Sourced from Forbes
When a company partners with an agency, leaders working on marketing typically have ideas about what they think their business needs. If the business sells directly to customers or clients, for example, its leaders know a strong inbound strategy is key. Often, a company will opt to handle certain inbound marketing tactics in-house, leaning on agency partners to help integrate both their efforts into a more comprehensive strategy.
After a client contracts with an agency to help define and shape the strategy for nurturing prospects’ journey through the funnel, it sometimes becomes clearer how invaluable their agency partners’ expertise in the inbound process really is, and the client starts wondering about other ways they could leverage the partnership. Here, 16 members of Forbes Agency Council share specific parts of the inbound marketing process that their clients frequently need more help with than they realized at first, and why this is the case.
1. Content Strategy
Companies often focus on turning out content and don’t do enough to make sure it is the right content for the right audience. Any inbound campaign will generate leads, but how you convert the leads to a purchase is key. This requires programmatic structure, strategy and content, identifying buyer personas and key performance indicators to nurture leads with content through the pipeline to purchase. – Maria Orozova, MODintelechy
2. A Social Media Presence For Marketing
The pressures of owning and operating a business are immense. Operational and service challenges aside, building a presence on social media for marketing is even more challenging. Those who approach social media as a side marketing effort to maintain relevance find little returns. Companies must invest the time, money and energy into a balanced marketing effort—including social media—to succeed. – Cagan Sean Yuksel, Dream Space
3. Audience Research
Usually, the understanding of the audience is based on anecdotes from leaders. Rarely is it rigorously researched and backed by reliable data. Everything flows from understanding target audiences. Spend time and money conducting both quantitative and qualitative research. It will make all of your inbound marketing more effective. – Gyi Tsakalakis, AttorneySync & EPL Digital
4. A Clear Messaging Framework
Too often, organizations jump into tactics before they have a clear understanding of their strategy. A great communications program is built on a foundation of a clearly defined objective, a targeted audience and a strong message that aligns your audience with your objective. Taking time to answer the basic questions and hone the messaging framework at the outset makes the tactics easier to execute. – Nathan Miller, Miller Ink, Inc.
5. Content Creation
Content creation is often one of the most difficult things for companies to execute. We often think, “How hard can it be to write such and such?” The reality is that good content is difficult to execute consistently and frequently. Writer’s block is a real problem for those who don’t do it regularly, and sometimes for those who do it professionally. Save yourself some frustration and outsource your content. – Jason Wilson, Strategy, LLC
6. Effective Copywriting
Many companies drastically underestimate their copywriting needs for organic search, product detail pages, marketplaces and other marketing channels. Companies love the low-cost traffic that SEO brings, but often think it’s a one-and-done project, or think it can be pulsed on and off. It’s a workstream, and many brands only have one copywriter on staff to address all copy needs across their business. – Antonella Pisani, Eyeful Media
7. The Call To Action
There’s a lot to be said around the importance of the offer/call to action when creating inbound marketing content. After a prospect has read your blog post or article, an effective CTA will move them further down the funnel (whether that’s to a sign-up form or an e-book download). Your CTA should be benefit-driven, action-oriented and tested regularly to optimize conversions. – Erik Koenig, SeQuel Response
8. Blog Production
Blogs remain a direct, effective tool for inbound traffic. But we often underestimate the strategy, TLC and even outsourcing they require to generate the desired return on investment. Before launching your blog, write down actionable goals, a distinct purpose and a deployment plan. Cover your bases on a topic bank, publishing frequency, audience, tone and delivery, writing and editing roles, SEO, and analytics. – Samantha Reynolds, ECHO Storytelling Agency
9. Thought Leadership
Thought leadership is the one area where companies seeking inbound marketing results need the most help. Mainly, this is due to their concern of giving away a competitive edge. Their concern is misplaced—being a great resource is its own competitive advantage. Your potential customers need help, and thought leadership is the best way to provide it. – Roger Hurni, Off Madison Ave
10. A Newsworthy Angle For PR
Coming up with your own newsworthy angle isn’t easy. Before they get in contact with me, so many entrepreneurs have tried to do their own PR and have failed because they haven’t identified a strong media hook about themselves. Everyone has their own unique story, and PR is all about bringing this story out of each individual and making sure it’s conveyed in a newsworthy manner. – Adrian Falk, Believe Advertising & PR
11. Personalized Landing Pages For Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is an incredibly effective way to drive inbound traffic to a brand’s website. A key part of the strategy is ensuring the destination you’re driving followers to is fully optimized for the desired action. Personalization of a landing page and clear calls to action may seem like table stakes, but companies often need a greater level of counsel to achieve success in this area. – Cooper Munroe, The Motherhood Inc.
12. Unique Brand Creatives
A brand always needs to invest in creativity, as the rest of any inbound marketing layers are purely process-oriented. Anything that is process-specific can be iterated quickly, except creativity. If your content lacks creative charm and fails to connect with customers, the rest of the inbound marketing process cannot rescue your brand from an apparent failure. – Candice Georgiadis, Digital Day
13. Search Engine Optimization
SEO is an incredibly integral part of discovery for many brands. It is not a set-it-and-forget-it project, as search engines are constantly retooling and revising the algorithms that determine search engine results. SEO requires knowledgeable and dedicated technicians who regularly adjust and integrate the latest best practices for optimal SEO success. – Jonathan Schwartz, Bullseye Strategy
14. Analysis Of Funnel Stages Where Leads Drop
The most common thing in inbound is that leads drop at a specific funnel stage where companies need more help than they realize. Finding out the actual reasons for leads dropping is not very easy, as it takes a lot of time to understand the user behavior. Even after doing everything correctly and by the book, when the leads drop, businesses realize that they actually need help with it. – Ajay Prasad, GMR Web Team
15. Conversion Rate Optimization
One area that applies to almost every inbound effort that is usually overlooked is conversion rate optimization. How many site visitors are converting into leads? How many blog readers are subscribing? Beyond this, CRO helps uncover the friction points through most inbound processes. CRO helps brands focus on what will move the needle. – Bernard May, National Positions
16. A Cohesive Web Profile Across Platforms
Creating a cohesive Web profile across various platforms is essential for a presence deemed trustworthy by search engines such as Google or Bing. A revamped SEO strategy should account for social media profiles and Web content, including service pages and blogs. In addition to presenting a unified brand experience to consumers, your organization will also be ranked better on SERPs. – Evan Nison, NisonCo
Sourced from Forbes
