Marketing is a vital tool for the success of any company. It is how you portray a company as a hero and the answer to whatever problem their customer is facing. As a marketer, it is your job to ensure the customer is seen as the hero. To do this effectively, having an inbound marketing strategy is critical.
Inbound Marketing Strategy
Inbound marketing strategies attract customers by enticing them with curated content based on their experiences, wants, and needs. If done properly, it will provide the information that they are looking for and solutions to their problems. Overall, the goal is to attract your customers, engage them, and delight them.
How to Create the Strategy
Creating an effective inbound strategy requires several steps to ensure that every aspect is designed with a customer’s needs and potential pain points in mind.
Define the Buyer Personas
The first step is to define your various buyer personas. You need to not only understand the type of people you are marketing to, but also their wants, needs, and how to communicate with them effectively. Be sure to outline each buyer persona’s interests, priorities, and ultimate goals.
Determine Pain Points
Next, you need to determine what problems the target customer has that prompt them to search for information about a product or service. By understanding what customers need, you can better tailor your specific message to them. This way, they will identify with the content and want to know more.
Identify Keywords
You need to research how customers are searching for their information. Create a list of target keywords that the audience is likely to use in their search. You will then have a list of keywords to include in your content to move your content up in the search results.
Set Your Goals
You will need to set goals to see what is working in the strategy and what may need adjustment. Goals must be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Determine what activity you want to see and what timeframe you want to see it in. There is a variety of KPIs you can use to help measure success, such as:
- Unique site visitors
- Sources of traffic
- Number of leads
Create Your Content
Now that you have identified who you are marketing to, what they need, and how results will be measured, you will want to develop a content strategy to help guide prospective leads through the marketing funnel. Determine the types of content needed and the best channels to deliver it. Be sure to work in relevant keywords and craft your content to fit specific personas.
Elements of an Effective Strategy
To ensure that the strategy is effective, there are certain things to focus on. First, make sure you have identified and offered solutions for the business products and services in mind. This is accomplished through the content and marketing materials included in the strategy.
You will also need to build a complete and tailored email list, which you create from your lead generation. Email should always be a part of your content strategy. You can use it as a more direct form of communication to provide prospects with the information they will need throughout their buyer’s journey, such as whitepapers, how-to’s, and special offers. Once you have established the email list, you will want to develop an email sequence in which to release the content so that it can effectively nurture leads through each part of the conversion process.
Another vital tip is maintaining consistency throughout the blogs, graphic design, ads, and other content marketing efforts. Always be relevant and stay in tune with the needs of the target customer. Consistently approach their issues from different angles so that they can see how the product or service can provide them with the solutions they need.
Attract, engage, and delight. That is the goal of inbound marketing and the key to growing customers from prospects to conversions and promoting overall business growth.
Find an Inbound Marketer
At Black Tie, we take a value-driven approach to crafting your inbound marketing strategy. Contact our sales team today. We can discuss how to work together and execute the creation and implementation of a custom inbound marketing strategy for your business.