Inbound Marketing Strategy - Turning Leads into Customers

Use Inbound Marketing to Turn Leads into Customers

How to Use Inbound Marketing to Turning Leads into Customers

Inbound marketing has revolutionized the industry of marketing through the ease of turning leads into customers. Partnering with outbound marketing, customers and clients are more receptive to the information that pertains specifically to their interests.

 

Customer Relationship Management

Hubspot offers a free CRM software which tracks contact and company information in detail and with ease. If kayaking is your business, then utilizing the inbound technology to send outbound information will have your prospects paddling their way to your company because of your marketing efforts.

 

Email Marketing

Once the CRM is in effect, emailing those who inquired about your outdoor products or services is one of the most useful tools used in obtaining leads. According to Hubspot, "A good email is valuable, relevant, expected and integrated." Customize your email to express your business' unique personality and design while appealing to your customer's specific desires.

 

Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is a fantastic tool that helps to differentiate contacts that are mildly curious from contacts that want your products or services today. It takes the responses and ranks the potential of which connections to follow-up with first.

 

Automation

Marketing automation is a mass of information to reach out to potential prospects. When used with the other inbound marketing tools, it can boost the efforts of encouraging candidates to inquire more about the product or service offered. Utilizing the tools of inbound marketing in conjunction with some outbound is a more effective method of turning leads into customers. Prospects won't feel as invaded and welcome the information that is pertinent to them. Market your company with the proper tools toward its highest potential. Contact Harness today for obtaining more information toward your success.

 

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Hubspot (2016). Free CRM Software for Small Business. Retrieved from http://www.hubspot.com/products/crm

Hubspot (2016). What makes good email marketing. Retrieved from http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-resources/email-marketing

Hubspot (2016). Lead Scoring 101: How to Use Data to Calculate a Basic Lead Score. Retrieved from http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/lead-scoring-instructions#sm.000018pfw5o23zelspsh7jp8mi1lq

Hubspot (2016). What is Marketing Automation? Retrieved from http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-automation-information


inbound marketing strategy

Key Elements to a Winning Inbound Marketing Strategy

inbound marketing strategyInbound marketing is the best way to promote your business online. Leveraging this strategy significantly increases brand exposure, boosts follower engagement, drives traffic to your blog and lead pages, and improves lead and sales conversions. If you want internet marketing success for your company, embracing the inbound methodology is the way to do it.

There are four essential actions in the inbound marketing strategy. Each element must be actively working to achieve the best outcomes in your marketing efforts. Here are the major components, with examples of techniques and tools, you can use to create a winning strategy:

#1 Attract Visitors

The first action is driving traffic to your site…but not just any traffic. The goal is targeted to quality visitors that are interested in your message. Having clarity of your target market is vital to creating content that solves their problems. Once you have established your buyer personas, you can align your entire content marketing strategy including social media, email messages, SEO, blogging content and videos to their interests.

#2 Convert

B2B Companies that blog only 1-2 times per month generate up to 70% more leads than those that don’t (Source: Hubspot). This stat illustrates the power behind the inbound strategy and how it dramatically impacts lead conversions. Convert website visitors into leads by using tools like landing pages, web forms, and lead offers. The key is ensuring your lead magnet is enticing and valuable enough for viewers to give their contact information in exchange.

#3 Close

The third element of an inbound marketing strategy that works is closing your leads into buying customers. It is in the nurturing process where you are grooming prospects to move them closer to a purchasing decision. Email marketing and marketing automation are excellent tools to fostering relationships with your leads that build trust. Thus, wanting to do business with you.

#4 Delight

You’ve earned a new customer…good work! But it doesn’t end there. This final step to inbound marketing is where you build loyal, raving fans who proudly promote you to their networks. How do you make this transition? By continuing to feed valuable content that resonates with your audience. Tools such as surveys and social monitoring are ways to gain feedback to improve your customer initiatives and create amazing experiences.

Ensuring that these four ingredients are working in your inbound strategy is imperative to achieving online marketing success. When executed correctly, you will maintain a steady flow of traffic, leads, sales and returning clients to your business.

For help on creating an inbound marketing strategy that increases your brand exposure and improves online conversions, contact us here for a schedule consultation. We are ready to help get you to your next level.


What is Marketing Automation?

What is Marketing Automation? The Top 3 Reasons You Should Be Using This Technology

Here is a scenario you may be up against if you are doing things right:

You have been working hard over the recent past to create content such as videos, blog posts, infographics, and white papers that are interesting and valuable to your future customers. You have a fan base on social media that is engaged with your posts and sharing them. You have created regular traffic to your blog posts and your email list is growing.

Further, some of these users may even be demonstrating buying cues such as looking at your pricing page and checking out your testimonials - but how would you know when that occurs and follow up at the right time? More importantly, the question remains - how do you nurture these leads into buying customers?

The answer:

Marketing Automation: a means to drive more leads, convert leads into sales, and measure ROI of individual campaigns.

1. Generate More Leads

With marketing automation software, we are able to identify anonymous visitors to our site. That means we can prospect more accurately because we know which companies are interested. We can also capture information in forms from users that are interested in staying up to date with our video content, requesting a demo, or in exchange for an infographic or white paper.

2. Drive Sales

Once that user is in our system, his use can be tracked at each subsequent visit to our website - we know when our prospects visit. Based on his visits and actions on our site, the user will be segmented into a campaign with personalized follow-up information to nurture the relationship. For example, if he shows interest in our Video Marketing for eCommerce videos, we can automatically send him information that pertains to our eCommerce content creation services.

Even more interesting is the way the system scores leads based on a number of parameters that we can set based on a client's unique business.  An example of a high profile lead in the system would be a user that visits frequently, fills out a form, clicks-through on our emails, and downloads a white paper. Once a lead meets certain parameters and is moving through the sales funnel, the follow-up approach changes to be sure to make the most of the opportunity. There is even an option for the system to alert a salesperson to make a direct call when a prospect is on the site.

3. Measure ROI

The automation software provides comprehensive analytics for each individual campaign so marketers can measure what is working best and where to allocate marketing resources. There are extensive reporting features with exportable graphs to share with your teams, allowing for firms to make better, data-driven decisions, which in turn reduces costs.


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Email Marketing Refined

Despite all of the junk mail we receive and delete on a daily basis, email marketing still carries significant ROI. According to an Econsultancy study, two-thirds of marketers rate the ROI from email marketing as ‘excellent’ or ‘good”.  Harvard Business Review did an analysis with one retailer and discovered that the dollars earned per email sent was around $15.79 for sales generated both in-store and online.  It is somewhat difficult to believe that email works with all of the SPAM out there, but the numbers do not lie.  So in order to gain the most benefit from this low-cost medium, we have created a few tips to refine your email marketing:

Send emails to the right users - (and customer/prospect segments) at just the right time in the purchase cycle. It’s a sophisticated way to scale personal attention.  The key to successful marketing automation is technology. Rely on tools and data (rather than a spreadsheet) to reach your email list successfully. The biggest players in the space include MailChimp, InfusionSoft, Marketo, and Hubspot.

Understand Customer Needs - Customers have more tools than ever to filter out unwanted messaging with priority inboxes. Implement an opt-in process — a series of steps that subscribers can take to ensure that they’re receiving your emails.  Perhaps include a freebie, piece of content, or promotion/deal that they’ll receive in exchange.

Using a 2-step opt-in means that you will get less bargain hunters merely looking for the freebie and more qualified leads that are interested enough to go through the steps to receive your content.

Complete the Customer Experience - Always create a plan or outline for your email marketing campaigns — make sure that your messages follow a strategic approach.  You need to specify a clear conversion goal from your email marketing automation. You also need to ensure that your landing pages are fully optimized for the actions you want users to take.

Here are some tips to help you:

  • Don’t use misleading subject lines - make sure they are short, sweet, and a little enchanting
  • Avoid overusing capital letters within your email and in the subject lines
  • Be smart about symbols - if you use too many, your emails will look totally spammy
  • Use clear, concise messaging with a single call-to-action
  • Include unsubscribe links - this, as well as a physical address is mandatory per regulations

Metrics

Total Open Rate

This is calculated by taking the total number of email opens and dividing them by the number of delivered emails.

Total Clicks

These measure clicks generated from each campaign. Following up on these within 48 hours is critical for top-of-mind conversions

Total Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Divide the total number of clicks by the number of delivered emails

Conversions, Conversion Rates, and Revenue

These are metrics that you should be tracking across your marketing channels - these can be measured by using a tracking pixel and UTM links in your campaigns

Email, like any marketing medium, must be used as a tool in part of a larger campaign in order to achieve real results.  At HARNESS, we create the strategy and implement an omnichannel integrated campaign with full marketing automation to schedule, track, and deliver qualified leads from first engagement to after-sale service.