If you're planning to invest in Inbound Marketing, there's something you need to know.
It's not a popular thing for an Inbound marketer to say, and it's not the most motivational thing you'll hear today, but it's important.
Are you ready? OK.
Inbound campaigns don't always work so great. In fact, sometimes they don't work at all.
Hang in there, because there's one more important thing to consider:
Inbound doesn't fail because it's tactics don't work. It fails because us marketers fall short. Here's how, and what you can do to ensure your Inbound campaigns don't miss the mark.
Defining Success
First, let's consider what makes a campaign a "success".
Depending on your goals, success probably looks something like an increase in site traffic, an increase in customer acquisition, or an increase in repeat purchases.
It also probably looks like your boss giving you a high five and a raise, but that's another discussion.
In order to achieve any of those, you know, business-y goals, there's one person we need to focus on. It's not our boss, and it's certainly not ourself. It's our customer.
Focusing on the End User
Whether they already exist or they're just a buyer persona on paper, customers should be dictating all areas of an Inbound campaign or implementation.
This includes:
- Content created
- Social networks utilized
- PPC/Online advertising strategy
- Format of content
- Email frequency and tone
- Lead nurturing touchpoints
- Key points in the consideration funnel (TOFU, MOFU, BOFU)
Unfortunately, a lot of Inbound marketers (both new and seasoned) make the critical mistake of overlooking, and really focusing on their personas. In my experience, this is the hallmark of innefective Inbound campaigns.
This is the biggest mistake we can make, one which almost always results in the flop of a campaign that took up a lot of time and energy.
How do I know? Simple, because I've done it myself.
I've had some pretty awesome highlights in my time as an Inbound marketer, but I've also had some legitimate lows. When I take a step back and assess what all those lows have in common, it was my failure to be "personacentric".
No matter how great your idea for a blog post, or your expertise for an eBook, or your wittiness on Tumblr - they don't matter if they're not relevant to the personas.
Starting at the End
Truly successful Inbound efforts start at the end, and work their way backwards. Before planning anything, they take into account the goals and habits of the personas they're speaking to.
This might include:
- Using Google Analytics for insights about your site performance and popular pages
- Interviewing current customers to learn about email and social media preferences
- Using keyword research data to learn about your personas search mannerisms
Ultimately, it all comes down to context. Even if an eBook is incredible, it's not going to yield results if it's not contextually relevant to specific people at specific times in their purchase consideration process.
I've written some great blog posts that have never seen life past 1000 hits. It's not because they weren't good, it's because they weren't relevant to the people I was trying to engage.
I promise, if you take the time to research and create the kind of content and collateral that your audience actually wants, your efforts will pay off tenfold.