Inbound Marketing Blog

How much focus have you applied to your conversion strategy?

As a certified inbound marketing consultant I am consistently evaluating online or Internet marketing strategies. I'm sure it comes as no shock to any reader that in the past 12 months, almost every (if not all) KPI (key performance indicators) have shown significant increases in:

1. Overall search traffic
2. Blog readership
3. Blog creation & posts
4. Social media accounts
5. Social media communications
6. Paid advertising
7. Products & services offered
8. Websites launched
9. Etc, etc...

My point is that all players in all ends have increased dramatically. In my own mind, and from my own perspective, this simply means more competition for attention as well as more opportunity for the savvy marketing professionals.

All of this overview leads me to the focus of this particular blog post and that is a perceived weakness or oversight in many inbound or Internet marketing strategies.

If getting found, converting & analyzing are the staples of a good Internet marketing process, this blog post is about the middle element or conversion strategy as I see that in many cases, this area needs the most attention. It's considered a great success to improve your search engine positions, increase your inbound links, double your traffic and reach but in the end, if your conversion process is sub-standard, it's not as big a success as it could have been.

With all of this in mind, it is important to understand the traditional sales funnel and sales cycle.

1. Top of the funnel = Tier one traffic from all sources including:
   • Organic traffic
   • Referral or link traffic
   • PPC traffic
   • Direct traffic
   • Email traffic
   • Blog traffic
   • Social media traffic
2. Middle of the funnel = Lead generation or conversion. This is the process of qualifying or filtering all traffic into interested or lead traffic. Once tier one traffic is converted to a lead, they have moved from the top of the funnel to the middle of the funnel.
3. Bottom of the funnel = Customers

In my next blog post I will discuss the process and methodology available to manage the middle of the funnel and convert tier one traffic into leads.

Other resources available to help you expand your reach:

Marketing Analysis: How To Evaluate Your Inbound Marketing Efforts: KPIs

This article is part 4 in a series outlining the philosophy and approach behind an effective inbound marketing strategy. If you haven't read the previous 3 articles, please feel welcome to do so here:

Article #1: Inbound Marketing Methodology - Part 1, Get Found, Convert, Analyze.
 Article #2: Inbound Marketing Fundamentals - Part 2, Get Found.
Article #3: Lead Conversion: How Do I Convert Traffic To Leads?

Part 4 - Analyze: (Marketing Analysis)

1. How do I evaluate my "get found" & "convert" efforts?
   
2. What are the "key performance indicators" I should be studying?
   
3. How do I know if I am doing all the right things?
4. What changes could I make to get better results?
5. Is my marketing analysis complete?
6. What methods are best for my marketing analysis?
   

In summary, our view of a powerful, integrated and effective inbound marketing strategy needs to include 3 main elements:

1. Get Found - Have your content optimized for search engines, blog articles & social media).
2. Convert - Make it easy for the traffic you created to engage and become a lead.
3. Analyze - (marketing analysis) Evaluate all elements and data to improve your inbound marketing
 strategy and plan of action.

Another great resource for learning best practices for your blogging strategy is by read additional articles from HubSpot.

Accurate analysis of all important metrics and KPIs (key performance indicators) is a critical component of a healthy inbound marketing strategy and inbound marketing technologies. A very significant luxury that a well constructed inbound marketing analysis & strategy can provide is real time numbers and measurable ROI. With the availability and integration of the front line inbound marketing applications, we are able to perform a marketing analysis daily and understand exactly what is working and what needs attention or even termination. If you have ever used an application like Google Analytics, you know that it's not very hard to view very detailed traffic statistics. However, many of these metrics aren't very useful and just because it can be measured, doesn't mean it has value. We feel a good marketing analysis application should include these metrics and KPIs:

• Traffic Sources
• organic traffic flow 
• paid traffic flow
• direct traffic flow
• referred traffic flow
• email campaign traffic flow
• social media traffic flow
• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• You Tube
• Social Media Conversations
• Know what is talked about on Twitter, LinkedIn and the blogosphere that relates to your important keywords.
• Reach (how many subscribers & followers do you have on:
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Blog email subscription
• Blog RSS feed
• Site converted leads
• Lead Conversion Rates
• Landing pages
• Specific offers
• Specific CTAs (call to action)
• Main site pages
• Leads:
• Where they converted
• When they converted
• What they downloaded
• What to do next
• Prospects: What organizations have reviewed your site (not leads)
• Blog
• Number of post views
• Number of comments on each post
• Number of inbound links generated
• Number of subscribers both email & RSS feed
• Keyword Performance
• Master keyword database
• Monthly traffic per keyword
• Level of competition per keyword
• Page ranking for each keyword
• Change in ranking for each keyword
• Related value of each keyword
• Competitive Marketing Analysis
• Website grade
• MOZ Rank
• Traffic rank
• Blog grade
• Inbound links
• Bookmarks
• Search engine indexed pages
  

With the ability to perform your marketing analysis using these key performance indicators, you are then able to watch and evaluate your marketing strategy as it unfolds. These metrics enable you to make faster, better and more powerful decisions and in turn, take better advantage of all your marketing your resources.