The inbound marketing plan is a totally essential reference document, and it is that if we are not clear about where and how we want to go, buy youtube views it is impossible for us to get there! But many times this plan is not as complete as it should be or does not exist directly. Error!
So that you can get the best results with your inbound marketing , I have elaborated this complete guide with everything you need to include in your plans. Ready to get down to work?
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1) Research: what you need to be clear about to elaborate your inbound marketing plan
Sometimes we can fall into the temptation to start the house on the roof and think that to develop an inbound marketing plan the first thing is to define what actions we are going to carry out. But in reality, this is a very advanced step in the process, since we must first have a series of basic points very clear .
The buyer person: who are we going to?
I always say the same thing: if you have not yet defined your buyer persona , you need to get down to work now! And it is that without a very clear idea of who we are going to, it will be impossible to get the right channels, actions and segmentation.
In short, the buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of one of our ideal customers . The idea is that it will help us to understand how our customers are and what they need to “get in their skin” and empathize with them. Therefore, although it seems superfluous, it is highly recommended to name our imaginary client and even add a stock photo that represents you.
An important distinction that we have to understand in order to elaborate a good profile is that buyer person and target are not exactly the same. The target is defined from a series of common characteristics such as demography or location, but the buyer person goes further and includes a greater depth.
A key aspect for our buyer to be effective is to focus on the “pain points”, that is, the challenges that our user faces and the difficulties they generate. In this way, we can discuss communication with him based on the needs that our brand covers.
The buying and selling processes: customer trip and conversion funnel
Within our inbound marketing plan, the customer journey or customer journey allows us to understand everything that happens since a person raises a need related to our brand for the first time until he becomes a regular customer.
Throughout this trip, the customer goes through a series of differentiated phases (research, decision, loyalty …), leading to different points ofpotential contact . In each of these phases, the user will need different information from us, probably through different channels. Therefore, it is essential that we make a thorough study of these stages and the best ways to meet the needs of the user in each of them.
The other side of the customer journey currency is the conversion funnel ,that is, the way in which we articulate these stages to guide our marketing actions. If we graphically represent the entire base of potential customers, we see that there are more users with a potential need than customers that have actually converted, that is, the number of people in each phase goes from more to less. By representing this graphically, we have the famous funnel.
In general, we divide the conversion funnel into these three stages:
- TOFU phase or “top of the funnel” . At the top of the funnel, the user has detected that he has a need and is beginning to look for how to respond. To capture you, we must create content that responds as widely as possible to your needs, so that we attract a good base of people potentially interested in our product or service.
- Phase MOFU or “middle of the funnel” . In the middle phase of the funnel, the user already has more clear what he wants and is evaluating different options, among which our brand is included. What you need is to offer content with a higher degree of specialization, usually in exchange for your data. Thus, the user happens to become a “lead” or potential client, and you can begin to nurture the relationship with him in a more personalized way.
- BOFU phase or “bottom of the funnel” . Finally, the bottom of the funnel houses users who only need one last push to complete the conversion. Here we want to encourage the user to launch through free trials, discounts and special offers or customized services.
The objectives of the inbound marketing plan
The last of the prerequisites before entering the subject are the objectives of our inbound marketing plan , fundamental to measure the success of the actions we are going to carry out. And as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, generic approaches such as “sell more” or “increase the visibility of the brand” do not help us much.
For our marketing objectives to really help us, they must have a series of characteristics :
- Be concrete and quantifiable. For example, “get 400 leads through our newsletter”. It must be possible to objectively determine if they have been met or not.
- Can be measured accurately. Each objective must be associated with a KPI (key performance indicator), so that we know at all times our progress.
- Be achievable If we are not realistic when it comes to setting goals, we will only be able to turn forecasts into chaos and discourage our team.
- Have a fixed date. Having a deadline motivates us to take action and allows us to draw up a realistic achievement plan.
2) The actions of the inbound marketing plan: attraction and nurturing strategies
We are ready to begin to define in a more concrete way what we are going to do, that is, the tactics and actions that we will use to attract users to our channels and make them advance through the conversion funnel. Depending on the circumstances and the characteristics of the company, there are many ways to propose the strategies and channels to use, but these are the points that seem most basic to me.
SEO and SEM strategy
The SEO and SEM are two tools to drive traffic to our website from the user searches. While seeks to achieve long-term organic results, the SEM is a good solution to position our website immediately through ads.
A very common mistake that we have to avoid in the inbound marketing plan is to define the SEO and SEM strategies separately, since in reality they are completely . For example, we can guide the SEM to fill those gaps where it is more difficult for us to position ourselves organically or to launch short-term and more conversion-oriented campaigns. It is also worth bearing in mind that well-managed SEM campaigns can help improve our long-term SEO.
In both cases, the definition of strategies and actions has to start from a thorough investigation of the keywords that interest our brand, through tools such as Google Ads keyword planner. Thus, we can identify those keywords that should be part of our SEM strategy and those that we want to position through SEO. We must also always distinguish between non-branded or generic and branded search terms (which include our brand), since the competitiveness, search volume and user intentions can be very different.
Content strategy and social networks
A well-defined conent strategy goes beyond a business blog. More than in a specific format, we have to think about how we are going to solve the needs of the users at each moment of the customer’s journey, from generic contents and oriented to virality to very specific guides. In later phases of the funnel there is also room for video tutorials, user testimonials, success stories and a long etcetera. All these contents must respond to the tone and values of the brand, and we have to distribute them in a coherent calendar throughout the season.
In most cases, we will be interested in including one or more social networks in our inbound marketing plan to disseminate these contents and connect with users. Before deciding on a specific channel, we must investigate where users similar to our buyer are more active.
And to strengthen this work of dissemination and continue to attract traffic to our sites, we must also take into account the possibility of using social ads .
Optimization for recruitment
Once we have managed to attract the user to our page, we have to think about how to capture it so that it becomes a lead . Therefore, within the inbound marketing plan, we have to define aspects such as:
- The structure and design of landing pages . This aspect is of vital importance in the conversion ratios, so I always recommend spending time doing A / B tests to find the most effective variants.
- The optimization of forms . The recruitment forms must be able to gather enough information from the user to know if we are interested as a potential client, but always with the minimum number of possible fields. Once again, we can try A / B tests to find the balance.
- The calls to action . Optimizing this element is one of the fastest and most effective ways to increase conversions. In addition to experimenting with the text, try different colors and button locations.
Lead scoring and nurturing
When the user has already become a lead, we have to define what actions we will take to end up becoming a customer. For this, we will rely on these two tools:
- The lead scoring is to assign a score to each lead based on a number of features that let us know if we really want as a customer and how close you are to convert.
- The Lead Nurturing is based on leads send a series of personalized based on their individual characteristics scoring and communications, in order to give them the information they need to become customers. In many cases, these communications are made through email marketing.
Marketing automation
More than an action in itself, the automation of marketing is a resource that allows us to simplify all the processes of recruitment and nurturingand offer content with a high level of personalization to a high volume of users. Taking it into account in our inbound marketing plan will allow us to work in a much more effective way and easily scale our marketing actions.
3) Reports and monitoring
We only have one more ingredient left for the plan to be complete, and it is to detail how we are going to measure our progress.
Every marketing strategy requires continuous monitoring with periodic checkpoints, for example, a meeting with the team every two weeks to share a performance report and see the following actions to follow. The metrics included in this report must respond to the objectives and key performance indicators that we have defined in the first steps of the inbound marketing plan.
It is also important to have a plan contingenci to establish the next steps if the objectives are not being achieved. And last but not least, I want to remind you that a good inbound marketing plan has to have a certain degree of flexibility to be able to adapt to unforeseen events and correct the course if necessary. The important thing is that it is a tool that helps us to progress and that never becomes an obstacle.