5 Essential Steps to Launch an Inbound Marketing Plan

If you are taking the first steps to launch an Inbound Marketing program, congratulations! You are likely expecting Inbound Marketing to change the growth trajectory of your company and you are right. However, despite all your research, you may still have some uncertainties, such as: What type of work needs to be done to implement an Inbound program? What are the steps involved, and who is responsible for executing them?

No organization is the same as another: internal skills, goals, resources, strategies, and tactics will always vary significantly. However, there are five fundamental steps to implementing an Inbound program:

• Setting goals and KPIs

An experienced Inbound agency will be precise when working together to establish revenue growth goals for the coming years and define the KPIs that will be tracked to measure the success of the Inbound program and strategies. These steps often involve identifying the Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV), a number that reflects the average value of a customer throughout the business relationship. This number will help determine:

1. How many new customers you need to achieve your goals.

2. How many prospects you need to reach that number.

3. How many website visitors you need to generate those prospects, based on the average conversion rate.

• Defining and documenting your ideal customer profile and buyer’s journey

  We all have an ideal customer. Consider this: if you only had one dollar to spend on marketing, who would you spend it on? The process of identifying or profiling your ideal customer is not easy. For example, at Next Level Strategy, we can't simply say, “any company or person that needs marketing.” It must be defined more precisely, such as: “companies that recognize their current marketing efforts are insufficient to achieve their sales goals and want to move beyond traditional marketing.

Once your ideal customers are defined, it is also important to identify key individuals within your company. For example, in B2B companies, there are people within the organization who influence purchasing decisions and those who ultimately make the decisions. These are the individuals you want to attract to your website and for whom the content you create should help address their decision-making challenges.

When you know exactly who you are writing content for, you will be able to make it highly relevant and persuasive for them, directly addressing the challenges they face. Search engines will assist in this process by presenting your content options to these individuals, as the topics will align with what they are searching for.

• SEO Research and Content Development (Blog and Downloadable Content Creation Such as Guides or eBooks)

Before you start writing any content, remember that in step 2, you defined your ideal customer profile, key messages, blogs, guides, and other materials. These are the people you need to target with your content. Each ideal customer has different goals and needs, so there must be appropriate content available that, when they search, your content is the right one to meet those needs and help overcome purchase barriers. Validate your assumptions about what they are searching for by using SEO tools to identify specific phrases that will optimize your content.

The blog is your primary tool for attracting potential customers; it will bring visitors to your site, where they will learn more about your company and discover additional relevant content, such as eBooks and guides they can download. They will be able to access this "premium content" in exchange for their contact information, turning them into prospects. With the information they provide, you can nurture them with emails offering additional and relevant content.

Content should be created not only for each type of ideal customer but also for each stage of the conversion funnel they are in at that moment. Are they just beginning to explore their challenge and how they might solve it? Or are they further along, comparing different solution options? Are they ready to make a decision and just looking for a final reason to pull the trigger? Each situation requires different types of messaging and content.

• Get Your Website Ready for Inbound

Not just any old website can accommodate everything you need for your future prospects. A website needs a blog, of course, but also calls to action (CTAs), which are essentially graphic buttons with messages like “Get Your Guide to Profiling Your Ideal Buyer!” These attract more prospects by granting them access to content in exchange for voluntarily providing their contact information. These are your conversion opportunities, and they must be strategically placed throughout your website. When visitors click on your CTAs to access premium content, they are usually redirected to a landing page, where they find a brief description of the content and a form they must fill out to download it.

Additionally, elements such as thank-you pages and email templates should be created. Sending follow-up emails provides visitors with more valuable content and enhances their engagement. Incorporating keywords, as discussed in step 3, is essential you should naturally integrate those key phrases throughout your website’s content.

• Set Up Social Media Profiles and Accounts

Once you have engaging and relevant content that your top prospects will want, you need to spread the word. Many will find your content through your blog, but you can increase website traffic and content engagement by promoting it on social media. For example, YouTube is an excellent platform for sharing video content, LinkedIn allows your team to share links to your premium content, Facebook may work better for some businesses, and Instagram is ideal if you want a more visual approach.

With all of this in place, you’ll be ready to attract visitors, convert them into prospects, and nurture them until they become customers. This quick overview simplifies the Inbound process into basic steps.

Of course, there are additional factors to consider, such as measuring results (which should begin on day one) and using that data to make continuous improvements to the program. You’ll also want to keep the Sales department informed and collaborate with Marketing to implement a Service Level Agreement (SLA). This agreement will define the responsibilities of each team and ensure everyone is aligned on goals and processes.

We eat, breathe, and dream Inbound Marketing, so if you have any questions about your company’s specific needs, contact us! We are always eager to help you understand your challenges and maximize your potential.