While inbound marketing is designed to simplify your marketing efforts, beginners can still run into obstacles if they have not benefited from coaching or direction from an inbound expert.
For those with long careers in marketing, launching an inbound campaign is drastically different from your traditional marketing efforts. There may be a few things you don't know how to do, or you don't understand it, or maybe there are tools you are not aware of. But don’t worry, inbound is all about learning, growing and improving. Here are 7 signs you may need help with your inbound marketing.
You don’t have clearly defined buyer personas
Buyer personas provide incredible structure and insight for your business. If you haven’t clearly defined your ideal customer, you may come into a myriad of problems – such as determine how to best spend your time, what messaging to use, which platforms to focus on, and overall alignment across the organization. Buyer personas are key to attracting the right visitors, leads, and customers.
You are missing a blog
Blog posts equal new opportunities to generate more leads. Every time you write a new blog post, you add another indexed page to your website and a new opportunity to share content and drive traffic to your website. Remember that inbound marketing is about drawing visitors and potential customers in – and your blog is one of the best ways to attract, engage and delight.
You don’t have the resources to create content
According to the B2B Content Marketing Report, 62% of marketers are struggling with posting content at least once a week. If you’re a medium or small business, then you likely don’t have the resources to meet these content needs. You may want to consider hiring a content team that can focus on creating highly targeted, lead generating blogs, eBooks, social media posts, videos, etc.
You have limited engagement
No one wants to create content that doesn't get noticed. If your pieces aren’t getting comments, clicks, likes, shares or conversion – it may be time to reevaluate. While there is no exact formula to predict engagement, there are patterns of success that relate to producing high quality content that people care about. Read more about it here and learn to target the right audience..
You are not considering the buyer’s journey
Every aspect of your marketing strategy should cater to the buyer’s journey, which is the active research process a person goes through when purchasing a product or service. This process can be broken into three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. It's a marketer's job to give potential customers the fuel to move them along the journey toward a purchase.
You haven’t set realistic goals
Marketing objectives are the goals your team wants to achieve during a certain period of time. They’re usually a hard number or metric that serve as a metaphorical finish line for your team to sprint towards. However, setting marketing objectives isn’t just limited to determining what you want to achieve. You also need to specify how you’re going to reach your goals and why you want to reach them.
You are not familiar with A/B testing
It's important that you track the metrics you set goals for and take time to look at how the results compare to your objective. When you see something's working, replicate it. When something isn't working, try something else -- the more you test, the more you learn. A/B testing can allow you to rely on data and results rather than guesses or assumptions to make decisions.
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If you're new to inbound marketing, you may want to consider consulting a team of experts to ensure you're on the right track. We're here to help, just ask On-Target! If you still have questions, try this...
