The Many Hats Worn By An Inbound Marketing Consultant

Getting Started With inbound

Now is an ideal time to ramp up your business's inbound marketing efforts. But what's the best approach?

The following inbound marketing tactics are pursued by many companies:

However, none of these tactics on their own will help grow your business.

Below are the research, planning and execution steps recommended for a business that's looking to get real results from inbound.

An inbound marketing consultant acts as a facilitator, researcher and recommender throughout this process.

Some inbound marketing specialists work for a marketing agency. Others are solopreneurs.

An Inbound Consultant's Initial Work

First, we'll take a look at the up-front work that is normally performed and/or facilitated by a consultant. Then, we'll look at the consultant's many ongoing tasks.

As with most business initiatives, the strategy that's behind inbound marketing should drive the tactics.

Assess the Current State

Begin by interviewing stakeholders in order to get some key questions answered. Examples of questions are:

1. What problem does my company's products or services solve for my ideal clients?

2. What do my prospects not know about my product or service?

3. What have past customers learned about working with us that they didn't know before working with us?

4. Are the sales and marketing teams working in concert?

5. Is your important website content getting enough visibility in the search engine results?

Articulate Marketing Objectives

Based on the assessment, determine what your marketing objectives are and what the relative priority of each objective is. A list of objectives can include:

• Brand building

• Getting more business from our existing customers

• Landing a greater number of net new customers each month

• Acquiring more leads from our vendors

Identify Your Target Accounts

What is your area of geographic coverage? Do you sell locally, nationally, internationally?

What industries/verticals have you sold into in the past? What verticals do you want to sell into in the future?

Define Roles Within Target Accounts

Who are the buyers within your target accounts? If you're selling into small businesses, you may be selling to the owner or to a general manager. If you're selling into larger companies, you may be selling to an IT manager or to the vice president of sales.

Who are the influencers within your accounts? Your marketing may be more likely to get the attention of an influencer than a buyer.

Who are the practitioners? These are the people who will be using your product or service.

Analyze Competitor Websites

How are your competitors approaching their inbound marketing? What keywords are they ranking for—even unintentionally—that we should consider also trying to rank for?

If you have a regional business, what can be learned from similar businesses in other parts of the country?

Determine The Initial Traffic Sources

There are a variety of potential inbound traffic sources. It's important to initially focus on just one or two sources, such as organic search results and social.

Over time you can expand your sources to video, audio and to blog sites such as Medium and LinkedIn.

Define Traffic Destinations

Where do you want to drive traffic that comes from organic search results? Here are some of the options. These are not mutually exclusive:

• Home Page

• Blog Posts

• Product pages

• Service pages

• Landing Pages

Identify Desired Visitor Actions

Once visitors arrive at a destination, what calls to action do you want to present to them? Each traffic destination should have one primary call to action.

• Call us now

• Email us

• Get a quote

• Schedule an online meeting with a consultant

• Download something of value (lead magnet) in exchange for your contact information

• Download an un-gated digital asset like a solution brochure

• Fill in a traditional "Contact Us" type form

Evaluate the Appropriate Technologies

There are a wide range of technology options for websites, web forms, landing pages and nurture email campaigns. Some are reasonably priced and do not represent a significant cost for most small and mid size businesses.

Depending on business requirements, an inbound marketing consultant will recommend the right blend of technologies.

Develop a Plan For Measuring Progress and Success

A combination of website analytics data, marketing automation system information and CRM data will indicate which efforts are working best.

Marketing revenue attribution can be tracked by creating technical connections along the Awareness to Order path. Proof of the value of marketing efforts can be reported to management.

Implement the Playbook Recommendations

Playbook recommendations are implemented over a multi-month period. Recommended actions can be implemented by:

• An outside, inbound marketing consultant

• A combination of your internal inbound marketer(s) and an inbound consultant

• Your inbound marketers only

The Inbound Marketing Consultant's Ongoing responsibilities

The ongoing role of the inbound consultant is to ensure that the playbook recommendations are executed consistently.

The consultant should complement your internal team as an advisor and a contributor of content.

There should be an ongoing transfer of knowledge from the consultant to your team members.

Frequently Asked Questions