6-Step Guide to a Successful Inbound Marketing Strategy

The inbound marketing process starts with attracting the right audience, converting them into customers, and then building a relationship with them so that they become repeat business.

Here's a 6-step guide to help entrepreneurs like you get the most out of your inbound marketing campaign.

1.        Create the right content. Inbound marketing is all about creating contents that are aligned with the interest of your business’ target audience. That is, any content you produce should be able to answer your customers’ basic questions or cater to their basic needs.

2.       Market & promote your contents. The customer-business interaction falls into different stages. You should be able to recognize the stage your customers are currently in so that you can provide them with appropriate and personalized marketing messages. 

3.       Be everywhere. A good inbound marketing strategy is multi-channeled by nature. This means that you should be able to connect with your audience on any platform or channel they are in.

4.       Start converting. After creating the right types of content, promoting them and connecting with your target audience on different platforms, you should now be able to have driven a steady amount of traffic to your site. Your next step is then to convert this traffic into hot leads by gathering their contact info.

Some of the most common tools that you can use to convert visitors into leads include:

• Attention-grabbing calls-to-action that encourage visitors to download an eBook, buy a product, attend a webinar or join your summit. Ultimately, these calls-to-action should let them to do whatever it is you want them to do as well as lead them to leave their contact information with you. 
• Opt-in forms that offer something of value to the visitors in exchange for their contact information. Whitepapers, eBooks, checklists or tipsheets are just some of the things you can use to entice visitors to opt in.
•  Contact forms. You can also make use of your website’s contact forms to gather the necessary information from your visitors.

5.       Convert leads into customers.  To be able make sure that you’re approaching your leads with the right marketing message at the right time, you need to determine “just how ready they are to buy from you”. 

If a visitor subscribes to your newsletter or downloads your eBook but still doesn’t buy from you after a month, it means that they’re not yet ready. In this case, you have to be proactive. Sending them a series of emails with content related to the newsletter or eBook they originally subscribed to would definitely help them become more ready.

6.       Keep wooing them. Just because you were able to make a customer buy one product doesn’t mean the sales cycle is over. Remember, you don’t just aim for new sales, you also aim for repeat sales.

Continue providing useful and valuable information to customers even if they have already purchased from you.

Final Thoughts

The most crucial element of inbound marketing is the content; an effective content creation and content sharing strategy must be in place, otherwise the whole inbound marketing campaign won’t work.

Your turn..

Are you using any one of the above strategies for your inbound marketing? Or perhaps all of them? Or maybe you have additional inbound marketing tips you want to share to the MACsWomen community? Please share your thoughts and comments below, we’d love to hear them.