If you want to use inbound marketing to educate your buyers and promote your brand, you are thinking correctly.
The internet and the mobile revolution have made it easier for consumers to find solutions to their problems, compare their options and make purchasing decisions. Inbound marketing is meeting your prospects where they are and joining the conversation they are likely already having.
Overall, this approach is successful if you’re willing to put in the time, energy, and resources required to make it happen. Inbound marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s not for everyone. If your company is not looking for immediate results, it may be for you. If you only rely on one strategy, it shouldn’t be the only one.
1. What are your goals?
What high-level goals are you most eager to achieve? Boosting engagement and brand awareness? Increasing the number of qualified leads? Improving the close rates of your sales team?
If you want to increase the number of qualified leads, you need to focus on generating high-quality content. Look at how many qualified leads you’ve gotten in the past month and set a realistic goal for how many you want to get in the next month.
2. How do you see inbound fitting into your goals?
Now that you have considered what your goals are, think about what is lacking in your marketing plan that is preventing you from achieving those goals.
Do prospects have a hard time finding your website? Does google analytics data show high bounce rates, meaning that people are arriving there and then leaving after a few seconds? It can be difficult to close the loop between marketing and sales when it comes to determining who should be considered a qualified lead.
The first step to improving your sales and marketing is understanding your challenges. The second step is to see how the inbound methodology can help you address those challenges.
3. What is your timing?
Inbound marketing takes time to produce results and is not a quick solution. If you are not interested in long-term results and only need a quick boost in sales, this is not the right plan for you.
It typically takes at least six months to a year to see a return on investment in inbound marketing when clients ask us. Some people see quick results from their first advertising campaign, but most people are not yet ready to launch a full campaign. Many companies need to start by redesigning their website so that it is optimized for search engines, qualifying prospects, and converting them to leads. They also lack content that would allow them to speak to prospects at every stage of the buyer’s journey, from their initial search for answers to the point at which they are comparing your product or service to other solutions.
4. What is your budget?
Do not expect results immediately, or treat inbound marketing as a test with a small budget.
The initial increase in traffic you see from an email blast or promoted resource will likely decrease after a month or two.
A manufacturing company that launched a blog and created a new resource center specifically for engineers is a good example. Engineers are the primary buyer for this company. After redesigning its website, the company started promoting its new resources through regular email campaigns. It took some time, but the gradually increasing number of connections made through organic and direct sources of traffic are proof of this being a successful strategy.
If a few thousand dollars is not a realistic budget, what is a realistic budget? What someone needs in order to be successful depends on their goals and how much they are willing to put into it. In order to see similar results to what this company achieved, you will need to have a regular supply of content that is interesting and relevant to your potential customers, and which is teaching them about your products. If your team is not able to write, design, or distribute resources, partnering with an inbound marketing agency can help you get the same resources for a much lower cost.
Comparing your company’s performance to others in your industry can help you set a reasonable and achievable budget. The average budget for digital marketing in 2014 was about 2.5 percent of a company’s total revenue, according to Gartner and this is still a good working figure. This does not include other marketing strategies such as traditional advertising, events, and public relations, which are typically 3.5% of total revenue. When all these elements work together, your company will get the most value for its money.
5. Do your sales and marketing teams communicate regularly and have shared goals?
If sales and marketing are not aligned, inbound marketing efforts will not be successful. If neither team is invested in the relationship, it will be very difficult to maintain momentum.
If your teams tend to work in silos, having a few “champions” from sales involved in the conversation early on, before you start, will help.
6. Do you focus on particular industries?
- Do you have experience running campaigns in my industry?
- If yes, do you have any relevant case studies?
You should ensure that your agency has the appropriate industry knowledge to effectively execute an inbound strategy, as well as ideally having previous experience working in that sector. If they do, this could work to your benefit. If they are knowledgeable about your sector, they should also be aware of what is effective and what is not for your target audience.
You should seek an agency for their inbound marketing expertise, not for their knowledge about your specific field. If you’re interviewing someone for a marketing position, you might want to ask them how they would go about creating a campaign for a business like yours. This will give you some insight into their thought process and whether or not they have the ability to think strategically.
7. What inbound marketing tactics should we use?
Inbound marketers have access to several strategies, such as blogging, PPC, landing pages, and email automation. The right tactics will depend on a number of factors, including:
- Your main objective
- Your target audience
- The industry you’re in
- Whether you are a B2B or B2C company
- How soon you want to see results
The inbound methodology has different stages, and each stage requires different tactics. While some inbound marketing tactics may be universally beneficial, others may not be as appropriate for every business. For example, referral programs could be very effective for some companies, while others may not find them as useful. What would be an appropriate agency for you to ask?
8. What does the timeline look like for our inbound strategy?
When implementing your inbound marketing strategy, it is important to find out what the different elements will be and how they will look over the next few months. Knowing what to expect will help you gauge progress.
A timeline will give you an idea of when things will be completed and help keep you calm as well as give the agency a reference. You won’t need to chase for updates on the work being done once a timeline has been agreed upon.
9. How soon can we start seeing results?
If an agency is not reputable, they may promise more than they can deliver to get you to work with them. It is important to be aware of the results you can achieve and when you can expect to see them. Six to nine months is a reasonable amount of time to start seeing notable progress. Inbound marketing is not a quick fix, so be wary of promises that you’ll see results quickly, such as being ranked on the first page of Google.
Inbound marketing is an approach that focuses on creating campaigns that will last over time and support your marketing and sales efforts effectively. This approach is designed to deliver results that continue over time.
10. Who on your team would we be working with?
Who is in charge of different aspects of your campaign and how many points of contact will you have?
It is essential to get to know the team you will be working with. If you would like to communicate with your account manager, let them know. As a member of your team, they will consider your preference for phone calls, emails, or regular face-to-face meetings.
11. Do you do everything in-house, or do you outsource certain tasks?
Even though many agencies rely on outsourcing, don’t be discouraged if they do. As long as the freelancers or consultants working for the agency are just as skilled and well integrated into the agency’s processes, it shouldn’t be a problem.
If a company outsources certain tasks, you can ask if this will have any impact on the delivery of your campaigns, or on communication if the agency has to act as a middleman. Inbound marketing is conducted online, so freelancers should be responsive, but you may want to check this during your assessment.
12. To what extent will my team be involved?
- What is expected of my team?
- How much of their time will this take up?
Your team will probably be involved in some way. Do you want to be very involved and work with an inbound agency? You might want the agency to give your team as little work as possible. An agency should be able to cater to your preferences, but you should ask them how much time you will need to invest.
13. What do you need from us to begin the work?
If you’ve found an agency that you think is a good fit for your business, ask them what you can do to help get the work started quickly. This means things like setting up analytics software and sharing existing content assets. The quicker they can start working, the sooner you can expect to see some results.
14. How do you improve existing campaigns?
- How long will you let a campaign run before you review it?
- What results are you looking for to deem it a success?
- What trigger will alert you that a campaign needs improving?
An inbound marketing agency should be able to not only set up campaigns, but also improve them over time. Not every campaign is going to be successful, and sometimes changes need to be made. So ask how the agency improves results mid-campaign?
15. How do you analyse, track and report?
You need to be able to analyze your efforts to see if they are successful. An agency should ask you about your ideas of success for your business during your consultation. You can learn what to expect from your campaigns by asking people who are already working on similar campaigns. You might also discover new ways to track your progress.
After you have decided on what goals you want to achieve, you need to be aware of when you will get progress reports and what information will be included in them. This will help you see the progress of your inbound campaigns and allow you to share this insight within your business.
You can better understand the agency’s priorities by knowing how often they produce reports and what information those reports include. If you are unsure about what the data in the report means for your company, or the report seems like it has a lot of data, just ask for clarification. A partner agency should help you understand what the data means.
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