Month: November 2015

The recent release of State of Inbound 2015 hi-lights a number of key takeaways, such as:

“Marketers should create compelling content that reflects their company’s voice and brand while helping the consumers of this content turn into website visitors, leads and customers.”

A nice statement that speaks both on the importance of being true to your brand, and on the importance of helping your audience. All delivered through the wonder of creating online content.

If you’re an expert in your niche and loyal to your brand, you may think it should be easy. But, it’s harder than it sounds.

The reality is that many small to medium business enterprises find it difficult to consistently fuel a content pipeline.

In many cases internal experts are just too busy. Perhaps they know a lot but have difficulty in focusing in on specific ideas and topics. There’s a level of organization and planning required to consistently generate fresh stuff — blog posts, videos, white papers, or help guides. And it takes a lot of time. Every week.

Enter the freelancer or marketing agency.

Those that create valuable and compelling content don’t always have to be your own employees.

Freelancers or agencies specialize in working with companies to co-create content and take some of the burden off. They have processes and schedules built around both independent research and working with your experts to organize and publish relevant content.

You don’t’ have to do this alone.

In fact, many don’t. Turning again to the State of Inbound 2015 report, HubSpot found “leading marketer’s content comes from both in-house and out”. This is the sweet spot that can ensure your brand and voice is present but gives you time to look after other parts of your business.

Get the biggest bang for your buck.

It makes sense to use your expertise and best people in a way that delivers the biggest bang for your business.

A lot of content required is to help your online business to “get found” and to help people learn about your stuff (and decide if it is what they want or need). At this early stage people may not be ready to buy yet.

It makes sense to spend your expert time with those that are nearer to buying, after they have consumed some of your remarkable content. Have your out-source work on the “top-of-the-funnel” content while your best people are working on closing qualified leads.

Whatever the case, in-house or out, the experts agree content is the lifeblood of online marketing. Your audience must be impressed with you online and satisfied enough with what they have found in order to give you their business.

Notice I haven’t said that you don’t have to do anything. That would be too easy.

As 2015 rushes toward its close, it’s time to start planning for next year. Any business that hopes to succeed will include a marketing plan in their business strategy, but it’s not enough to just pay lip service to it. That marketing plan should be actionable, measurable, and focused on Inbound Marketing practices.

Not sure exactly what “Inbound Marketing” really means? HubSpot, the company who coined the term in 2006, refers to it as “the art and science of drawing visitors to your company on their own terms versus obtrusively pushing your messages onto them… [It] is the superset of quality content and other ‘magnetic’ tactics.” And their annual ‘State of Inbound’ Report is rather like the State of the Nation and the Farmer’s Almanac of marketing, combined. The 2015 report identifies trends and patterns worth noticing as you build your business plan for 2016, providing insights that are aimed at helping businesses improve top-line performance.

While I strongly encourage you to download and read the whole document, the State of Inbound 2015 Report has 54 information-packed pages, so allow me to give you a brief taste of a few key ingredients for your 2016 marketing success recipe:

 

“Getting found” is priority #1 (and #2 and #3) for high performers

When conducting its survey and analyzing the results, HubSpot focused on the segment of inbound marketers who generated positive ROI. They looked at these high performers to see if their priorities were different than those of low performers.

Pattern: They found that high performers focused on programs aimed at getting their content (and thus their company) found. Specifically, their top priorities, in order, were: Blogging, organic search, and content amplification. “Blogging appears to have the most substantial impact on performance.”

Inbound Marketing has become an important, cost-effective source of leads

Trend: In 2015, more than twice as many respondents cited inbound (45%) as their primary source of leads versus outbound (22%).

Trend: 84% of inbound marketers cite organic, “top of funnel” lead sources (social media, blogs, SEO, and email marketing) as rising in importance over the last six months. And the Sales team agrees that these four have become the most important, although they place a relatively higher importance on email marketing, whereas Marketing prioritizes blogs and social media.

Related patterns:

• Organizations that source more leads through inbound tend to enjoy an ROI advantage.
• Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI
• While cost per lead was difficult to quantify, it was found that leads sourced through inbound programs were consistently less expensive than outbound leads. This held true regardless of company size.

 

Inbound is on the rise

Trend: The number of marketers who state they are practicing inbound rose from 60% last year to 85% this year, while the percentage of marketers who concede they don’t run inbound was nearly halved to 13%.

Trend: Inbound is not limited to Marketing. Sales, services, and other departments are starting to use inbound practices. Fostering an inbound approach outside the marketing department has the potential to be a big competitive advantage.

 

Measurement is essential

Measurement is “the first step in developing a plan and the last step in determining results. This is why data is such a central component of the inbound machine.”

Trend: Alignment between leadership and marketers has increased. This is likely due to an increase in the use of measurement and metrics to collect unbiased, objective data that can be used to drive informed decisions and set appropriate priorities.

Pattern: Marketers that measure inbound Return on Investment (ROI) are 17 times more likely to see the same or higher ROI compared to the prior year. While this data may be skewed by the fact that high performing marketers are more likely to measure results, “there’s a strong correlation between simply measuring ROI and achieving it.”

Pattern: Proven ROI has a significant positive influence on the size of the marketing budget. In fact, “past success with inbound” had a greater impact on budget than any other single factor.

 

Putting it all together to create a solid plan for 2016

It seems clear from the results analyzed in HubSpot’s State of Inbound 2015 that Inbound is an essential part of the marketing strategy and overall business plan for any organization. It has been proven to generate leads, lower the average cost per lead, and increase ROI. So, how do you put it into practice?

• Include inbound programs in your marketing plan and earmark resources for them.
• Focus on Content Marketing as a key component of Inbound Marketing. Useful, compelling content is necessary to drive Inbound success. “Content is the lifeblood of Inbound.”
• Establish key metrics, and measure as you go.
• Identify the projects, activities that are providing the highest return.

And above all, stay nimble. “Inbound is about constantly reallocating your resources based on performance.”

Does your organization “do” Inbound? Have you noticed any other trends or patterns?