YOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGY [TEMPLATE] - Inbox Insight

YOUR INBOUNDMARKETINGSTRATEGY[TEMPLATE]w w w. i n b o x i n s i g h t . c o m

Inbound marketing can provide great benefits to businesses able to implement a fully comprehensive and integrated strategy. While outboundstrategies work on disrupting the audience with ads, inbound marketing focuses more on building brand connections, developing a loyalaudience and providing useful, relevant information when they need it most.This means there are numerous components required to create a smooth-running, successful strategy that delivers results. To help you getthis right, we’ve created this strategy template to help you iron out each stage of the strategy-planning process.Step 1: Assess your current strategyBefore you can begin planning your new strategy, you need to first take stock of what you’re currently doing and how well that’s working. You can dothis with three easy steps:1. Look at your current marketing assets and work out what you currently have and what you’re optimizing. You can use the table below to helpwith this. (We’ve filled out the first example for you.)Name of asset:Your ABM Strategy in 7Simple Steps [Workbook]Currently available?Is it beingoptimized?Notes2New launch campaign hasstartedYOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.com

2. Look at how much is currently being spent on outbound techniques and how much you can/should allocate to inbound.3. Look at current campaigns and work out what’s doing well and what isn’t:Campaign nameABM marketingWhat’s working?Unique pieces of contentfor different ability levelsServing ads to wideWhat’s not working? audiences3YOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.com

Step 2: Learn basic inbound tactics and techniquesIf you’ve only ever worked with outbound techniques, then it’s going to be important for you and your team to learn about key inbound tactics.Take a look at the below. Spend some time researching each technique, and when you’re ready, write how you’re going to use it.Create well-thought out blogs to help solveBLOGGINGcustomer pain points, build awareness of ourbrand, and establish authorityShare the content we create to our socialSOCIALMEDIA POSTSaudiences for visibility, this will help boostawareness and drive traffic back to the siteADVANCEDCONTENTCREATION4Create research reports to demonstrate thoughtleadership and add value using first-party data foradded valueYOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.com

Create video testimonials to show brand value,VIDEOSand use videos to bring content to life and reachaudience through different mediumUse emails to maintain relationships with currentEMAILMARKETINGcustomers, provide offers and nurture themtoward conversionCreate automated workflows to help nurtureMARKETINGAUTOMATIONleads by offering additional value throughcontent/help/offersOptimize content to improve visibility in searchSEO5rankings and drive more traffic through to the siteYOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.com

Step 3: Create or outsource your teamYou’ll need:You can’t execute your strategy if you haven’t got the right people inyour team. Digital is fast-paced and ever-changing, so you’re going toneed digitally-savvy, talented experts on your team. Inbound marketing strategists Content creators and writers Social media coordinators Designers Web developers SEO managers and analystsUse the template below to build your t:.Department:.Department:.Role in the team:.Role in the team:.Role in the team:.Role in the team:.6YOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.com

partment:.Department:.Role in the team:.Role in the team:.Role in the team:.Role in the nt:.Department:.Department:.Role in the team:.Role in the team:.Role in the team:.Role in the nt:.Department:.Department:.Role in the team:.Role in the team:.Role in the team:.Role in the team:.7YOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.com

Step 4: Define your core marketing goalsFor your inbound marketing strategy to be a success, you need to know what you’re trying to achieve. To do this, it’s vital you set clear goals. Youneed to know what it is you’re trying to achieve and what this means for your brand in the long-term; how will this help the overall business?Use the SMART acronym to help craft the right goals:S SPECIFICWhat do you want toaccomplish?ExampleI want to increase thenumber of MQLs passed tothe Sales team by 25%.Goal 1Goal 2Goal 38YOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.comM MEASURABLEHow can you measureprogress?A ATTAINABLEHow are you going toreach this goal?We will track the number ofMQLs being passed over.We will improve theconversion rate of the websiteto 10% by optimizing landingpages and creating contentfor different buyer stages.R RELEVANTHow relevant is thisgoal to businessobjectives?T TIMELYWhen do you expect tocomplete this goal?Increasing the number ofMQLs will help support sales This goal should bein reaching their revenuecompleted by the end of Q3target for the year.

UserStep 5: Get to know yourtarget audienceIn order to action your goals, you now needto know WHO you’re targeting. It’s timeto build your buyers personas using keydemographics such as:Job Titles(e.g. Executives/Managers/ Shareholders/Directors/ Finance.etc.)Priorities(e.g. Efficiency/productivity/ cost/reduction.etc.) Job role Industry Company sizeInformation Needs Budget Priorities(e.g. Advice/ product/ info/cost/ analysis.etc.) Pain points Business objectivesUnfortunately, the B2B buying cycle iscomplex, which means there is almostalways more than one person involved inthe purchasing decision. Instead of focusingon one buyer persona at a time, you needto be more strategic in your approach andconsider the whole DMU (decision makingunit). This DMU persona builder will help:9YOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.comContent Preferences(e.g. Infographics/checklists/ analystreports.etc.)Channel Engagement(e.g. Social/ email/subscriptions/ display.etc.)What stages of the buyerdecision process do theyappear in?Out of 1-5, what’s theirinfluence on the buyingdecision?InitiatorInfluencerDecision MakerBuyer

Step 5: Get to know yourtarget audience [CONTINUED]Who do they want toimpress?What do they fear?BUYER PERSONA AContent Hook(directly informed byidentified pain points)Intent dictive oughtleadership etc)Primary Channels(email/social/third partyplatforms/events/blogs etc)Tone of Voice (ToV)10YOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.comBUYER PERSONA BBUYER PERSONA CBUYER PERSONA DBUYER PERSONA E

Step 6: Build an inbound marketing plan and scheduleIt’s now time to carve out your marketing plan. To do this, you’ll need the following: A carefully considered content schedule A social media calendar A lead generation and lead nurturing programUse this calendar for your content and social media schedule. It’s flexible, so you can add the dates in the top left.Monday11TuesdayYOUR INBOUND MARKETING ySaturdaySunday

Create yourself a lead nurture workflow using the diagram below. Obviously there will always be deviations from this workflow and a singleprospect may need to go through some of the processes more than once in order to move further down the funnel, but this is the most linear wayyou can map it out.For example:Website visitorrequests reportdownloadEmail is sentcontainingdownloadNow it’s your turn:12YOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.comFollow up emailis sent 1 weeklaterRemarketingis launchedacross differentplatformsIf action istaken, emailoffer for demo issentSales follow upwith callConversionhappens

Step 7: Optimize your websiteOne of the most important steps is ensuring your website is optimized. You need to consider usability, mobile responsiveness and how you capturedata, but most important is the SEO optimization of your pages and your content. To help get you started, list out your web pages, their currentmeta description if they have one, their new and improved meta description and their focus keywords. This will help you focus on how the page isperceived by search engines and will improve your rankings.PageHome13Title(max 60 characters)Inbox InsightYOUR INBOUND MARKETING mCurrent metadescriptionEMEA lead generationand content marketingcampaigns, helpingmarketing teams generatenew sales leads.New meta description(max 160 characters)Inbox Insight amplifycontent to a globalcommunity of 3.5M activebusiness professionals, atthe right time, in the rightwar, see what we do.KeywordsDemand generation,content amplification, B2B

Step 8: Constantly improve your contentYou need to work out how you’re going to keep your content fresh. This means staying abreast of current topics, going back and improving oldarticles, as well as repurposing existing content. You also need to reach different target audiences through different content formats to appealto different platforms and how people prefer to consume content. For example, time poor senior managers might be more likely to listen to awhitepaper repurposed into a podcast on the go, than sit down and read it from start to finish.Take a look at the different content formats below and tick which ones you think you could create from your existing content14Webinar (Live and On-Demand)Slideshare presentationTemplateVideoPodcastChecklistDisplay (banner)Digital radioBusiness caseInfographicAudiobookCase studyVirtual realityAnalyst reportVendor guideAnimationHow-to guideReviewSocial imageeBookInteractive PDFLookBookWorkbookNewsletterYOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.com

Now let’s plan how you’re going to repurpose specific pieces of content using the mind map below.We’ve given you an example to help get you started:RESEARCH:B2B Inbound MarketingInsight ReportINFOGRAPHIC:Inbound Marketing StatisticsYou Should KnowWORKBOOK:Your Inbound MarketingStrategy TemplateBLOG POST:Inbound Marketing Strategy:Which Tactics Should You Use?SLIDESHARE:Inbound Marketing StatisticsYou Should KnowCONTENT:REPURPOSE IDEA:REPURPOSE IDEA:15YOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.comREPURPOSE IDEA:REPURPOSE IDEA:

Step 9: Increase your audience reachIt’s now time to look at how you’re going to get your content in front of the right people. At this point, you can also start to leverage some outboundtechniques for a more hybrid approach.Techniques you should consider are: Guest posting on other sites for backlinks Boosted social media posts through audience targeting Online distribution via forums and communitiesDetail how you’re going to increase your audience reach and which techniques you’ll use to do so:16YOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.com

Step 10: Have a reporting system in placeThe final step is to start reporting on your results. Look back over your goals to determine which metrics are going to be important to you and findthe right tools to report on them, whether this is GA for website analytics or Hootsuite for social analytics. Identify which metrics are important toyou and go from there.GOALExampleI want to increase the number of MQLs passed tothe Sales team by 25%.Goal 1Goal 2Goal 317YOUR INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGYwww.inboxinsight.comIMPORTANT METRICSNumber of MQLs, website conversion rateTOOLSSalesforce, Google Analytics