Implementing inbound marketing in your company: the guide to help you start generating results
Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2024 9:00 am
The focus of this blog has always been to teach the usefulness and how Inbound Marketing works for small and medium-sized businesses in Goiânia. In the last posts, I worked on each stage of the Inbound methodology and gave some examples of application.
I talked about how to attract users, capture them, and maintain a relationship.
Now the most awaited moment has arrived: generating sales through Inbound Marketing .
Let's go back to your context. Let's say you have a luxury hotel in the city of Goiânia, and your audience is made up of Class A people who travel with their children. With this in mind, what would be the differentiating content to prove that your hotel is the best option for their stay?
In Inbound Marketing, we help our consumers get from one point student database to another through content . So, if your potential client is used to taking this type of trip, you can teach them how to organize themselves to have more time with their children during their stay in the city, or even show them the main tourist attractions that they can visit with their children.
This was just a hypothetical example. However, it is worth noting that your content, in a case like this, will teach something to the potential client, that is, he will go from a point where he wants to travel to Goiânia and does not know the advantages to make the most of his stay, to another point where he finally understands.
In this way, Inbound digital marketing, instead of interrupting this potential customer, created a relationship and generated real value .
How does this help me sell? It's simple. Generating value is a way to build credibility and become the consumer's first choice. That way, when they go on their trip, they'll remember the hotel that taught them everything they're going to enjoy in the city of Goiânia. BINGO! You've sold a one-week package!
In Inbound Marketing, a sale is a consequence of you having gained the trust of your potential customer.
In your scenario, where most large companies buy expensive television, radio, and magazine media and invest absurd amounts in Facebook Ads and Google AdWords, the best option for your small and medium-sized business in Goiânia is to act through Inbound Marketing. It is a long-term strategy and, when it is to be implemented, it requires training and alignment of objectives and expectations.
That's why today I brought you a special bonus: I'm going to teach you how to implement an Inbound Marketing strategy within your company, using your own team.
Implement an Inbound Marketing strategy.
Take advantage and leave your email here. That way, every time we bring you some material or news, you will be the first to know:
[yikes-mailchimp form=”1″ submit=”I want to receive exclusive news!”]
Read also: 30 ready-made phrases for WhatsApp customer service
I divided the implementation strategy into 10 steps:
Align your goals.
Inbound Marketing doesn't work miracles. Unfortunately, the strategy won't solve all of your company's problems at the same time, as this would require several fronts of action with multiple ways of delivering value, which would generate high costs and demand for content production. For those who are just starting to do Inbound Marketing now, it is important to be very clear about what your objectives are. For example, an interesting goal at the beginning is to use Inbound to be seen as a generator of value for your potential customers , that is, to have more visits to your website from people who really identify with your brand. This way, when you produce the content, you will have to make a greater effort in the first phase of Inbound Marketing.
Understand your target audience and their needs.
At the beginning of this post, I said that valuable Inbound Marketing content serves to take the consumer from one point to another, and your product is a supporting actor that will help them get there. It is important to remember this now, because you will need to understand what your audience's desires are. Here, you will create your Persona, that is, your ideal customer profile. In another topic , I explained the importance of creating your Persona and how to do it. To get to know your audience better, you can ask your sales team this question , because they are the ones who are face to face with your customers.
Observe where your audience is.
Research is essential before starting any strategy. It is very dangerous to base your Digital Marketing plan on just one channel, be it a social network, a blog, or a corporate website. This happens because consumers are everywhere at all times . Therefore, it is important to know where the greatest concentration of your potential buyers is. To obtain this data, you can use several free tools on the internet, such as Google Trends, which can show the main trends in any market, just search. It is also good to look for Hashtags that are related to your audience on the main social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Condense this data and try to find conclusions about where your audience is.
Draw your audience to you.
The first phase of the Inbound Marketing strategy is attraction. Now that you have decided what you want, who you want and where you want it, all you need to do is get to work. Gather all the valuable information your company has by conducting an internal survey with employees, partners, suppliers, etc. This way, you must conclude how your content will take your potential customer from one point to another, generating value. The more quality and assertiveness your content has, the more people will be attracted to it . In this phase, you can create a blog, use Advertising on some social networks and on Google and use simple Social Media practices. In this post , I detail each of these attraction tactics.
Convert visitors into potential customers.
In the first phase, you must attract a large number of people, and now is the time to select the most qualified ones and focus your team's efforts. Here, you will start producing exclusive content in special formats and offering it in exchange for contact information . This way, you generate value for the visitor and in return, you can speak directly to them. To capture these contacts, there are simple and common ways, such as creating a Landing Page, creating a form and having good calls to action, such as “Receive this exclusive material now!”. In another post , I gave tips on how to do this phase with great assertiveness.
Connect with your contacts.
In a survey conducted in 2012, it was found that 72% of contacts acquired are not ready to buy. Therefore, when you are implementing an Inbound Marketing strategy, you will rarely offer your product immediately after a user becomes a Lead. It is crucial to create a relationship, let the roots of trust and value generation transform the business opportunity into someone who is eager to buy your product . Using the email contact obtained in the previous phase, you can send Email Marketing with new content offers, Newsletters and whatever else you think is important to generate value for your audience. As with the other phases, I have also set aside an exclusive post for the relationship in Inbound Marketing .
Close sales!
As we said at the beginning of this post, a sale is a consequence of a well-applied Inbound Marketing strategy. Through Marketing automation tools and elaborate social media work, you can create demand and be prepared so that, when the user feels the need to obtain a product that will take them from point A to point B, you deliver yours and close a sale. To do this, it is extremely important to use automation tools (the best known are RD Station , SharpSpring and LeadLovers ), as they serve to show when a Lead is ready to buy.
Analyze the results.
Nobody is perfect. You will always have something that can be improved in your Inbound Marketing strategy. For example, if you have a specific employee who does not have great writing skills, when it comes to producing content you will have difficulty in obtaining the best results. Therefore, it is important at all stages of the process (all of them), to observe the results that are emerging and always find ways to improve. Remember the objectives stage? This is where they will make a difference, as you will look at the results based on your objectives , avoiding getting lost when trying to analyze everything. A great tip is to define your KPIs well, learn more about them here .
Enchant.
An Inbound Marketing strategy that generates value also brings a legion of fans and people who are passionate about your brand (I'm not talking about followers on Instagram or likes on Facebook). These are people who have learned something or even changed their lives through your content and, consequently, purchased your product. The best part of this is that you will have access to various behavioral data from these buyers, thanks to automation tools, and you will be able to produce personalized content, promote events and excellent post-sales marketing for these people to become true promoters of your brand .
Never stop bringing new things.
When you think about an Inbound Marketing strategy for 1 year, you should keep in mind that a lot can happen in 1 year. Therefore, you must be careful to filter needs and align expectations at all times, and closely monitor all the processes of the strategy. Let's suppose that, at a given moment, a client downloads an e-book that talks about tips on how to use Instagram to sell more and, in the same week, Instagram ends up experiencing a huge drop in audience. This would harm your strategy, right? So, keep your eyes wide open and always try to bring new things to your potential clients.
I talked about how to attract users, capture them, and maintain a relationship.
Now the most awaited moment has arrived: generating sales through Inbound Marketing .
Let's go back to your context. Let's say you have a luxury hotel in the city of Goiânia, and your audience is made up of Class A people who travel with their children. With this in mind, what would be the differentiating content to prove that your hotel is the best option for their stay?
In Inbound Marketing, we help our consumers get from one point student database to another through content . So, if your potential client is used to taking this type of trip, you can teach them how to organize themselves to have more time with their children during their stay in the city, or even show them the main tourist attractions that they can visit with their children.
This was just a hypothetical example. However, it is worth noting that your content, in a case like this, will teach something to the potential client, that is, he will go from a point where he wants to travel to Goiânia and does not know the advantages to make the most of his stay, to another point where he finally understands.
In this way, Inbound digital marketing, instead of interrupting this potential customer, created a relationship and generated real value .
How does this help me sell? It's simple. Generating value is a way to build credibility and become the consumer's first choice. That way, when they go on their trip, they'll remember the hotel that taught them everything they're going to enjoy in the city of Goiânia. BINGO! You've sold a one-week package!
In Inbound Marketing, a sale is a consequence of you having gained the trust of your potential customer.
In your scenario, where most large companies buy expensive television, radio, and magazine media and invest absurd amounts in Facebook Ads and Google AdWords, the best option for your small and medium-sized business in Goiânia is to act through Inbound Marketing. It is a long-term strategy and, when it is to be implemented, it requires training and alignment of objectives and expectations.
That's why today I brought you a special bonus: I'm going to teach you how to implement an Inbound Marketing strategy within your company, using your own team.
Implement an Inbound Marketing strategy.
Take advantage and leave your email here. That way, every time we bring you some material or news, you will be the first to know:
[yikes-mailchimp form=”1″ submit=”I want to receive exclusive news!”]
Read also: 30 ready-made phrases for WhatsApp customer service
I divided the implementation strategy into 10 steps:
Align your goals.
Inbound Marketing doesn't work miracles. Unfortunately, the strategy won't solve all of your company's problems at the same time, as this would require several fronts of action with multiple ways of delivering value, which would generate high costs and demand for content production. For those who are just starting to do Inbound Marketing now, it is important to be very clear about what your objectives are. For example, an interesting goal at the beginning is to use Inbound to be seen as a generator of value for your potential customers , that is, to have more visits to your website from people who really identify with your brand. This way, when you produce the content, you will have to make a greater effort in the first phase of Inbound Marketing.
Understand your target audience and their needs.
At the beginning of this post, I said that valuable Inbound Marketing content serves to take the consumer from one point to another, and your product is a supporting actor that will help them get there. It is important to remember this now, because you will need to understand what your audience's desires are. Here, you will create your Persona, that is, your ideal customer profile. In another topic , I explained the importance of creating your Persona and how to do it. To get to know your audience better, you can ask your sales team this question , because they are the ones who are face to face with your customers.
Observe where your audience is.
Research is essential before starting any strategy. It is very dangerous to base your Digital Marketing plan on just one channel, be it a social network, a blog, or a corporate website. This happens because consumers are everywhere at all times . Therefore, it is important to know where the greatest concentration of your potential buyers is. To obtain this data, you can use several free tools on the internet, such as Google Trends, which can show the main trends in any market, just search. It is also good to look for Hashtags that are related to your audience on the main social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Condense this data and try to find conclusions about where your audience is.
Draw your audience to you.
The first phase of the Inbound Marketing strategy is attraction. Now that you have decided what you want, who you want and where you want it, all you need to do is get to work. Gather all the valuable information your company has by conducting an internal survey with employees, partners, suppliers, etc. This way, you must conclude how your content will take your potential customer from one point to another, generating value. The more quality and assertiveness your content has, the more people will be attracted to it . In this phase, you can create a blog, use Advertising on some social networks and on Google and use simple Social Media practices. In this post , I detail each of these attraction tactics.
Convert visitors into potential customers.
In the first phase, you must attract a large number of people, and now is the time to select the most qualified ones and focus your team's efforts. Here, you will start producing exclusive content in special formats and offering it in exchange for contact information . This way, you generate value for the visitor and in return, you can speak directly to them. To capture these contacts, there are simple and common ways, such as creating a Landing Page, creating a form and having good calls to action, such as “Receive this exclusive material now!”. In another post , I gave tips on how to do this phase with great assertiveness.
Connect with your contacts.
In a survey conducted in 2012, it was found that 72% of contacts acquired are not ready to buy. Therefore, when you are implementing an Inbound Marketing strategy, you will rarely offer your product immediately after a user becomes a Lead. It is crucial to create a relationship, let the roots of trust and value generation transform the business opportunity into someone who is eager to buy your product . Using the email contact obtained in the previous phase, you can send Email Marketing with new content offers, Newsletters and whatever else you think is important to generate value for your audience. As with the other phases, I have also set aside an exclusive post for the relationship in Inbound Marketing .
Close sales!
As we said at the beginning of this post, a sale is a consequence of a well-applied Inbound Marketing strategy. Through Marketing automation tools and elaborate social media work, you can create demand and be prepared so that, when the user feels the need to obtain a product that will take them from point A to point B, you deliver yours and close a sale. To do this, it is extremely important to use automation tools (the best known are RD Station , SharpSpring and LeadLovers ), as they serve to show when a Lead is ready to buy.
Analyze the results.
Nobody is perfect. You will always have something that can be improved in your Inbound Marketing strategy. For example, if you have a specific employee who does not have great writing skills, when it comes to producing content you will have difficulty in obtaining the best results. Therefore, it is important at all stages of the process (all of them), to observe the results that are emerging and always find ways to improve. Remember the objectives stage? This is where they will make a difference, as you will look at the results based on your objectives , avoiding getting lost when trying to analyze everything. A great tip is to define your KPIs well, learn more about them here .
Enchant.
An Inbound Marketing strategy that generates value also brings a legion of fans and people who are passionate about your brand (I'm not talking about followers on Instagram or likes on Facebook). These are people who have learned something or even changed their lives through your content and, consequently, purchased your product. The best part of this is that you will have access to various behavioral data from these buyers, thanks to automation tools, and you will be able to produce personalized content, promote events and excellent post-sales marketing for these people to become true promoters of your brand .
Never stop bringing new things.
When you think about an Inbound Marketing strategy for 1 year, you should keep in mind that a lot can happen in 1 year. Therefore, you must be careful to filter needs and align expectations at all times, and closely monitor all the processes of the strategy. Let's suppose that, at a given moment, a client downloads an e-book that talks about tips on how to use Instagram to sell more and, in the same week, Instagram ends up experiencing a huge drop in audience. This would harm your strategy, right? So, keep your eyes wide open and always try to bring new things to your potential clients.