A successful inbound marketing strategy requires communications that are crafted with the intent to grow your flywheel. It’s an easy concept to get excited about – whose lizard brain doesn’t tingle when you talk about business growth? And, get this, it’s also fairly easy to put into practice. If you’re not sure if you’re connecting to your public in an inbound or outbound style, we’re sharing the three elements to include in each of your messages.
Helpful: This piece is essential. Stop talking just to talk – you will not be heard. If you’re producing content simply because you think you’re supposed to, then you’re not truly utilizing inbound marketing. Every message you share should be filling a need; a need your prospects, leads, and customers have. Consider the journey your personas take before discovering, talking to, and finally choosing you. What common questions accompany each stage? Use these cues to help you focus and craft messages that your prospects, leads, and customers will find helpful.
Engaging: This element can seem intimidating. Of course you’re hoping the reader of your content chooses to engage with what your sharing! But how can you be sure? When we talk about engagement from an inbound marketing perspective, we aren’t striving for social media likes and shares. What we mean is crafting consistent messages that keep moving your prospects along the buyer journey, with the ultimate goal of converting them into customers.
One foolproof way is to make the content more about them than about you. This isn’t the time to use a hard-close selling tactic. Use this time to address their concerns and infuse that information with your company’s personality. Secondly, incorporate a call-to-action. It could be a resource download, a special offer, or even a way to subscribe to future newsletters and blog posts. By capturing some information about the person reading your message, you’ll be able to warm up that lead and be able to keep delighting them throughout their journey.
Tailored: Except, at adWhite, we like to think of it as Taylor’d, because he is HubSpot’s and Inbound Marketing’s biggest supporter. I’ve alluded to it a few times already, but each piece of communication you publish should be intentionally appealing to at least one buyer persona and at a specific part of their journey. Full disclosure, I was thinking about our ‘Marketing Mary’ persona during her Awareness stage when I wrote this blog. By thinking about the purpose of your blogs, emails, or other marketing messages you’ll be more likely to gain a following and to avoid being one note.
If you take the time to apply helpful, engaging, tailored content to your inbound strategy, you’ll amplify your efforts. You’ll be working the program to its fullest potential. If you like the idea, but need a little guidance on how to proceed, send us a note and let's connect, we’ll be happy to share more tips.