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The Inbound Growth Blog covers all topics relating to an integrated marketing strategy. We write about inbound marketing, social media, integrated marketing strategies and the sales process.

The Anatomy Of A Great Inbound Marketing Campaign

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Posted by John Beveridge on Mar 12, 2014 3:01:06 PM

The_anatomy_of_an_inbound_marketing_campaignAn inbound marketing campaign is a series of processes designed to produce a desired result – whether it be generating sales leads, increasing donations to a non-profit or growing software subscriptions. To design a great inbound marketing campaign, you need to start with the end in mind. For example, you might set a SMART goal to generate 100 qualified sales leads in a 3-month campaign period. Knowing what success looks like is the key to designing your inbound campaign. So with that in mind, let’s look at the anatomy of a great inbound marketing campaign.


Step 1 - set your strategy

The first step in any integrated marketing strategy is to define your target audience. For B2B sellers, this involves defining your ideal customer profile (companies you target) and buyer personas (people within those companies that buy your solutions.)

You will note in the SMART goal we described above, we wanted to generate 100 qualified sales leads in a 3-month campaign period. Qualified sales leads would be potential buyers from companies that meet your ideal customer profile. Any inbound marketing campaign will produce “leads” that will never buy from you – for example, a graduate student from Peru who wants to learn about business intelligence.

Another important part of your campaign strategy is to develop a list of keywords that your target audience uses to search for the solutions your company provides. These keywords will be used throughout your campaign.

By defining your target audience, you can design a lead-generation offer that will appeal to potential buyers/donors/subscribers and promote it in the marketing channels that they use.


Step 2 - create a lead generation offer that your target audience will find valuable

The foundation of your campaign is a lead generation offer that your target audience will want to access. Your offer must have enough perceived value that your target audience will exchange contact information (and other information you ask for) to get it.

Here is a graphical depiction of the lead generation process.

Lead_conversion_path-3 

Lead generation offers are typically videos, eBooks, whitepapers, webinars or kits. Whatever form your lead generation offer takes, it needs to be valuable enough to your target audience that they are willing to exchange contact information to receive it.

The best lead generation offer won't generate leads, donations or subscriptions if it doesn't have effective conversion paths to promote its value to targeted buyers. A conversion path starts with a call-to-action that clicks through to a landing page that describes the value of the offer and includes a form which potential buyers complete to access the lead generation offer. Your conversion paths should be consistent and promote the value of your offer at every step.

A good landing page will generate leads. Some best practices for landing pages include:

  • Use an action-oriented headline that describes the value of your offer and entices the prospect to take action. The language of the headline on your landing page should be consistent with the language on the call to action.

  • Include images in your landing pages that support your message.

  • Use forms to support your objectives. If your goal is to maximize lead conversions, just ask for a name and an e-mail address. If you have a complex buying process, you can use your forms to qualify your leads and segment them for effective follow-up. For example, you can ask for the prospect's role in her organization and their industry.

Now that you have a good lead generation offer and an effective conversion path, it's time to promote your offer.


Step 3 - promote your lead generation offer with blogging, social media and online advertising

Now it's time to start promoting your lead generation offer. There are 4 primary ways to promote your lead generation offers online.

Blogging is how your content offers will be found via search engine queries. On my website, 72% of my traffic is a result of organic search engine queries. In other words, people are searching for topics related to sales and marketing and finding my site. Most of them are referred to one of my blog articles. I generate leads with my blogs by promoting a lead generation offer that takes a deeper dive into the subject of the blog article. In your inbound marketing campaign, you should schedule a series of blog posts related to your offer using the keywords identified when you set your strategy.

Social media is another excellent way to promote your lead generation offers. Use social media posts that link to your blog articles and landing pages to boost your lead generation offers. Be careful of coming off as salesy or spammy - you should mix your promotional posts with helpful posts from third parties that your target audience will find helpful.

Use email marketing to promote your lead generation offers with your existing opt-in contacts. These are people that have already "raised their hands" to receive your content. If you have a great new lead generation offer, it's a good way to help move your contacts through your sales funnel.

Social media and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising are a good way to get your lead generation offer in front of more people. If you don't have a large social media following and/or you have aggressive lead generation goals, you should consider online advertising. Depending on your product/service and target audience, consider advertising on LinkedIn, Facebook and search engines like Google or Bing. Caution - before committing large amounts of money to online advertising, do a few small experiments to get a sense of what will produce the best results.

Your campaign is now generating leads - it's time to think about moving them to a purchase decision.

 


Step 4 - use lead nurturing workflows to convert leads to customers

If you're a B2B seller with a long sales cycle, most of the leads you generate won't be ready to buy when they first convert. To help them move towards a buying decision, lead nurturing provides prospective buyers with the right information at the right time to educate them and help them understand how your solution will solve their business problem.

Marketing automation software like HubSpot allows you to automate the lead nurturing process and to measure the impact of each step.


Step 5 - use marketing analytics to measure every element of your campaign and to optimize for success

The beauty of inbound marketing is that you can measure every element of your campaigns to see what's working and what isn't. A/B testing answers questions like "which works better, the blue or the green button?" Blog and landing page analytics let you evaluate trends and make changes as data reveals insights. When developing your strategy, choose the key performance indicators that define success and monitor them constantly. Pull stakeholders together for weekly meetings to keep campaigns on track and moving towards the goals you've set. For example, if you're not generating enough qualified leads, you may decide to step up your LinkedIn advertising. You can always guess how the campaign will work out in advance, the only way you'll know for sure is to look at the data.


Inbound marketing campaigns are where the rubber meets the road for producing business results. In our pricing model, the key variable is the number of campaigns a customer wants to run in a given time period. You may want to run campaigns for different product lines, different target audiences or different buyer personas. Whatever you choose to promote, work through the process (you can download our checklist here) and measure results to optimize for success.

Topics: Inbound Marketing

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