Inbound Marketing Insights

Gone are the days of only using “impressions” to track the success of your marketing campaigns. If you are not familiar, impressions measure how many people saw your ad, email, and more. It has nothing to do with actual engagement. If you have a marketer or agency providing you with impression data only, you need to find a new team member or partner as soon as possible. You don’t want just anyone engaging with your brand. Simply getting more impressions on your digital channels will not drive revenue. You want the right prospects visiting your website and digital channels to become a qualified lead in your sales pipeline. How do you do this? It’s about creating the right content, at the right time, delivered in the right manner, when and where your prospects are looking for that content.

The Attract stage of the inbound marketing methodology focuses on bringing new visitors to your website in both quality and quantity. This is the backbone of your inbound marketing strategy so you can get found by your potential customers.  To launch a successful inbound marketing campaign, you need to share the information that your prospects are searching for online. In addition, you need to ensure that it is meaningful content that helps aid their decision-making process. As more and more people find and benefit from your content, your online presence begins to grow.

Developing an effective content strategy that will work across all stages of the buyer’s journey helps you communicate the most valuable content that will resonate with your prospects to help them move through the decision-making process. Remember that it’s all about showing your prospects that they can trust you to help solve their problem. You accomplish this through content marketing by providing useful information to aid in their decision-making process.

Some of the tools of the Attract stage are:

• Blog Articles: Creating meaningful content usually starts with a blog. A blog is incredibly powerful to share helpful content with your prospects to drive website visits and conversions.
• Videos: The popularity of video has grown tremendously. Creating video content (short snippets and long-form) is a way to engage with your prospects in a new way and provide them with content in a format they may be more willing to engage with online.
• Podcasts: Similar to videos, podcasts have also grown in popularity. This is a way for you to share your thoughts leadership expertise in a digital format that may be easier for people to consume.
• Social Media: This is a must-have for any business. A social media presence helps you engage with your audience in a meaningful way by sharing videos, podcasts, blogs, imagery, and more, while also communicating in real-time with prospects and customers.
• Search Engine Optimization: Optimizing your content for search is crucial to ensure your content can get found by the people searching for it online, whether on your website, YouTube, or other social media channels.

The principle of inbound marketing is to create the right content that tells your brand story and educates your prospects. The "Attract" stage helps you do that by giving you the effective channels to share your helpful content on different platforms and different mediums to attract the right contacts at the right stage of their decision-making process. 81% of individuals will research products online before ever connecting with your sales team or purchasing your product, so this content is critical to help prospects determine which companies will be at the forefront of that decision. Stay tuned for upcoming blogs in our Mastering Inbound Marketing Series, which will detail each of the above tools and how to maximize their effectiveness.

Are you looking for ways to develop or optimize your inbound marketing strategy? The book "Mastering Inbound Marketing: Your Complete Guide to Building a Results-Driven Inbound Strategy," written by Elyse Flynn Meyer, Owner & Founder of Prism Global Marketing Solutions, covers every aspect of the inbound marketing methodology, including the revenue generation trifecta of marketing, sales, and the customer experience. Check out the book to discover how to most efficiently and effectively develop, implement, and maintain your inbound marketing strategy.