What you need to understand when trying to compete online.
When you understand what an inbound marketing blueprint should look like, you have a better chance of success.
The problem: In my experience, the biggest challenge for any business when trying to compete online and achieve better visibility, better credibility, better authority, more traffic, better conversions and analytics that allow you to do it better each time around is a solid inbound marketing strategy and matching blueprint.
As competition for online real estate increases each month, it becomes more important to understand this necessity and constantly execute an inbound marketing plan.
Below are the basics to understanding the major components of a successful online marketing strategy.
The Solution (part 1) - Always visualize your primary inbound marketing strategy as a funnel with 3 main components:
- Top End: This is where you attract all traffic through the major search engines, blog development local marketing, email distribution and social media. The more successful the top end of your funnel is, the more first time traffic you will achieve.
- Middle Section Of Your Funnel: This is where you create and develop the engagement element of your inbound marketing strategy. As you build the top end of your funnel and develop more and more traffic, you now have the opportunity to engage this traffic and attempt to provide concrete reason for this top end traffic to embrace your message. This is where tire kickers, researchers and other online searchers can convert to prospects or leads.
- The Bottom End: This is the opportunity to analyze the top and middle sections of your funnel. The better your evaluation or analytics, the more effective your adjustments and next decisions will be and this will improve the top and middle sections of your funnel the next time around.
The Solution (part 2) - Developing your plan to manage all elements and details of this funnel. Another issue I frequently encounter when speaking with clients and inbound marketing prospects wanting to succeed online is the lack of understanding of the work involved.
The age old principle of "getting what you pay for" applies. Even though online marketing is more cost effective than traditional marketing, and especially if you have an idea for a new business, you must understand attention the marketing funnel explained above needs attention and it's best to align your project with an inbound marketing professional either by an internal team or by out sourcing this work and the related requirements. Simply put, have a marketing budget. You must have a marketing budget to address a complete marketing plan.
For a comprehensive evaluation & analysis along with observations and recommendations, review this page - Inbound Marketing Analysis
