Is your inbound marketing strategy up and running? Are you wondering how to get the most from it? Then you have come to the right place. Here you will learn various ways to increase your inbound marketing performance. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
Polish your blog and content strategy
Your blog is the primary channel for your content strategy and it organically attracts new leads and traffic. Making sure that only high-quality content, that resonates well with your prospects, is posted gives your inbound marketing a huge boost. If you cannot produce great content then find a gifted writer to take care of this for you.
Use of lead magnets
Lead magnets are specific inbound marketing tools that play a critical role in moving your potential customers through the conversion funnel. Used correctly lead magnets can significantly boost your inbound marketing efforts. Here are some lead magnet examples:
- CTAs
- Forms
- Chatbots
- High-quality content
- Landing pages
Personalize, personalize, personalize
When planning and implementing your inbound marketing strategy the conversion funnel should always be a top priority. You should allow the conversion funnel to guide you, which then makes it easier to personalize your content for every stage through the funnel. This way your users will feel appreciated and ultimately connected to your brand, which makes converting them to loyal paying customers less difficult. See the personalization ideas below based on each phase:
- Top of the funnel: here a user has determined he has a need and is now looking for relevant content. Leverage your blog posts, social ads and videos, whilst using appropriate keywords to provide the information they are looking for.
- Middle of the funnel: here a user is evaluating the different available options in the market. Use downloadable content at this time to get more information about your leads. Based on the data you gather, use it to launch personalized email campaigns and remarketing tactics that will push your leads further through the funnel.
Pro tip! Remarketing is a tactic that allows you to keep your leads or anyone who visited your site engaged. This includes all those visitors who have at any point expressed interest in your products, offers, or content in general. With this tactic, you can follow them online with ads reminding them to come back. If you are persistent, you will be able to convert those leads into loyal paying customers.
- Bottom of the funnel: once a user gets to the end of the funnel they are usually ready to make a purchase. At this stage it’s o.k. to use more compelling offers such as, discounts, trials, and even free demos to get them to commit. Once they make a purchase remember to maintain loyalty using personalized emails and again more discounts and coupons.
Include CTAs
We are sure you have put CTAs here and there on your website. If not, then it’s not too late to get started. But have you considered using them to encourage your users to move through your sales funnel? With a well planned strategy your CTAs will convert throughout all the funnel levels. Give them a try and see how things turn out.
Remember the following when creating your CTAs:
- Quality design is vital to CTA effectiveness. Make sure to A/B split test to see which CTAs get the most clicks.
- Do not simply view your CTAs as navigation buttons. They are much more. See them as actual content pieces. That way, it is easier for you to strategize and plan when creating them.
- Make sure to detail the function and phase of the CTA within the conversion funnel. Remember, you will have numerous CTAs for each phase of the sales funnel.
Optimize your landing page and forms
Is the content on your landing page in line with what users need? Does the UX and design encourage users to stay on the landing page? Looking for a way to double or even triple the conversion rate? Well designed landing pages and forms come in handy when trying to turn visitors into leads. They also boost the conversion rate. To make your landing pages more appealing, do the following:
- Have the content, product, or main element occupy a large portion of the landing page. By doing this, you ensure your visitors are clear about your offer.
- When it comes to the forms, have them display on the user’s screen without the user having to scroll. This encourages users to fill out the form effortlessly with less steps. Remember, also to be clear regarding what you want the person to fill out on the form. Avoid too many questions as this can lower the conversion rate. Just include the questions that are most relevant and necessary.
- We recommend using progressive forms as they allow new questions to display every time your lead returns to your site. Further, they will enable you to get more information about prospects without annoying them with the same questions.
Workflows, email marketing, and lead nurturing
Take a moment to review your current workflow. Can it be better? Well planned strategic workflows enable you to nurture your leads and walk them through the conversion funnel. For example, if a user downloads a whitepaper set up a workflow that keeps sending them more relevant content. Additionally, if you notice they are responding to your emails you may even consider reaching out personally.
Don’t forget about SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an essential tool for your inbound marketing strategy. When you leverage the right SEO techniques, you attract more visitors to your site. In other words, optimizing your website helps boost your inbound marketing processes, which turns visitors into leads and then to paying customers.
Utilize social media
You are missing out if you are not leveraging social media today. Besides helping to spread your content social media also comes in handy with branding, increasing awareness and lead recruitment. Don’t forget Google also takes into account SEO level links from social media networks. So, keep your social networks active all the time with a lot of content. For instance, instead of just publishing blog articles try posting conversation starters. Later follow them up with supporting information to fuel the conversation and involve your audience.
Link building
Link building involves placing incoming links from your website onto other relevant high-quality sites. For this to be effective the following must be considered:
- Diversity: means diversifying your link building so that different sites are linking back to you. This strategy will not work if all of the links are coming from the same domain.
- Quality: the quality of the backlinks is equally as important. So, as you look to have many websites linking back to you try to focus on those with domain authority, as well as, those related to your industry or niche.
- Quantity: as we mentioned earlier, there is value in having a lot of websites linking back to you. The more links pointing to you from various sources the more Google views you as a relevant and trustworthy source. However, remember that quality is more important than quantity when it comes to links.
Don’t overlook paid advertising
A reliable inbound marketing strategy is one that combines organic and paid methods to increase traffic. Paid advertising can include both social media ads and Google ads. Both of these ad types can significantly boost your inbound marketing efforts. Have you tried paid advertising yet? If not, give it a try!
Get found in organic searches
This simply means making sure your website can be found naturally by users and search engines. Using relevant keywords and having a responsive optimized website go a long way in boosting your inbound marketing. Plus, if you add high quality content to the mix you will be more likely to increase traffic allowing new visitors to find you organically.
Deploy off-site SEO tactics
A good example is finding prospects who spend time online on different platforms. These are visitors who are not searching for you. They don’t know about you. You can find them on various information platforms, like Reddit, Quora, and so on looking for reliable answers to their concerns. Keep in mind that most people today search for information before reaching a decision.
You can drive these visitors from those platforms to your website using engaging content. To be able to do this, we recommend that you first research, study and understand your target audience persona. This includes where they spend most of their time online, what type of content are they searching for, and who they are (their demographics). You need to know this before you try to move them towards your content. You may not see instant results, but with time, all your effort will begin to pay off and contribute significantly to your inbound marketing strategy.
Use content offers strategically
This is as simple as placing offers strategically on different pages of your website, as well as, taking into consideration the conversion funnel (essentially what you are offering). What you are doing here is putting an offer where it is most likely to attract higher levels of traffic and leads, while boosting conversions organically. For example, placing a “Contact Us” offer on the right page with the specific intention of increasing the conversion rate. You can always add more content if you do not have existing pages where an offer can naturally fit in.
Bonus! You should avoid putting an offer where it is not suitable—for instance, placing a “Contact Us” offer on an awareness page.
If you are not sure where to place your offers consider taking your site through a mapping exercise to identify the role of each page. This way you will know exactly the type of offer that fits on each page.
Where does content fit into an inbound marketing strategy?
Helps to drive people to your website
Now more than ever, people search the Internet for solutions to their problems. You can tap into this potential stream of traffic by providing the exact content they are looking for through your blog posts and social media.
Make sure to create relevant content so that it will show up in the results when someone types a query into a browser search box. When they see your content they will click on the link and arrive on your website becoming a new visitor.
Use content to convert visitors into leads
Let’s assume visitors are on your website and engaging with your content. This is a great start, but you want to take it up a notch. Remember, you have valuable information that they desperately want. Why not gate it? This way it becomes accessible to them only after sharing key contact details (such as their email address). You can then send them that additional information. Congratulations! You have just converted a visitor into a lead.
Use content to convert your leads into customers
Once you have converted your visitors to leads, personalized content comes in handy and helps to convert them into paying customers. Personalized content at this stage allows you to build trust with prospects, as well as, building a relationship so that you can better understand their needs. In turn, it will become easier for you to tailor your offers specifically for them.
Use content to entice your customers into promoters
After acquiring new customers, don’t stop there. Use fresh content to continue exciting them and keep them engaged. By doing this, you are giving your clients a reason to send new people to your site, starting the cycle all over again. Is that not something you really want?
Conclusion
Obviously, there’s a lot of inbound marketing ideas you can use for your business. However, if you want to start your journey, what would we recommend you start with? Here are 6 inbound marketing techniques every business should use:
- Give away free guides that are directly related to your business
- Build your personal brand
- Pick one or two keywords and optimize the heck out of them
- Ask and answer questions on social media
- Create an email popup
- Guest blog