How to plan an inbound marketing strategy - fast!

Let’s cut to the chase. 

If you’re reading this, you likely already know what inbound is, and you’re probably well aware of the benefits that an inbound marketing strategy has to offer your business, and you want to know how to do it - soon. So, we’re not going to mess around, here’s how to plan an inbound marketing strategy - fast.

Identify your audience

Having a clear view of who your customer is, or your ideal buyer persona, is at the heart of every successful inbound marketing strategy. While you may already have a rough idea of who you’re targeting, we can almost guarantee that it won’t be detailed enough (sorry). In order to actually work the way you intend, buyer personas need to be completely explored and properly fleshed out - not based on guesswork. Once you’ve got this stage down, you’re good to go. 

Set realistic goals

In order to get to where you want to be, you need to assess where you already are.

Take a look at your current metrics: 

• Your website traffic
• Leads and customers generated

Use these to determine your end goal. But whatever you do, make sure your goals are SMART.

Specific 

Measurable

Achievable

Realistic

Timely

We cannot stress this enough: don’t be vague about what you want to achieve. When you set solid goals, you build a good foundation on which to build your strategy. Here’s an example:

"Generate 2,000 leads who are interested in content marketing by June 2020”.

This goal is specific, measurable, has a time period assigned but most importantly it’s actually achievable and realistic. Don’t purposely push yourselves for heights you’ll never reach.

Choose keywords and optimise

Much like your goals, your keyword strategy must be focused, and informed by your buyer personas. You need to research what your target audience is searching for, and put these key terms in your content. However, make sure that wherever you use keywords, that they’re relevant. Google appreciates valuable content above all else, and it certainly won’t take kindly to content that isn’t educational or helpful - so be sure to choose your keywords wisely. 

Get quick wins

Now that you’ve established who you’re targeting, the keywords you’ll use to do it and the results you want to achieve - it’s time to start seeing results. You can do this through optimising existing content for conversion. For example, you could compile your existing blogs into a gated asset, and promote it through a landing page where you use forms to collect information in exchange for the content offer. This will generate quick results that will get your inbound strategy off to a flying start.

Promote! 

You should now have the foundations of an inbound marketing strategy in place. Now, it’s time to start promoting your content offers and getting visitors to the landing pages. There are a number of ways you can do this, including:

• Writing relevant blog posts leading down the marketing funnel to the content offer
• Run an email marketing campaign as part of your inbound marketing strategy
• Post on social media
• Look into paid advertising

Once you start promoting, you should see the number of leads begin to increase, and you should be nurturing them continuously to the point of sale - and measuring your results.

There you have it. The fundamentals of an inbound marketing strategy in under 700 words. Of course, inbound is a lot more than what I’ve just mentioned, but it’s a lot to take on at once. 

So, if you’re interested in learning how to plan an inbound strategy in more detail, download our Inbound Marketing Planner here.