by Marianna Muscat | Sep 20, 2016 | Inbound Marketing
A major part of any inbound marketing strategy is an assessment of what a company is doing, what other opportunities may be out there and the ongoing results of the strategy. Sometimes, even companies that have been actively engaged in inbound marketing for several years find they are making mistakes, leading to a decline in their results. It’s surprising, since online businesses know the importance of increasing their reach through blogs, podcasts, videos or newsletters. So just what are these commonly made mistakes?
- Ignoring buyer personas
A really important part of inbound marketing, yet something that gets ignored or outdated – is creating personas to outline the ideal client profile. Creating them is hard enough, keeping them up to date is even harder, but essential, if you want to gain and maintain traction. When creating personas, the objective should clearly define the identifiers for each persona, their challenges and priorities, their experience with your product or service and what questions they seek answers to, on an ongoing basis. Habits change, so personas should be closely reviewed, at least annually, to make sure they are still relevant.
- Your website
Like the personas, websites need to be reviewed and updated, since the efforts of inbound marketing could bring about the need for support from the website. Sites with more and more added content become confusing and overloaded, so often there is a need to take it right back to the original design and see what needs changing at the core. When designing a website, bear in mind the ongoing need for change when your business and its needs evolve, from design and images to content.
- Content alignment
Creating a content map for each page of your website, your blogs, landing pages, graphics and CTAs is a good way to address the relationship your website needs to have with its visitors. The content must align with their needs, their buying journey, their questions and their device choice.
- Not enough nurturing
Inbound marketing, done correctly, captures the attention of potential buyers and brings them to your website, but there is still work to be done to convert them to leads. Most often visitors to your site seek information, not to buy something. Lead nurturing is the next step, helping your potential leads understand their needs and the value you can provide them. More than just sending out emails or free downloads, nurturing requires a plan, a lot of personalisation and discipline to reap results.
- Using your data
Despite the valuable data you can collect as a result of inbound marketing, very few companies use this data to make decisions. Checking metrics to see which pages get the most traffic, which buying patterns emerge etc. are vital for planning. The data helps to motivate what tests or experiments to run, to determine trends and give valuable insights.
Like most things online, change happens quickly, so you need to evaluate your inbound marketing strategy to ensure your results don’t dwindle. For assistance with your company’s digital marketing, contact us.
by Francois Muscat | Apr 25, 2016 | Inbound Marketing
Return on Investment (ROI) is very important in inbound marketing campaigns. It shows whether marketing campaigns are successful in attracting visitors, and converting them into customers. Every marketing campaign needs to measure the ROI or else data on how effective the inbound marketing is will be lost.
You can measure the ROI through identifying goals of content marketing such as:
Awareness
This involves large numbers of people knowing about your marketing campaign. The awareness can come from using SEO techniques (like increasing the number of visitors to websites through link building), and social media marketing strategies (like social media mentions to generate interest). Increase in awareness leads to increase in the ROI of B2B marketing.
Engagement
This is another way of measuring the ROI of inbound marketing. Under engagement focus is on how customers engage with the content. The following content marketing metrics (systems of measurement) indicate whether there is engagement with customers; email sign-ups, comments and social shares.
Increase in page views
The number of visitors your website receives is also used to find the ROI of the inbound marketing campaign. Increase in page views leads to increase in traffic, indicating a good ROI on your digital marketing strategy.
Increase in Social Media Activity
Increase in social media activity is also used to measure ROI Inbound marketing. Factors considered include:
- Improvement in social selling on the website
- Number of people that follow marketing campaigns through social media
- Number of pages shared on social media
- Level of user engagement
Increase in Conversion rates
An increase in conversion rates shows that an inbound marketing campaign is effective. Analyse conversion rates to measure the ROI. A key indicator is performance of landing pages in attracting new visitors, and converting them into customers during online advertising.
Revenue Growth
Use trends such as revenue growth during a marketing campaign to know the ROI. You can use channels like PPC (Pay-Per-Click), from where some of the sales come from, to decide whether there is ROI of inbound marketing or not.
At WSI OMS, we are experts in inbound marketing and content marketing for lead generation. For more information on our effective digital services like B2B marketing, social selling and search engine optimisation, get in touch with us today.
by Francois Muscat | Mar 21, 2016 | Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing
In the course of deciding on the best strategy to market your unique product or service, it is likely that you have come across the terms ‘content marketing’ and ‘inbound marketing’. But, the question remains, what is the difference between these marketing approaches? While the debate is rife in marketing circles, there are indeed some key differences which need to be understood by anyone involved in the marketing process.
Content marketing, as the term suggests, is an approach which focuses on creating appealing, interesting and valuable content for the consumer. This content, of course, will be linked to the product or service which a business offers, allowing consumers to make informed purchasing decisions. In an age where the customer is demanding sincere and honest information on and engagement with the product, this marketing technique is essential in order to gain your customers’ trust. Consequently, content marketing is less invasive than hard selling methods and can be disseminated across a number of channels, including the use of video, email and social media platforms. Content marketing is a crucial element in any inbound marketing strategy, where the aim of inbound marketing is to draw consumers in to your business’s website, rather than push communication out to the consumer, which can intrusive and unwelcomed.
At WSI OMS, we specialise in the implementation of content marketing and inbound marketing strategies, where the development of the right lead generation strategies is key to your online success. For more information on our array of digital marketing services, including B2B marketing, social media marketing and search engine optimisation, get in touch with us today.
by Francois Muscat | Feb 22, 2016 | Inbound Marketing
Nowadays, the consumer seeks to be in-the-know. Communication strategies are increasingly moving from traditional outbound marketing techniques to inbound marketing, where the consumer opts to seek brands out personally, rather than being bombarded with information and marketing noise. At WSI OMS, we understand the significance of inbound marketing and the digital marketing movement. We aim to optimise communication, with a focus on effective content marketing and the right social media channels.
Three inbound marketing mistakes
As world leaders in the internet marketing space, we wish to caution against three common inbound marketing mistakes:
- Forgetting about your marketing strategy. Before establishing an inbound marketing strategy, it is essential to ensure that this strategy fits in with the overall strategy for the brand, where the message is clear and consistent.
- Producing sporadic content. Inbound marketing requires regular communication and cannot expect to be successful if content ceases to be recurrent.
- Producing irrelevant, rushed content. For inbound marketing to be successful, content has to add value to the consumer and needs to be communicated clearly and professionally.
At WSI OMS, we specialise in constructive communication and pride ourselves on fostering relationships with consumers based on our successful digital marketing strategies, including social media marketing, content marketing, search engine optimisation, web design and much more. Get in touch with WSI OMS today to find out more about how we can be of service in boosting your brand image and taking advantage of the inbound marketing movement.
