Inbound marketing campaign is clearly the way of the future with almost two thirds of respondents to a recent survey saying that they saw the highest quality leads from this type of marketing. When done correctly, inbound marketing results in customers actively seeking it out in order to gain information or to solve some problem that they have; this makes them much more receptive to sales and marketing messages – particularly if the marketing material answered their question.
To create a successful inbound marketing campaign the first and most important step is to understand your customer and to create a buyer person that reflects their buying journey. The buyer persona is an idealized representation of your target customer that is based on market research and other information you have about your customers. It needs to take into account demographics, behaviour patterns, motivations, goals and so on. The buyer’s journey is the process that they go through when they decide they have a need and then identify, evaluate and finally purchase a given product. Your marketing effort needs to focus on some or all points of this journey.
The next phase is to decide on the content of your campaign based on the analysis undertaken for the buyer persona. The medium in which you present the content is determined by your buyer persona and the point they are at in their journey. Sometimes a video will make sense if the product is luxury or fashion-based while if you are comparing the relevant benefits of software an article in a trade journal might be more appropriate. The important thing is that the medium is suited to the story that you are telling the customer about your product. Remember that you can also use multiple media to help get your message a wider audience and more traction.
Once your content is created its vital to produce a strategic distribution plan that will reach the widest possible number of customers. Your content distribution strategy will be anchored in the buyer persona you are trying to reach. This could include channels such as emails, paid media placements, YouTube videos, paid search results, influencer posts and so on. The most important thing to remember is that it must be tailored to how your buyer persona ideally consumes and finds information.
Finally, make sure that you have a process in place to measure the effectiveness of your campaign. Metrics may vary (sales, lead capture, free samples) but you must be able to measure the tangible results you hoped to achieve and how well your inbound campaign performed.
