Unlike outbound marketing which is a more conventional and broad approach, inbound marketing is all about attracting qualified leads and letting them enter the top of the sales funnel and eventually converting them into customers.
The basic idea behind inbound marketing strategy is to tell marketers what exactly should be they saying in their marketing message and when. Also, it does not consider all the website visitors as equal and understand that all of them have diverse requirements.
But the task of developing an ideal inbound marketing funnel is a daunting one. Marketers have to pay serious attention to dealing with sales and building an ultimate lead machine. The real challenge for marketing and sales pros is not to show their desperation to the prospects as soon as they entered the sales funnel otherwise they might bid adieu.
In order to cater to every prospect individually, it’s equally important to understand their specific requirements and pain points and go through a roadmapping exercise. They want precise information that can fix the current issues they’re facing.
This can be done by providing the prospects with an optimized inbound marketing approach by offering educational, tailored, and valuable content at different stages of the sales funnel and create a lead generating machine. So, let’s break down this process into seven key parts that internet marketing gurus use, that can help you in crafting a successful inbound marketing funnel and a lead machine:
- Devise & Follow A Great Content Marketing Strategy
- Make Sure To Begin With Publishing Some Educational Content
Nowadays customers don’t look for generic information anymore. Rather they want educational and helpful content that can solve their issues. This is why the first step of your inbound marketing strategy is to create educational and fresh content like informative blogs, tip sheets, and whitepapers.
The content should be original and capable of addressing the pain points of the customers. Conduct extensive research and create content that can answer all the queries your customers might have.
Ensure to craft content which is extremely relevant, dynamic, and diverse in nature. It should be easily understood and powerful enough to engage prospects at different stages of the funnel. Also, in order to convey your thoughts effectively use multiple media types such as videos, infographics, and digital stories.
- Create An Influential & Intuitive Landing Page
Once you are done with creating educational content, the next step should be to hire a website development company to outline and develop a landing page. The landing page should be visually appealing and intuitive so that customers feel an urge to download the content.
It’s advisable to integrate a contact form where your prospects can enter their personal details such as names, email addresses, etc. Make sure to use those keywords on the landing page that your buyers will enter when searching on Google. This will allow them to find you easily on the search engines.
III. Don’t Forget To Email The Content To The Prospects Who Have Submitted The Forms
After you have a database of a few prospects with their details, make sure to send them personal emails with a direct link to download your content. This can be one of the best ways to grab their attention.
- Make Sure To Follow Up Cleverly By Sending Lead-Nurturing Mails At Regular Intervals Of Time
This is an extremely sensitive phase where it might be dangerous for you to send prospects lengthy emails with long explanations of your products and their features. But it’s beneficial to follow up in such a way so that these leads can remain intact.
Once a prospect has downloaded your content, add them to your sales CRM and drop a follow-up email after an hour or two. Draft an impressive email and incorporate links to one of your blogs. This can be the motivational power you need to push receivers for subscribing to your business.
After the first follow-up, the next day sends an email that comprises interactive content or an invitation to an event such as a webinar. Three days post the second follow up you should send an email through which the prospect can download your e-book. In order to encourage prospects to take this action, provide them with a comprehensive submission form where you can ask a few more information.
Don’t stop at this stage, make sure to send a follow-up email after two or three days that contain a link to one of your pages on the website having informative content that can be valuable for the prospect.
Eventually, observe their response and after three or four days send them an email in order to invite them for scheduling a free consultation. Take this as a golden opportunity to interact with the prospect and understand the real issues they’re experiencing.
- Finally, Time For Some Real Calls
After connecting with leads and winning their loyalty now it’s the time to get your sales peers involved in providing prospects with valuable content that can solve their problems during the free consultation. Remember, do not show your desperation to sell the products but move slowly and try to establish a long-lasting bond.
- Design An Inclusive Strategy For Appropriate Distribution Of The Content Produced
Emails aren’t the only way to connect with potential leads. But you have to think of other relevant platforms where you can post your content. Leverage SEO and target major search engines and social media channels through which you can attract organic traffic to your site.
Explore all major platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. and recognize the best one that fits into your niche. Make sure to invest some funds in paid advertising and boost the visibility of your brand across the right channels.
- Streamline Your Funnel
After creating valuable content and distributing it cleverly across the right channels now it’s the time to welcome the traffic at your doorstep properly. You can do this by automating a few processes such as lead qualification, scoring, and nurturing.
The extent to which you should integrate automation depends upon the size of your business. Also, the capacity of your sales team and the amount of traffic drawn to your site also play key roles in deciding how much automation you need actually.
It’s not good to entirely rely on automation but you should pay equal attention to establish seamless collaboration between your sales and marketing teams. Make sure to align the automated apparatus with the terms and conditions of the sales team. Otherwise, your system will surely break down in the future.
These three steps are crucial to develop a precise inbound marketing funnel and build a lead generating system that has the potential to convert prospects into leads and ultimately customers.
Author Bio:
AnubhutiShrivastava is a content crafter at Arkenea and Benchpoint. She is passionate about writing articles on topics related to design and the software development industry.
