Inbound Marketing Plan: Key Points

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Inbound marketing requires more than just being a “maintenance expert” – you need to be a professional in dozens of very specific skills: content writing, search engine optimization, social media, web design, conversion rate optimization, PPC, email marketing… the list goes on.

Often, when we discuss inbound marketing strategies with industry experts, the conversation usually turns into a discussion about how to create a marketing plan: how to prioritize, what to do, what not to do, what works best for each business model, or how to implement the right tools to facilitate lead generation. Whether you are just starting to build your company or are simply looking for new actions to improve your marketing strategy, a solid plan can make all the difference when it comes to achieving exponential growth.

Following this guide will help you implement the right Inbound Marketing plan for buy democratic donor email database list your company, prioritize each aspect of your strategy and focus on what gets the best results.

1. Profile your buyer persona
I have repeated this ad nauseum but it never hurts to remember it once more.

Buyer personas are the fundamental pillar of the entire Inbound methodology. Understanding exactly who we are targeting, what drives them to “click” and how to communicate with them will help us create the perfect message that truly impacts our ideal client.

For those who are still not familiar with the term buyer persona, I will tell you that they are the fictitious representations of our ideal client. In fact, within your market share there will be different profiles and each profile has different interests, priorities and objectives. It is essential to dedicate time to defining buyer personas as this will help us focus on creating content that most interests and attracts them.

2. Define your marketing triggers
Once you’ve identified who your buyer personas are and what makes their “world go round,” the next step is to identify the events and strengths (and weaknesses) that make them seek out more information about your product, service or industry. Trigger-based marketing aims to meet potential customers at a specific point of need with a reactive and personal message, rather than sending arbitrary messages aimed at large audiences.

Let's take as an example a company that sells office furniture. This type of furniture is often purchased when companies experience growth, or relocate, when they are renovating their facilities, or simply because their furniture has become old or obsolete.

Companies that are experiencing some of these circumstances will likely be looking online. That's when the purchasing decision moment occurs and that's when you need to provide your potential customer with a top-of-funnel offer that tells them about you and the products that can solve their problem.

3. Create a list of Keywords
Now that you know your buyer personas and the reasons that lead them to search for information, the next step is to find out how they search for information about your product or service.

Keyword research allows you to find out the estimated search volume by location, how difficult it is to rank for that keyword (i.e. the competition) and estimate the PPC (pay per click). When creating a keyword list try to choose terms that have relatively high search volumes and medium/low competition. Google's Keyword Planner is a great tool to quickly generate a list of relevant keywords and also identifies search terms that are at their optimal level of competition and search volume.

4. Define your Inbound Marketing objectives
The first step to be able to measure the ROI of your activity is to identify what your objectives are and when you expect to achieve them, always using the SMART criteria that we have already talked about before, that is, they must be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and framed within a period of time.

To set these goals, start by analyzing how much traffic your website currently has, your conversion rate, and how many sales you have closed. Some of the KPIs you should include are: monthly unique visitors, number of leads per month, traffic sources (PPC, SEO, blogging, social media, email, etc.)

5. Content strategy
We already talked about this topic in the post How to develop a content strategy , but let's review some key points.

If we analyze the funnel within an Inbound Marketing strategy we will see that normally and showing it in a simple way, it is divided into 3 phases:

funnel
Top-of-funnel (TOFU)

Leads at the top of the funnel are usually looking for general information about a specific product or service. They are in the Awareness phase. The goal of your content at this phase is to attract as many visitors as possible to later convert them into leads. Social media, blog posts, or infographics are some examples of content you could use.

Middle-of-funnel (MOFU)

Leads in this part of the funnel need to know who you are and what kind of services/products you can offer them to help them solve their problem/need. These leads are in the evaluation phase and to attract them, the type of content that would help you would be, for example, webinars, success stories or catalogues.

Bottom-of-funnel (BOFU)

These leads are the ones who are closest to the sale, those who are in their decision phase. Normally, what they are looking for is information that shows them exactly the features and benefits of your product/service. These users usually need “a little bait” to end up making the sale, that is where you can offer them content such as discounts, free samples, offers, etc.

If you have fantastic content at the top of the funnel but then have nothing to offer as they move down to the bottom of the funnel, I assure you that you will not get great results, so I recommend that you spend time getting to know the questions, problems, needs, etc. that each of your buyer personas has at the 3 stages of the funnel. This will help you to take shape with your strategy.