your website and blog, promote your offers, build brand recognition and develop relationships with prospects, existing customers, colleagues and referral sources.
However, the impact of your social media efforts is greatly impacted by the number of connections you’ve developed in those networks—and that takes time. Don’t wait until your inbound efforts are well underway to get the social media ball rolling.
4) Integrate all marketing
While outbound marketing efforts are taking a back seat for most marketers today, they haven’t disappeared completely. Often, outbound tactics and even channels can be combined with your inbound efforts. There’s no better time for this than early on, when you may not yet be seeing a return on your inbound efforts.
Placing an advertisement on a website that’s netted you good results in the past and pointing that ad to a landing page that starts the inbound process can help fill your pipeline in the early days. Or, take out a print advertisement in a publication that’s netted you good results, but include a QR code to draw readers to your eBook rather than making them a direct offer.
Have Faith
Well executed inbound agency marketing services will almost surely give you great marketing ROI. Just remember, the results won’t roll out in the same way as outbound marketing – so it’s important to adjust your expectations and be prepared to make a commitment for the longer term – a commitment that includes being willing and able to build, tweak and maintain those inbound tactics. Do this, and you’ll likely see great marketing ROI for many years to come.