5 Steps to Express Inbound Marketing

I’m calling this the express inbound marketing because marketers always tell me they just don’t have time to do everything they want. I give them ideas on little things they can do with the time they have, but they’re always pushing for a task list. You asked (and you all know who  you are), so I’m answering. 

Here’s the 5 step process every B2B marketer with limited time should follow to get inbound marketing success. The rate at which you complete these steps will determine how quickly you’ll see success (a.k.a. do it more and you’ll get more out of it, do it less and it will take longer to see results).

Step 1 - Create a compelling offer

This should be a truly compelling offer - not a contact sales form, request more information, or free consultation form. It needs to be something that your target audience will find valuable. If you can help it, this compelling offer should not mention your products or services at all. It should help your key market solve a problem they have. This can be things like a guide, kit, whitepaper, webinar, slide presentation, article, or video.

Examples: Website Re-Design Kit or New Homeowner’s Guide to Purchasing Insurance

Step 2 - Put it on a landing page

Create a landing page with a form that encourages visitors to give you their contact information in exchange for this compelling offer. When creating the form fields be sure to think about how much information your target audience is willing to give up to get your offer. If you ask them for everything but their social security number just to download an article, they’re probably not going to fill out the form - and neither would you! The number of form fields often highly correlates to the conversion rate of that landing page.

Step 3 - Write a blog article to promote the offer

Now, go to your blog and write an article that promotes the compelling offer you just created. Using my examples above, good blog posts might be titled, 5 Simple Steps to a Website Re-Design or What Every New Homeowner Should Know about Insurance. Then, create a call to action (ideally a graphical button, but text will do) at the bottom of your blog post and link it to your landing page. 

Examples: Thinking of Re-Designing Your Website? Download the free Website Re-Design Kit to help you get started.

For more helpful tips, check out the New Homeowner’s Guide to Purchasing Insurance.

Step 4 - Promote the blog article to your network

Go out and promote this blog article to your network. Post it to Twitter, your Facebook and LinkedIn status updates, the news section of relevant LinkedIn groups you’ve joined, look for LinkedIn and Yahoo! Answers to respond to, and send out an email to your database. Don’t be shy, but don’t be spammy either. Look for relevant places that your target audience might be spending time online and go there first.

Step 5 - Analyze and repeat

Now that the heavy lifting is complete it’s time to analzye the results. See how much traffic your efforts brought in and the number of leads and customers that resulted. You should also track to see if you increased the number of blog subscribers, Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections, Facebook fans and so forth.

What did you learn? What could you do differently next time? Now, go do it and share your experiences below!

Inbound Marketing: It Takes Time or Money

Inbound marketing is hard. But, it’s not hard because you need to be a genius to understand it (come on, it’s not rocket science). The concepts are pretty clear - create remarkable content, optimize it for the search engines, promote it to your audience, and create opportunities for conversions with compelling offers, then analyze and repeat. It’s hard because it takes time, energy and creativity.

The number one complaint I hear from marketers is, “I don’t have time to do it.” My response - “well, I guess your company just doesn’t need any more leads then.” That usually gets their attention, but they still say they don’t have time. So what are these marketers doing? They’re attending trade shows, planning events, writing press releases, and buying ad space - activities that aren’t helping their bottom line. Marketing has often been thought of as an expense for most companies, when in reality, it should be a revenue generating department.

So, my advice to marketers who say they don’t have time for inbound marketing - outsource. Gone are the days when a marketer can work for a company who creates a product they know nothing about. Marketers need to be content creation factories. You know what I’m talking about…you’ve seen those marketers who work for silicon chip manufacturers or engineering firms or biotech companies who have no idea what their company actually does. How can they be thought leaders? How can they create remarkable content?

The answer is, they can’t. So they should find others who can and then start learning. Learn by reading blogs, marketing books, attending webinars, downloading whitepapers and articles. Become an inbound marketing expert because your job and your company depend on it.