A strong foundation is essential in many endeavors. Take the obvious example of a house. If your foundation is cracked or not level, you face all kinds of problems down the road. The only way to head off serious problems with your house is to undertake expensive and complicated repairs to the foundation.
Another way to express the concept of a strong foundation is to talk about fundamentals. Most superstars of sport have strong fundamentals that they build their mastery upon. Consider Michael Jordan, arguably the best basketball player of all time. Jordan had the reputation of being the hardest worker of any team he was on - always the first to show up for practice and the last to leave.
When Jordan was practicing alone in the gym, do you think he was working on those 360 dunks that everyone saw on Sportscenter? No, he was practicing his turnaround jump shot from the foul line extended. Hundreds of times. Day in and day out. His fundamentals were so sound that he routinely hit that same jump shot in the waning seconds of the NBA finals with 3 people all over him. He knew he was going to hit that shot because he did it before, hundreds of time.
Inbound marketing is much the same. If you have a strong marketing foundation, you will get great results. Whether you're starting an inbound marketing channel or optimizing your existing one, make sure you have these 6 inbound marketing fundamentals in place.
In my opinion, the first thing you should do in determining how to best market your solution is to determine to whom you want to sell it. For all but the largest businesses, the narrower your focus, the higher your likelihood for success. Here are some of the reasons for having a highly focused target market.
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It is extremely important to develop messaging that communicates your unique value proposition - why your ideal customer should purchase from you rather than the numerous alternatives available (including doing nothing!) Many people would list as the first thing to do. I listed it as second because expertise and experience within a niche can be part of your unique value statement.
Once you have your value messaging established, you should constantly review and update it. This messaging is very important and will permeate all of your inbound marketing efforts.
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Your visual branding should communicate your unique value message. For example, if you're targeting law firms, your visual branding should be clean, professional and communicate authority.
Unless you have branding professionals on staff, you should not do this yourself! Find branding professionals that understand your objectives and message and let them guide you through the process to develop your visual branding.
It's extremely important to be consistent with your visual branding. Logos, colors, fonts and taglines should be used consistently from your website to powerpoint presentations to videos. A good way to ensure consistent visual branding is to use a style guide. A style guide details colors and fonts to use, logo usage, and many other elements that support consistent visual branding.
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It only makes sense that a modern, functional website is critical to your inbound marketing success. Here are a few things to consider for your website.
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If your website is more than 3 years old, consider a website redesign.
If you're a professional builder, you should have high-quality tools. They need to be durable and get the job done. Inbound marketing is no different. If you want to be a pro, you need to have the right tools in the form of inbound marketing software. We like HubSpot. We're HubSpot Certified Partners and we use HubSpot for our own marketing. We're not alone - HubSpot has over 16,000 customers in 90 countries.
There are other inbound marketing software packages available like GreenRope, SharpSpring, InfusionSoft and Marketo. All have their proponents. What you shouldn't do is try to juggle Google Analytics with a WordPress blog with Buffer social media software with a WordPress lead generation plug-in with a Zoho CRM. If you're serious about inbound marketing, get a good tool and become a master of it.
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Now you're ready to get started. It's time to get your team together. Your team will likely be a balance of internal members and an outsourced inbound agency. You will need content creators, lead generation specialists, a social media community manager, SEO experts and project managers.
Most organizations use outsourced inbound experts to help them with some or all of their inbound marketing needs. These relationships typically evolve over time with outsourced tasks moving from the tactical to the strategic as your internal team becomes adept at tactics.
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1. Download our eBook, The Ultimate Guide to Hiring an Inbound Agency.
Getting these fundamentals right is the difference between a successful inbound marketing program and an unsuccessful one. Take the time upfront to get it right and you will be rewarded. Want to learn more? Schedule a free inbound marketing consultation.