by Know your target group and understand its challenges. Before you can start creating quality content and succeed with inbound marketing, you must first have an understanding of who your customers are and what questions they are looking for answers to. In short, you must have defined your target group.
1) Use analytics data from Facebook
A good start is to obtain demographic data on your target group. Here, Facebook is a good tool, as they give you an insight into the age, gender and hometown of your followers. That’s a good place to start.
Go to your company’s Facebook profile and click on the ‘Insight’ page. Then you find the sub-page ‘People’, where you can see the age, gender and hometown of your followers.
With this data, you get a general idea of who has an interest in your company. But to be able to produce content that creates true value for your target audience, you must find out their challenges and interests.
2) Make a questionnaire survey
Ask your customers directly. The easiest way to learn more about your customers’ needs is to create a questionnaire. It might sound like a big task, but it doesn’t have to be. You probably already have an e-mail list of your leads and your customers to whom you can send your questionnaire. The questionnaire should neither be long nor complicated. The only question you need to ask is:
- What are your biggest challenges?
In this way, you get an overview of the issues your target group struggles with. It is a good idea to ask the people on your e-mail list if they would like to participate in a short follow-up interview. There are many free tools that make it easy for you to set up and analyze your questionnaire.
Perhaps the most well-known tool is SurveyMonkey, but we can too recommend the Enalyzer tool.
3) Conduct in-depth interviews
So far, you have mainly gained knowledge about the challenges that your customers face as a collective group. Now is the time look at your target audience as individuals to understand theirs very specific needs. Here we recommend that you conduct an interview with the people who agreed to it in your questionnaire survey.
Again, it doesn’t have to be a huge set-up. It can easily be just a 10-minute phone or video call.
The most important thing is that you get an insight into your customer’s biggest challenges, and please describe them as concretely and clearly as possible. That is a good idea to start by asking an open-ended question that gives the participant opportunity to express oneself freely. And then you can follow up with probing questions that you have prepared.
Example of an open question:
“Tell me about the first time you were faced with having to find a solution to this problem.” In this way, you find out what creates frustrations with your customer and which solutions they have tried so far
“What did you search for on Google?”
You can gain insight into keywords that your customers use in their search on a solution. It can help you work with your content and use the same keywords. After the initial open question, you can start to take more concrete action. Here you can for example asking about factors such as price and service.
“Why did you choose option A?”
“Why did you NOT choose option B?
Create brilliant content
Well, you are now in a situation where you would like to have in-depth knowledge of the problems your target group faces. You can use this knowledge to create relevant and value-creating content. You have to answer their questions.
The quality of your content is a crucial element in your inbound marketing strategy. If you create bland, self-centered content, you will never be successful, no matter how good you are at search engine optimization (SEO) and design. The best content is that which creates value for the customer and meets her exactly where she is in her customer journey.
If you manage to tailor your content to the different stages of the customer journey, you’ve already come a long way. However, there are also other and more concrete techniques that can make your content stand out from the crowd.
4) Start with a great headline
The headline is the most important element of your content. Without a good headline, no one will want to click and read your content.
Therefore, you should also spend time coming up with a captivating headline, that appeals to your target audience. Here it can be a good f if at include a negative aspect in your headline. Here you get three examples, which you can use as headings for your blog posts.
- Here are 7 mistakes you absolutely mustn’t make when buying a car
- Are you making these 5 mistakes when filing your tax return?
- If you don’t invest in wind turbines now, you will regret it later
Rules to remember for your headlines:
- Use numbers
- Ask a question
- Reflect the value in the blog post
- Be precise
5) Include visual elements in your content
You probably know it well. When you read an article that only consists of one long piece of text, you can go a little dead in it. So do your customers. Therefore, it can be an excellent idea to supplement your text with visual elements such as pictures, diagrams and graphs.
According to Hubspot, blog posts that contain images have an engagement rate that is 650% higher than blog posts without images. You can also add videos and other things that make your content more interactive and attractive. Videos also make your visitors stay longer on your page and this strengthens your website in relation to your position on Google.
6) Write long and well-researched blog posts
Instead of writing many short blog posts, you should focus on writing fewer in-depth posts based on extensive research.
This advice doesn’t just apply to blog posts, but to any content you produce, whether it’s a video, e-book or podcast. However, since blog posts are the most effective content for generating leads, this is where you should put your focus.
According to the digital marketing agency SevenAtoms, companies get who blog 97% more leads than companies who do not. In terms of length, we recommend that you write posts of around 2100 – 2400 words, which you support with ample amounts of data. Source: HubSpot.
Relevant and well-researched blog posts are not only great for your SEO ranking, but also for your customers.
Your blog posts should preferably link to one of your service pages or product pages that the blog relates to. You are also welcome to link to sources. It creates credibility with the reader and Google’s machine.
Most importantly, they must answer the questions that your customer may have in their buying journey. You should also link the blog post with a content offer that the visitor can download, e.g. an e-book.
We recommend that you create a link to the landing page at the beginning and end of the blog post.
7) Include stories in your posts
Even if your blog posts are based on a solid data base, they don’t have to be dry and academic. In fact, you should strive for the opposite. By centering your articles around an action or story, you get your readers’ full attention.
Here, of course, it makes the most sense to use a story that relates to your product or your company.
Get started writing guest posts
Come out and live online. Take advantage of the fact that other relevant websites have built up strong traffic. Write guest posts on other blogs. It’s an easy way to generate traffic and get links to your own website. And to get a mouthpiece for your target group in addition to your own website.
It helps you establish yourself as an expert in your field,while building an invaluable network of key people in your industry. And it is worth its weight in gold for your link building, as it ensures you high-quality inbound links.
Unfortunately, there are many who have a wrong approach to guest blogging, and therefore does not succeed in it.
8) Write guest posts at regular intervals
When it comes to guest posting success, the most important piece of advice is: be consistent. It’s no use writing five guest posts in a month, then taking a break for a year.
Make a plan for how often you want to guest blog. Also make sure dedicating enough time to write a proper blog post. You can use guest posts to profile those employees as experts in their field and at the same time get more attention for your company and position as a knowledge leader.
9) Find blogs with engaged readers
There is no doubt that it takes time to create a good blog post. That is why it is also important that you are paid for your time. Here we are talking not about payment in dollars and cents, but rather payment in kind of new leads and increased traffic on your website.
The way to ensure you get paid appropriately is to spend time finding the blogs where you get the best ROI (Return On Investment). You will typically do this on blogs with engaged readers, as diligently commenting on the posts. Indeed, these readers will be inclined to visit your website, and maybe buy your product or service.
A good piece of advice is to find industry magazines/websites and be a regular guest blogger on a topic.
Here’s how to do it in a practical way:
- Make a list of relevant websites and blogs that have something to do with your own target audience.
- You can do that in excel. Here you can also fill in additional information for each website.
- Which contact person is it?
- What topics have you written about, when was the last time you wrote a guest post there?
That way, you can start to systematize guest posts and your work to ensure continuous guest blogging.
Optimize your position in the search engines
To be successful with your website and inbound strategy, it is essential that you have a good understanding of search engine optimization (SEO). Google
is your friend and sometimes also your enemy. As mentioned, inbound is about answering questions and they are asked on Google. Make sure your answer is at the top.
Here, there are two things in particular that you must be aware of when working with: on-page keywords and backlinks.
We go in depth with these in the next two points.
10) Focus on your keywords
Good SEO is about ensuring that you get the most out of the traffic that comes in from the search engines.
You do this by optimizing each piece of content (e.g. a blog post) with the right keyword. Before you write your blog post, you therefore carry out a keyword analysis, where you find the keyword you would like to rank for in the search engines.
Then you make sure to incorporate the keyword naturally into your text. You must therefore avoid “keyword stuffing”, where you overstuff your text with the keyword.
A good SEO strategy is linked to your inbound strategy.
11) Build backlinks by promoting content
Links from other websites (backlinks) have a great influence on your position in the search engines. Here it is important to emphasize that a link is not just a link. As with so many things, link building is about quality over quantity. In this context, quality equals relevance.
The figure below illustrates very well what good link building looks like.
It therefore does not provide much SEO value that 100 different pages link to your website if these pages have no relevance to your company and your products.
In order to get the good links, you will therefore need to promote your great content to relevant key people in your industry.
To succeed in this requires you to think outside the box and beyond your existing target audience.
For example, as a marketing agency write a guide to finding a job as a newly qualified marketing graduate. This guide universities, student organizations, unions and marketing industry websites would start linking to.
They all have a high domain authority in Google’s eyes and this will therefore rub off on our website because they link to our guide.
Get more leads with free content
To convert the people who visit your website into hot leads, you need to use their email. The most effective way to get hold of it is by giving away valuable content for free.
A relevant point here is that people on average in a B2B context read 11.4 pieces of content before making their purchase decision.
By providing content that answers the customer’s questions, you can ensure that it is you, and not your competitors, that your customers are going to. Remember to contact them when they need to buy a solution.
12) Create a free report or e-book
There are many different formats to build your content in. eBooks, blogs, reports, graphics, webinars, videos, comparisons, etc.
One of the most frequently used formats is the e-book or white paper. This is especially relevant if you work in the B2B industry or if you are targeting people who prefer to do a lot of research before making a purchase or they are in a complex buying journey.
Creating a report or an eBook is a great way to get leads or move them further down the sales funnel.
People are often willing to give up their email and other personal information if they get something of similar value in return.
The problem with a report or e-book can be that there are many people who download it without reading it. Therefore, it may be a good idea to try with a different type of content (see the next two points).
Let’s take a (meta) example:
- If you have downloaded an e-book, have you just gave up your e-mail.
- You probably did that because you judged the e-book to be worth more than your email (and of course we agree with your assessment).
13) Create a webinar
Another brilliant strategy in the acquisition of leads is the setting up of a webinar, where your visitors can learn something from you in real time.
With a webinar, you create a relationship with your potential customers, who get to meet you and get to know you better. The good thing about a webinar is that you have an interaction with your lead for as long as the webinar lasts.
It is concrete and you can answer any questions along the way. You are in much more control than with an e-book, for example.
A webinar is typically a more effective method of generating leads than a report or e-book because many people prefer visual learning. If the purpose of the webinar is to obtain new leads, then you must remember to have a broad topic that many can benefit from.
A webinar is also a good format for moving leads further down the line the buying funnel. You get the opportunity to go in depth with a subject and explain a specific problem.
However, you must bear in mind that a webinar can be somewhat more time-consuming to set up. You have to find a speaker and possibly other participants, prepare a presentation and generally be very “on”.
Good tips: Keep the webinar to one hour, make sure to engage your participants along the way with polls and opinion polls. Also make sure that have a good microphone and camera for your webinar setup.
One of the Best Webinar Software for Creators and Coaches is WebinarNinja.
14) Start an e-mail course
The last thing you can do to generate leads is to initiate an email course. An email course is a series of emails where you educate your readers on a given topic.
This method is undoubtedly less time-consuming than the previous two, as it does not require the same in-depth research as an e-book, or the same software know-how as a webinar. An email course is a simple way to give your customers more value without having to devote a lot of time.
If you’ve already created an e-book that isn’t converting as well as you’d hoped, you might want to break it up into smaller pieces of content. These smaller pieces of content can then make it to your email course.
Launch an influencer marketing campaign
One of the best ways to succeed with inbound marketing is to get others to market you and your business.
It is therefore important to create a relationship with influencers who can be help spread your message.
An influencer is typically a popular individual or expert who has a large reach in terms of many readers on their blog or followers on their Instagram or YouTube channel.
If you use influencers in the right way, it not only creates value for you, but also for the influencer.
15) Find the right influencers
The first and most difficult thing about influencer marketing is finding them real influencers in relation to your target group.
This is where it goes wrong for many companies who misjudge which influencers their target audience listens to.
A good place to start is the target audience analysis we presented at the beginning of this blog post. Here you can go back and look at your target group’s needs, and thus get a better idea of which influencers are relevant to them.
To help you, you can also use a tool like Buzzsumo, where you can see who shares the content that your target group finds interesting.
16) Establish a relationship with relevant influencers
Once you’ve identified the relevant influencers for your product or business, it’s time to build a relationship with them.
Here it is important that you do not start out by spamming them with requests to share your content or promote your product. It just makes them irritated, and irritation has never been a good basis for building a relationship.
Instead, you should prepare yourself for the fact that it can take time to create a relationship and that it requires a lot of effort on your part. You can start by investigating whether there is anything you would be able to help them with. Also, be sure to link to their content whenever you can.
Of course, it can seem frustrating that in the beginning it is only you who gives and gives.
But as you strengthen the relationship, you can also allow yourself and ask them for something. And because they have greatly appreciated your help, they will be more than willing to help you as well.
Build effective email campaigns
Email marketing is an essential element of your inbound marketing strategy.
Email is one of the marketing channels that gives you the biggest ROI. For every dollar you invest, you get 44 dollars back. 44!
But to be successful with email marketing, it requires you to think strategically when promoting your brand. And when you need to help your leads to make a purchase decision.
17) Send useful content to your readers
The most important thing to be aware of when it comes to email marketing, is that it should be worthwhile for your readers to be signed up for your newsletter or submit their email when they download yours contents.
If you spam them with bland content and tired offers, there is a high probability that they will unsubscribe from your newsletter. And then you may never see them again.
But if you instead spend time creating relevant content there helps your customers, they will love reading your newsletters.
If you can get your customers to look forward to your next newsletter, you have come a long way. However, you must remember to send out a newsletter regularly,
so that your customers don’t forget who you are.
Remember, there are plenty of tools that can automate your newsletters. Then you don’t have to sit every week and try to figure out what to write about.
Instead, you have automated your emails and written them in advance. Of course with room to send a spontaneous newsletter the automation.
Mail systems:
MailChimp (2/5) – Okay for manual broadcasting, but lags behind on the automation part.
Active Campaign (3/5) – The best of the cheapest. It can give you automation and you can keep a fair amount of track of your contacts.
HubSpot (5/5) – Can send manually, automatically and has very good control over contact data and behaviour.
18) Have a long-term strategy for your email marketing
Patience is an important component of good email marketing. By that we mean that when a new person signs up, don’t start off by talking about your product and its positive features.
Instead, set up an automatic flow of 5-6 emails, where you quietly and calmly introduce the new reader to what you have to offer.
Start with a few emails where you provide value to your new reader via relevant content – preferably based on the content offer they have downloaded. Then follow up with a few emails where you use relevant customer cases to highlight your company as competent and reliable.
In the last e-mails, you focus on converting the reader and moving them closer to a purchase decision by focusing on your product or service.
You also need to consider the time interval in your email flow. Should your new reader receive an email a day or every other week? We recommend a time interval of between 3 and 5 days. But test yourself and have a look the data, what works best.
Setting up an e-mail flow obviously requires a fair amount of work, but believe us, it pays off. According to Invesp, it is falling average cost per lead namely with 80% after five months.
Get your website to convert
By far the most important goal of inbound marketing is to create increased traffic on your website.
But if your website fails to convert visitors into customers, what’s the point?
Conversion is the key to inbound marketing, which is why you should spend time optimizing for conversion.
It’s the only way to make sure you get something out of that traffic, you have worked so hard to obtain.
19) Optimize your website for mobiles
One of the most important things you can do to get the conversions you deserve is to make your website easily accessible on mobile.
More and more people are using mobile phones to access websites, which is why it is extremely important that your website has a responsive design.
20) Install a tool that can collect leads
You must take advantage of the fact that you have now built a strong website that gets relevant traffic because you answer the right questions.
You do this by converting them into leads when they visit. You have written a good E-book that many of your visitors can get something valuable out of reading.
Use some powerful tools to turn traffic into leads. As previously mentioned, you do this by collecting your lead’s email.
Here are a few programs you can use for the practical collection:
WordPress forms can be easily integrated into the usual CRM systems and forward the information that is collected.
If you use HubSpot, you can use their forms that are directly connected to HubSpot CRM. This means that your leads come directly into the CRM and can be processed by your salespeople immediately without the use of integrations.
Sleeknote is probably one of the best platforms to collect leads through pop-up forms and can also be embedded.
Collection
If you didn’t know before, you do now.
- Inbound marketing is the best method to get more visitors, leads and not least customers.
- First, you must learn to understand your target group’s needs, ambitions and challenges.
- You use that knowledge to create unique content that draws visitors to your website.
- Next, consolidate your role as an expert by promoting your content to relevant influencers.
- At the same time, you ensure that you spend time on SEO, so that your customers can find you in the search engines.
- Once you have generated a lot of traffic on your website, you will start converting the visitors into leads via free content.
- Finally, you close the sale with the help of e-mail marketing and your conversion-optimized website.
- You are now ready to use inbound marketing to create skyrocketing growth in your business. influencers.
Checklist
Find your target group
- Use analytics data from Facebook
- Make a questionnaire survey
- Conduct in-depth interviews
Create brilliant content
- Start with a great headline
- Make a questionnaire survey
- Conduct in-depth interviews
- Include stories in your posts
Get started writing guest posts
- Write guest posts at regular intervals
- Find blogs with engaged readers
Optimize your position in the search engines
- Focus on your keywords
- Build backlinks by promoting content
Get more leads with free content
- Create a free report or e-book
- Create a webinar
- Start an email course
Launch an influencer marketing campaign
- Find the right influencers
- Establish a strong relationship
Build effective email campaigns
- Hit your readers with useful content
- Think long term with your email marketing
Get your website to convert
- Optimize your website for mobiles
- Install the Hello Bar tool
- Update your best content
- Test and refine your strategies
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