4 Fundamentals to Planning a Successful Inbound Marketing Campaign

  

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Does your company have a good understanding of all the various elements that are now part of a modern marketing campaign that includes the internet? Or, are you concerned that you're missing out on the full opportunity that the web can offer? Based on our conversations with businesses most fall into the latter category and no wonder... tweeting, blogging, SEO, analytics, 'like', content, internet lead generation, conversion, googling and the list goes on, are all terms that are very new. How can a company be expected to deliver on it's core business activity and stay current with this very dynamic internet space? Although the task may seem daunting, it's the most important marketing undertaking for your company because use of the internet is continuing to expand. Your market is there, looking for your solutions, are you being found? How can you manage this new requirement for your business? If your company is going to succeed in using the internet to generate leads and new business, as with any other business undertaking, planning is key, and you need a plan!

Over the next little while, our posts are going to outline various actions that your company can use to create an effective inbound marketing program that will result in the transformation of your companies web presence into one that:

1. Generates more and better targeted traffic to your website;
2. Increases the number of internet leads generated;
3. Creates a process for nurturing those leads into new business;
4. Ensures that you are informed about what is working or not for your company online;
5. Is a powerful corporate asset that delivers a strong ROI on a long-term basis.

To begin this process, we're going to provide some of the key considerations you should use to plan your inbound marketing program.

4 Key Fundamentals to Your Company's Inbound Marketing Plan

1. Establish a list of your goals- For example, increase traffic by 20% in the first 90 days of engaging the campaign or generate 10 internet based leads in the first 90 days. You can also incorporate goals such as increasing staff participation, online customer support. Brainstorm and be creative about your goal setting, at this stage you should try to imagine what the ideal situation would be at some point in the future and don't limit yourself;
2. Create a list of your current assets and resources for your program- What do you have in place currently to build on or to support this marketing initiative? This list should include things like your reputation, branding, trade associations, business networks, website, any social network accounts, personal or corporate blogs, tools like Salesforce or Constant Contact, customer newsletter programs, email list as well as people both internal or outsourced. Anything or anyone that could be used in some way to build and execute your campaign;
3. Define, refine and segment your target audience- You may already have a clear idea of who this is but for this exercise, again, think creatively. Can you segment your audience into subgroups with slightly different marketing personas? For example, if you're a B2B business, who looks for your solution? Are there different industry verticals that you service? Are there different levels or departments within a company that would be searching out your offering? The more clear and distinctly you can identify the target(s) the better.
4. Create a list of previously successful marketing initiatives- What has your company done in the past that was successful in generating new interest, leads and business for your company? Why were these campaigns successful? Order this list by cost effectiveness as well, both by number of leads generated and by closed business.

These four actions form the foundation for planning a successful inbound marketing campaign, not to be confused with the actual plan. Over coming posts we'll be covering differents elements of your plan that will tie into this initial step. If you work along with us, you'll end up with a document that can serve as a guide for your company to execute a successful campaign. A word of caution. We know that this process works, it's proven itself many times over, but if you think that what will be created is going to bring about instant success, you're mistaken. It is not our intention that you should think of this as some sort of 'magic bullet'. We have said on many times that inbound marketing requires effort. Fortunately the work is simple and straight forward, but it is work nonetheless. At Inbound Marketing Experts we haven't yet found something that is easy and requires no effort and delivers the powerful and sustained results of a comprehensive and well executed inbound marketing program, if you have we (and everyone else!) would love to hear about it. Until we find such an alternative, we will stay focused on delivering great inbound marketing solutions that deliver lasting results, transforming websites into corporate assets with a high ROI...exactly what you want right?

We're at the edge of the future!