Inbound marketing campaigns can be daunting to plan, run and manage. But with careful planning, you can turn your campaigns into a manageable task. Below is an inbound marketing guide that you can use when planning specific campaigns or to map out your marketing strategy.
Table of Content
1. Identify your Audience
Starting by defining an audience profile will minimize wastage of resources by giving your campaign direction. More so, an audience persona helps you to customize campaign messages as opposed to running with a generic message. Without an audience persona, your campaigns will register lower click-through rates and lesser qualified leads.
A complete audience profile for b2b marketing campaigns should include:
- Demographics such as location, company or industry
- Business goals
- Buying power or decision-making power
- Interests and values,
- Current products used
- Online behavior patterns, e.g, past web searches or purchases,
- A problem statement. For instance, frustrations with a product they are currently using
- How to solve the problem
2. Set Smartgoals
Goals will help you track campaign progress and know when campaign objectives have been achieved. Use your current analytics to set achievable goals. More so, look at the past performance of similar campaigns within the same audience.
Avoid ambiguity when goal setting. A specific inbound marketing campaign goal should read something like:
“Generate [xx] sales qualified leads for [product] by [date] or “Increase website conversion from 1.5% in Month one to 2.5% in Month two.
3. Choose Campaign Channels
Your choice of marketing channel should depend on the contribution made by each channel to lead generation and revenue growth.
Some viable inbound marketing channels to consider include:
Before you run a campaign, update your website with relevant content or create landing pages for your events and webinars. This way, when potential customers click on an ad or respond to a call-to-action from emails and social media, they will land on a page that addresses their needs.
4. Implement Analytics
Measuring your campaigns is the only way you’ll know if your efforts are bearing any fruit. Set tracking URLs for each campaign channel. This way, you can see each channel’s performance through tools like google analytics. Tracking tools show where your campaigns are working or not working, giving you the option to respond accordingly. In a nutshell, analytics prevent you from making blind decisions regarding campaign investment.
Bottom Line
Remember that even if your inbound marketing campaign generates a ton of traffic, your job doesn’t end there. At the end of the day, your sales team is looking for sales qualified leads. To achieve this, you may need to run several campaigns to nurture lead conversions. More importantly, be flexible when it comes to running campaigns. If something isn’t working, react with speed; don’t be hung up on original plans. A/B testing is a great way to test out different campaign approaches until you find the right marketing mix.
