In this article we will explain how to implement an Inbound marketing strategy from the beginning , so that you can take full advantage of the benefits of the attraction marketing methodology.
Inbound Marketing Team
One of the most important aspects to be able to implement an Inbound marketing strategy correctly is having the right team . For this, there are two modes:
1. Inhouse team: in this alternative you can hire a series of expert professionals or those willing to train, to work in your company. However, this modality has some disadvantages such as the budget or the danger of staff turnover.
So if you want to hire an inhouse team, you must first ask yourself, how much does it cost to hire my own inbound team? If you have no idea, don’t worry, we will talk about this later.
2. Agency specialized in Inbound: undoubtedly the best option for many companies. Having a specialized agency gives added value to your strategy. Among the most important advantages you can obtain are: experience, a complete team of certified professionals, low costs and access to technology that can be expensive for your company.
Let’s learn more about the profiles of the professionals that make up the necessary team to implement your Inbound marketing strategy.
Inbound Strategist
The Inbound strategist is in charge of planning and implementing the Inbound Marketing strategy of your company. This profile must have 360 knowledge of digital marketing strategies . Some of its main functions are:
- Plan the inbound marketing strategy
- Define the objectives of the strategy
- Define the buyer persona and buyer journey
- Identify content themes with the content manager
- Create the nutrition flows
- among other points
content manager
He is in charge of managing all the content that is generated and published on the company’s channels. Among his main responsibilities you can see:
- Plan content strategy
- Research potential keywords
- Create and develop content
- Promote the contents
social media manager
This profile is responsible for creating and defining a company’s social media strategy and some of its functions are:
- Plan your social media strategy
- Create content for the different channels
- Promote content through social ads
- Analyze and optimize
Paid media specialist
This professional is in charge of designing and carrying out everything related to the payment campaigns of the inbound strategy. You must have knowledge in: Facebook Ads, Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Twitter Ads and reporting and analytics.
Web developer
It is responsible for the development of your company’s website with all the technical and strategic requirements. Among its responsibilities we have:
- Create web pages based on usability.
- Design features for mobile.
Graphic designer
He is in charge of everything related to the visual identity of the company. Some functions that he carries out are:
- Determine the graphic line of the company
- Design graphic pieces such as ebooks, banners, etc.
- Design landing pages and email templates
Content writer
A content writer is in charge of writing the content through the good use of copywriting and SEO writing.
- Create and write content for the brand
- Analyze and check what content is effective
Although you could also hire this profile in freelance mode if you don’t need it full time.
Inbound team training
Inbound training of your team is essential. It is the only way to guarantee the success of your Inbound strategy. There are different methods to get certified, but without a doubt, Hubspot academy is one of the best.
It is important that, if you decided to hire an agency to implement your Inbound strategy, you verify that all its professionals are certified in this methodology, to avoid losing your investment.
The use of technology in an Inbound strategy
Investing in technology is the best way to boost the productivity of your marketing and sales teams. The automation of marketing processes (marketing automation software) and sales (CRM), are a powerful tool in the hands of a trained team.
With these technologies it will be much easier to attract, convert and mature the opportunities that the sales team needs to generate profits. But when hiring a tool of this type, it is important that it is all in one, that is, that it offers you different benefits such as:
- Post on social networks
- Manage paid ads
- Manage and publish blog articles
- Create landing pages
- Powerful analytics tools
All in one place. Like the Hubspot tool, which gives you all these features to help your business drive growth.
Launch the Inbound strategy in 5 steps
If you already have the 3 key elements (team, education and technology) it is time to implement the Inbound methodology . These 3 elements together are essential for the success of your strategy and to have the expected results, so it is not wise to do without any of them.
1. Traffic attraction
What we are looking for in this step is to increase awareness through content that generates quality traffic to the website. For these we can use:
- blog articles
- Social media strategy
- paid ads
All in order to increase visits to your website.
2. Contact base construction
In this step , the idea is to take advantage of visits to the website and build a base of quality contacts, which can be considered leads. Among the strategies used to achieve this we can find:
- Premium content offers
- Landing pages
- Forms
- CTA’s
- thank you pages
The objective of this stage is to have a solid base of leads to apply other types of strategies that we will see in the next stage of the implementation of an Inbound marketing strategy.
3. Process of maturation of leads to opportunities
The time has come to implement the strategies that allow the leads that have been obtained from the previous phase to mature . For this, we will use content and technology in order to nurture the contact base according to their interests.
This is where two important concepts come in:
- Lead nurturing: an automated marketing technique aimed at educating or maturing business opportunities
- Lead scoring: which consists of automatically qualifying the leads in the database.
With this step, what is sought is to mature the base of leads to convert them into real sales opportunities.
4. Closing and sale
At this stage of the implementation of your Inbound strategy, it is about getting the sales team to start the commercial process . This process must be well structured and aligned with the Inbound methodology.
To guarantee success, it is essential that the sales team receives the contacts on time and that their priority is to call them, which is key to closing the business that is required.
The implementation of technology is crucial to this process, a good integration of technology will ensure that the sales team makes the most of their opportunities.
Remember that the goal is to get customers and to achieve this, it is best to align your marketing and sales teams, in addition to including the use of technology.
5. Delight customers
One of the most common mistakes when implementing the Inbound Marketing strategy is thinking that customers are no longer useful at the time of closing the sale. This can be due to many factors, such as the lack of time of the sellers, who must concentrate their efforts on getting more.
This is where technology plays in your favor. With the use of technology we can:
- Automate new customer welcome messages
- Build a process to educate you on the use of the product or service so you can get the most out of it,
- Induce him to know other complementary products to promote a post purchase
A CRM integrated with marketing, for example, can generate an automatic alert to the seller when the customer is visiting the price page.
In this way, we leave the hard and repetitive work to the technology, so the sales teams are dedicated to closing better deals and increasing sales.
The final objective of this stage is to generate customer satisfaction and achieve recurrence in their purchases.
Concluding
Definitively, the implementation of an Inbound marketing strategy gives your company an advantage when it comes to generating qualified clients for your sales team to close the deal.
Also, investing in the 3 important elements: equipment, education and technology, is a guarantee of success in the execution of your strategy. Invest in implementing your Inbound strategy and achieve great benefits for your business.
