The State of Inbound 2016 study report revealed that, Companies are 3 times more likely to see higher ROI on inbound marketing campaigns than on outbound campaigns.
So, as you set out to craft your first Inbound Marketing Campaign, which is already the norm for a whopping 84% of small businesses, around the globe, let's touch on some basics on what a ‘Campaign’ really is…
The team at Unbounce define ‘Campaign’ as: A series of marketing activities designed to achieve clearly defined goals within a specified time frame.
The Hubspot people say: An inbound marketing campaign is simply a concentrated effort to attract leads and customers who are interested in a particular topic, or have a specific need.
The other intrinsic characteristic of a campaign is that, it's run for a specific period of time through one or many of your marketing channels, to achieve a desired goal. The goal could be anything from;
- Acquiring new customers
- Launching a new product
- Promoting brand awareness
- Generating leads, etc.
Here are a few critical steps you don’t want to miss when building an Inbound Marketing Campaign:
1. Who is your Campaign Audience?
Yes, any campaign clearly starts with the target users in mind. Once you zoom in on the demographic profile of the potential audience you’re intending to influence, ‘choosing the marketing channel’ or ‘crafting the content’ can follow through easily.
You’ll need to ascertain the demographic profile/s of your potential customers - The gender, age, location, marital status, parental status, occupation, income level, behavioural patterns, etc. of your primary customer and secondary buyers… otherwise also known as the ‘buyer personas’
Here’s an example from American Express:
These buyer personas are a semi-fictional portrayal of your targeted users, based on calculated data and researches based on attributes mentioned above about the ‘customer demographics’.
The example of Robert, gives us an insight into his life, his preferences, his motivation and spending capacity, all crucial details to help you create effective campaigns targeted to influence the demographics, representing the likes of Robert.
 |
 |
 |
 |
2. What is your goal? Is it SMART enough?
The next step in the equation should be about your goals. What is it that you’re intending to achieve from this campaign?
HubSpot says your goal should be, SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time Bound, i.e. your concentrated campaign should be able to sync the goal of increasing traffic, leads, etc. with the content/product you’re aiming to influence the ‘buyer personas’ with.
For instance, a typical equation could be:
Generate [number] leads focused on [topic/product] by [date]
Generate 2000 leads interested in Keyword Ranking by Jan 2017.
Increase 1000 following in Pinterest with the launch of ‘Eat Less, Live Longer’ eBook by March 2017.
When goals are explicitly defined as above, it will be easier to focus and achieve in the speculated time frame.
3. Create your ‘offer’ and pick your Channels
An ‘offer’ is the crux of any inbound marketing campaign. Unlike offers in the outbound marketing world, such as ‘Xmas Sales’ and other discounts on sales of products, or the typical ‘buy one get one free’ kind – This offer relates to any content that informs, helps, educates and attracts the target personas, rather than interrupting them (as in the case of traditional outbound marketing).
The offer could be anything from an eBook, subscription to blogposts, webinar or podcast invitation, white paper, visual presentation, etc.
These offers are crafted to sit on a ‘Landing Page’, which is generally clicked through a CTA (Call To Action) placed on your preferred channel – i.e., a blog, email, newsletters, social media channels, pay-per-click, websites, microsites, etc.
The Landing pages are the first conversion point, turning your visitor traffic into leads who can then be further nurtured through their respective stages in the sales funnel. It's the critical moment which focuses on Lead generation – A tipping point for any Inbound Marketing Campaign and an entry point for random traffic to potentially be your valued customers.
4. Nurturing your newfound Leads
The primary goal of your campaign is to convert those visitors into leads – let’s say you’ve done exceptionally well with your compelling CTAs, attractive offers and well-crafted Landing pages.
But that’s not the end of a campaign. A well-thought-of campaign is much more farsighted than just converting traffics to leads. This is where the ‘nurturing’ starts - A carefully targeted communication with the leads, gently nudging them through the various stages of the ‘Sales Funnel, to hopefully convert them into a ‘repeat customer’ of your product/services.
Your leads could be in any of the stages in the buyer’s journey: The Awareness Stage, The Consideration Stage, or The Decision Stage:
Courtesy: HubSpot
To bring the leads through the Buyers’ Journey from Awareness to Decision stage, or from the Top of the Funnel to the bottom, where they are potentially converted as ‘customers’, various Marketing Automation Tools can also be used to realise your goals.
5. Report, Evaluate and Optimise
You should be aware that Campaigns are always subject to ‘testing’ and ‘experimentation’, to bring out the best or the desired results. Once the campaign is launched, a primary step would be to report and evaluate the outcomes – crunch the numbers and get a feel of how it has performed, i.e. how many visits were made, how many downloads generated and contacts/leads generated.
Once you observe the performance of your campaign, you may want to experiment with the offers you sent, or maybe tweak the subject lines and Calls to Actions to see if you can boost the ‘lead capture’ rates, or increase your followings on twitter, etc. – And optimise the campaigns to suit your needs.
Free tools such as Google Analytics can help you track this data about your campaigns to some extent, but if you’re looking for more sophisticated ones, then the HubSpot Inbound Marketing Software can guide you throughout your journey from building campaigns to building your customer base.
This is the first of a Series of blogs we're buiilding for you now. If you'd like to keep in touch with the latest and greatest, hook up with our Newsletter.
If you'd like more assistance with your content or would like to discuss anything covered today, we'd love to hear from you.
Call Andy Fox (me) on (03) 5249 5570 or email andy@element7digital.com.au
Our Website is element7digital.com.au
