There is a saying, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Most organisations spend a lot of time creating an inbound marketing campaign, but then slowly stop innovating or making changes. While it is easy to start feeling comfortable with your inbound marketing strategy, especially when it is working, you can’t and shouldn’t ever think “my inbound marketing is set.”
Inbound Marketing - Change Is The Only Constant
Dynamic changes in our digital world are prompting companies to accept that “change is the only constant.” Customer expectations and needs are ever-evolving, and you could easily lose a customer if your inbound campaign remains stagnant (ouch, painful!).
Inbound marketing helps you personalise content, generate leads, and save costs by reducing redundancies. However, what can a marketer do to improve their already established inbound strategy? Instead of simply “winging” your inbound game and adding pieces without any rhyme or reason, focus on improving your inbound strategy with appropriate tools and techniques.
Confused? Unsure where to start? Well, not to worry. We have compiled a list of 9 ways to instantly improve and accelerate your inbound campaign performance.
Crystal Clear Vision
Always, always know the reason for your actions and set a plan accordingly. Starting on a journey without a definitive vision is like trying to cook Julia Child’s beef bourguignon without a recipe. In addition to having a clear vision, be sure to attach SMART goals to every marketing initiative. A SMART goal keeps you focused on what you want to achieve. It's also easily tracked and measured, allowing you to directly tie marketing efforts to revenue. Ask yourself, “what is the single most important outcome of this campaign?” and use this measure to establish your key performance indicators (KPIs).
“It’s in the Words”
We know that content is king when it comes to successful inbound campaigns. The more optimised the content as per your buyer personas, the more successful your campaign will be. Drive improvements in your campaign by following these quick tips that you can instantly implement:
- Add videos and infographics that make content easier to promote through social media.
- Capitalise on on-site SEO by promoting relevant keywords in your titles, landing pages, and meta descriptions. Remember these keywords and content have to sync with what your customer is searching versus what is strictly “brand” and this applies even if you are an established brand.
- Highlight emotional stories and messaging on your landing pages. Use powerful words and stories to provoke your customers to “feel” and get emotionally connected with your brand.
You can also boost your campaign performance by offering FREE educational content. Identify your customer pain points, and don’t be afraid of offering educational PDF, case studies, or “how-to” guides to them for FREE. This is an excellent way to establish trust and reinforce yourself as an expert in the field. Here’s a pro tip - this is not the place to do a hard sell, so make sure you are subtle.
Invest in Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Invest in paid advertising, cost-per-click, or pay-per-click (PPC) platforms like Google Ads or LinkedIn Ads to place your content at the prime SERPs and jumpstart your campaign. Also, you don’t need a large marketing budget to reap the benefits of SEM. PPC ads are a highly cost-effective way to drive conversions. PPC is contextual and doesn't interrupt the buyer in any manner. For example, if a buyer is searching for leather shoes via mobile and they see a PPC mobile ad, offering them what they are looking for and pulling them towards hitting on the link, it really is inbound marketing. The below diagram clarifies it further.
Get Social
Social media is a powerful ally to have! Once you have created powerful content, don’t be afraid of getting social. Start promoting your offers and campaigns through all your social media handles. A protip is to include images for higher click-through rates and slightly tweak the offer so its best suited to that social audience. Social media promotion is also an excellent way to leverage off-site SEO. Generate quality backlinks to your original content via guest blogging and collaborating with influencers. Create shareable content via videos, polls, or infographics and constantly engage on social media to maximise returns from off-site SEO. Be active, stay present, and watch your conversions grow.
Cross-Promotion
A common mistake businesses make is that they forget to cross promote their content. It is one thing to promote content across social media, but remember to share that same valuable content with your email and newspaper subscribers. Use your email or newsletters campaigns to encourage readers to start following you on social media and pull them back to your website! Likewise, cross-promote your blog and newsletter subscription via your social media handles.
Combine PR and Inbound Marketing Activities
Contrary to popular belief, there are similarities between PR and inbound marketing. Sit down with the PR team to hash out ideas for content. This saves time and resources because you don’t have to reinvent the wheel from scratch and can ensure that the messaging is consistent across all your pieces of communication. Combining and highlighting your PR activities with inbound marketing not only builds credibility but also allows your audience to find you via new ways to gain attraction, such as press releases and media features.
Create a Conversion Path
The conversion path is your golden ticket to more sales! Calls-to-action (CTAs), landing pages, and thank you pages form key components of this journey. Create CTAs that are specific, attractive, hard-to-miss, and use language similar to that of your campaign. Design your landing page to ensure it has the 3Bs - bullet points, benefits, and brief text! Depending upon how well your content was aligned with your messaging via these two pages, a prospect can become a lead or turn back into being an anonymous visitor. And finally, don't forget to say thank you. More on this in the point below.
Don’t Forget to say Thank You!
Doesn’t hearing “thank you” for doing something, always bring a smile? You feel acknowledged - and isn’t that the key to starting a long-term relationship? Create thank you pages for leads that download an ebook or subscribe to your newsletter. A simple thank you email or landing page will make your lead feel valued. Another great reason for creating a thank you page is that it allows you to share MORE offers and continue engaging the lead.
Install a Live Chat Feature
Today’s consumer wants to be able to connect with businesses at their time preference. Installing a live chatbot on your site will enable you to connect and engage with customers when they are ready. Doing this also results in improved customer engagement and experience (yay!). According to studies, about 75% of people would prefer a live chat! And According to The State of Chatbots Report, 64% of internet users say 24-hour service is the best chatbot feature. So, why haven't you installed it already? You can even go one step ahead and convert that into a video chat. Now, this does a bunch of things, right from offering real-time sales support to your customers and prospects, quickly identifying problems and personalising the conversation to improving sales conversions and delivering faster results. See where we are going with this?
Quick Refresher
These are just a few quick ways you can tailor, adapt and accelerator the progress of your inbound marketing campaigns. The world of inbound is not stagnant, it’s fluid and ever-evolving. Stay with the times and implement these strategies to achieve your campaign goals faster. Be realistic and don’t expect overnight results. Sometimes, it takes a couple of months for people to say hi to that cute bot you have. All you need to do is shoot for the moon.
How do you optimise your inbound marketing campaigns? Share with us in the comments below.
