And why are they not checked? Because it is assumed that they are correct, or it is unknown that they will be needed.
If we don't want to be surprised, these are the things we should check before starting an inbound marketing campaign:
The state of online presence
Obviously, an inbound marketing campaign relies on the advertiser's entire online presence: website, blog, landing pages and social networks basically.
Both the website, the blog and the landing list of togo consumer email pages must meet certain technical requirements that allow the inclusion of CTAs and smart forms. And of course, the website and the blog must be optimized for lead capture.
How to do it? You can download the FREE CHECK-LIST The 20 keys to a B2B website designed to capture leads in which we explain the fundamental points to take into account.
Ownership of accounts
This is one of the most common and unpleasant surprises we often encounter: the company does not have control over your Internet accounts.
Sometimes, this control is not even held by another company, but rather the ownership of the accounts is dispersed among third-party companies, former employees or active employees who do not remember when or how they opened a particular profile on a social network.
In our previous post 5 issues that marketing managers must have under control we discussed this issue in detail.
By the way, this must be a topic that sparks a lot of interest because, even though it has only been posted for a few days, it has already had a lot of views. Take a look at it, it may help you avoid problems.
Additional investment in online advertising
When planning an inbound marketing campaign, it should not be forgotten that, during the first few months, it will be necessary to invest in online marketing to attract traffic to the landing pages.
It is unrealistic to rely on SEO and traffic generation from social networks from the start. SEO and social networks take a few months to do their organic work (let's call it that). Until then, you have to give them a hand by investing in online advertising.
Therefore, when you prepare your inbound marketing budget, don't forget to reserve an allocation for generating qualified traffic through online marketing techniques such as those we explain in this FREE E-BOOK 8 Online Marketing Trends for 2017 that you should include in your plans .
Deadlines
Creating an inbound marketing campaign takes time. And so does getting results from it.
In summary, before launching the campaign you must:
Check and, if necessary, optimize the entire online presence.
Set up an inbound marketing tool, such as HubSpot.
Define the buyer persona.
Conduct a content audit and subsequent analysis.
Prepare the Content Pillars and the rest of the content that will be responsible for generating organic traffic as we explained in the post 5 keys to using content marketing to attract traffic to your website .
Create landing pages, CTAs, emails, automatic workflows...
Create the online advertising campaigns we referred to in the previous point.
In short, there is a lot of preliminary work to be done before the campaign is launched and it must be done well.
How long does all this take? In our experience, between 1 and 2 months.
We always say it: inbound marketing is not for the impatient, but for those who want to obtain very good results in the medium and long term.
Equipment
Are the roles of all the people involved in the campaign clear?
In our article What professionals are involved in an inbound marketing campaign? we explained what functions and skills are necessary for the creation, implementation and management of an inbound marketing campaign.
It is necessary to clearly define what each company does – the advertiser and its advertising agency – and what each professional is responsible for within each company. If you think about it, it is a question of talent, plus good organisation based on clear objectives.
If everything is done this way, success is assured.
