10 simple tips to apply to think outside the box and go beyond Inbound Marketing

[muskanhossain66]

This phrase echoed in my mind as soon as I started working with Inbound Marketing.

A big challenge became clear to me: how could I get the attention of creative professionals accustomed to creating great scripts and winning awards at Cannes, that a blog post of a thousand words should be a priority over this script?

Planning is not easy, that's obvious, but it's also just the beginning of your Inbound Marketing strategy.

You have defined Persona, done good Benchmarking, developed editorial content line, set goals, deadlines and all of this will lead to the construction of an online customer acquisition machine.

But your job as a planner and manager of an Inbound project should NEVER end with planning .

You need to keep a close eye on it or you will realize one student database day that one of the infographics you planned has become an eBook with a completely different theme. Yes, that happened to me lol.

On the other hand, following up is still the least you should do.

Focus your efforts on one thing: going beyond Inbound .

Simply creating posts, eBooks, landing pages and email flows will generate results.

But what really makes the difference?

What will make your strategy really stand out?

According to Hubspot's State of Inbound 2016 , content consumption on Facebook has grown by 57% in recent years.

On the other hand, more than 61% of companies already use Blogs to distribute content, according to Content Trends , by Rock Content.

If so many people are reading and producing content, how will yours be different?

I have put together 10 simple tips on how you can look at your Inbound strategy and go further, enjoy:

Use remarketing to your advantage, and to your customer’s advantage too.
It's really annoying to be chased by a banner sneaker , I know.

I'm not telling you to put up a bunch of banners with your product to follow whoever enters your website, but rather to segment your remarketing, creating what I like to call a Learning Cascade .

Evaluate your website pages, your landing pages and think: “ Why didn’t these people convert while they were here? ”, that’s where you will act.

Many times people are not ready to convert yet, but that doesn't mean they won't one day.

Today, if you have a well-aligned strategy (and even luck), 15% of your visitors will convert, but if you do good content remarketing (yes, offer relevant content to this persona), another 15% will become leads.

Read also: Smarketing: What it is, how to use it and benefits
Let's go even further: do personalized remarketing for that missing 70%, deliver something exclusive to them and see that in the end you can reach almost 50% conversion on the original number of visitors .

Let me give you an example: I came across a blog about digital marketing with an interest in learning more about SEO. I read a blog post and left the site.

The next day, I was impacted by an exclusive survey with 10 things that every SEO professional needs to know for the future.

I entered the page, but I didn't convert.

The other day, I was impacted by a remarketing campaign offering a basic SEO course for half the price.

Do you understand now?

Enjoy your thank you page.
Few professionals even look at a thank you page. Some don’t even create one.

It is extremely important to use a Thank You Page.

It makes it easier to evaluate conversions in Google Analytics and also creates a flow for the lead to follow and understand that they have, in fact, become a lead.

What even fewer professionals do is take advantage of this page to advance the lead in the purchasing journey .

I'll give you a simple example: If you download an eBook about good email marketing practices, you're probably a top-of-funnel lead starting to learn about the world of digital marketing.

On the thank you page you will receive a link to your content and right below a call to download an eBook on Email Automation Flows, that is, a step forward in your learning.

This can happen with your product too.

Let's say you offer an eBook on advanced digital marketing explaining how to plan and everything.

Why not offer a course on your thank you page?

Optimize the website as a capture channel.
I know how exciting it is to have a plan in front of you to do. And how do I know lol.

What few professionals forget and go straight to editorial lines and automation flows is that often the current offer that your client has, that is, the website, can be an incredible source of traffic and conversion.

Another example: Have you noticed how most contact page forms have a “Subject” field?

Trust me, remove this field and watch your conversions increase by up to 50%!

But be careful with assumptions! That's why I suggest that on day 1 of your strategy you install Google Optimize, an incredible and free tool from Google for carrying out AB testing.

Also read: X (Twitter) partners with Google Ad Manager
This way, you will find the perfect points to improve on your website and ensure the best results.

Take the best pages on your site and work on them.
Which pages should you optimize?

Before you run off and look at the site and look for improvements that you usually make, look at the data.

ALWAYS look for improvements using Google Analytics data , not the website itself.

Do it like this:

Access Google Analytics;
Click on Behavior;
Select Site Content;
Click on All Pages;
You have the list of the most visited pages on the website;
Create a comparison, for example: May X April;
Analyze bounce rates and unique visits;
Pages with the highest bounce rates should be your priority for now.
AB Testing: Be (very) bold.
This tip is probably the shortest: test everything .

But, everything really.

I'll give you an example that happened to me:

One of my clients had a monthly newsletter with a really nice layout.

One day, I decided to send the same content without a layout, just with text and links to the Call to Actions.

Email click-through rate went from 1.29% to 6.38% . Pretty crazy, right?

Align your Inbound communication with the sales team.
You know that communications professional that comes to mind? The “rock'n roll” one? He's becoming extinct.

You need to think inside your client with a manager's mind or you will most likely fail.

Therefore, your Inbound work should NEVER stop at Marketing .

And one of the ways to do this is to align with the sales team.

Aligning your strategy can be broken down into a few simple steps:

Explain the concepts and purpose of Inbound in the company;
Show how the customer acquisition machine works;
Show how leads will arrive, what information they will have and teach them how to approach this audience;
Create a Pre-Sales and Feedback mindset within your team , as nothing is more valuable than knowing why you are not selling.
Use the strength of your cases to sell.
“See how a broker managed to double his revenue in 3 months”.

If you were a real estate agent too, I bet you would click on this article and read the whole thing (assuming you also want to improve your revenue).

It turns out that this could be a post made on a portal relevant to the persona and could be linked to a company that has Sales Management Software.

Read also: E-commerce Marketing: Strategies to Increase Online Sales
Do you understand what I'm saying?

After reading the full case study, you would discover that technology software made all the difference for this person, and at the end, you will see a Call to Action inviting you to use the Freemium version of the software.

Would you click? I would.

Social Media: Ask your audience what they want.
I talked about this in another blog post , but it's worth reiterating.

If you get stuck in your content production, in your “insights”, ask your audience what they want to hear .

You can follow these steps:

Make a post asking what they do to solve their problems or even what kind of problems they face in their daily lives. People love to talk about their problems;
See what your audience is talking about on Twitter, just search for your keyword.