Inbound Marketing

Closed-loop reporting allows you to:

- Analyze which marketing sources (organic, social, referral, etc.) are producing the most customers - Use conversion assists to help you understand how each individual piece of content contributes to closing customers - Provide a timeline of all interactions a contact took prior to becoming an MQL or a customer - Pass information to sales that can aid them in connecting and engaging with contacts within the first 24 hours - Send automatic updates to your sales team when their leads revisit the website or take other key actions, to make sure to follow up at the best time

Why do you need a social media strategy?

- Helps you expand your other marketing efforts, so your content has a chance to be seen by a wide audience, and hopefully, the right audience - Helps you build brand awareness - One of the most powerful drivers for word of mouth - You can use social media to attract buyers

To create an SLA, you'll need:

- The average conversion rate from lead to opportunity - The average conversion rate from the opportunity to close a sale - The average value of the sale

A buyer persona will help you determine:

- The right media platform to use - The best mix of content to share - Target advertising to the right audience

How do you implement conversion optimization?

1. Define your objective 2. Establish your baseline 3. Form a testable hypothesis 4. Design your tests 5. Analyze your data

What six factors typically affect conversions?

1. Value proposition 2. Relevance 3. Urgency 4. Clarity 5. Anxiety 6. Distraction

Opportunity

A SQL that a sales rep has communicated with an logged as a legitimate potential customer

Conversations are what?

A cycle of data in and data out

Reporting

A written or spoken description of a situation, event, etc.

Plan

As you design your conversation, you must ____ ahead for all the places that users may stray away from the ideal path.

How long should you test run for?

At least four weeks

What are the three stages of the Inbound methodology?

Attract, engage, delight

What are the three stages of the buyer's journey?

Awareness, consideration, decision

Social media allows you to do what?

Be more personal and hone in on the right type of persona for your products and services

With inbound marketing, what channels can potential customers find you through?

Blogs, search engines, social media

Closed-loop reporting

Completes the feedback loop between marketing and sales

How do you select the right conversational channel?

Consider your buyer personas and what conversational channels they utilize most

Lead

Contact who has submitted their information through a form or by starting a chat on your website

Marketing qualified lead (MQL)

Contacts who have raised their hands (metaphorically speaking) and identified themselves as more deeply engaged, sales-ready leads

What are the five fundamentals of inbound marketing?

Contacts, buyer personas, the buyer's journey, content, and goals

What is inbound marketing about?

Creating one-on-one relationships that have a lasting impact on your visitors and your brand

Standardize

Delivering consistent information across all of your channels

If your leads are ready for sales, use:

Email nurturing, paid retargeteing on social media channels, specific segmented social media streams, one-on-one interactions

Three types of conversational channels

Email, messenger, live chat

What trait is at the heart of inbound?

Empathy

Why does understanding the fundamental difference between reporting and analytics matter?

Ensures you're using the potential of both without missing out on key features of either

Conversion optimization

Process of testing hypothesis on elements of your site with the ultimate goal of increasing percentage of visitors who take the desired action; about data and experimentation

Analytics

Process of using analytics; detailed examination of anything complex to understand its nature or to determine its essential features

Think

Repeatable, predictable, impactful

What is the difference between reporting and analytics?

Reporting focuses on compiling data you've been collecting, while analytics focuses on exploring and interpreting data or reports to glean valuable insights into why certain trends happen the way they did.

Awareness stage

When your prospect is experiencing or expressing symptoms of a problem or opportunity

What should you consider when comparing different messaging channels?

Where your prospects are, how they prefer to communicate, what channels work best for your team

What does a buyer persona help you determine?

Who your ideal customer is

Grow

You need to iterate and optimize them over time

Optimize

You want to ensure you are using the right mixture of conversational channels

As traffic to your website increases, optimization helps you to do what?

Evolve

Service-level agreement

Formalize the marketing and sales goals to ensure the company is set up to reach its revenue goal

How can marketing align with sales?

Have an agreed upon definition of a sales-ready lead; define life cycle stage of your contacts; implement a service-level agreement

Data-out

How you use your data to further optimize and personalize the conversational experience for your website visitor

Personalize

Identify what your visitors are trying to accomplish; use this information to craft a conversational experience that delights your visitors by delivering the right information when they need it most

Content

Inbound marketing cannot exist without this

Shared knowledge

Information or data that is accessible by all tools and participants in conversations

If you're considering your company's bottom line, what two approaches should you consider?

Invest more time and resources; increase chances of your current traffic choosing to convert

Why is creating buyer personas beneficial?

It helps you step into the shoes of your audience, helping gain insight into why they are as a person; you start to gain their trust by creating content that best aligns with them

Why is social media the ultimate way to do inbound marketing?

It's a one-on-one medium, which gives you and your company the chance to market in a direct, but very human way

Approach everything with what POV?

It's all just messaging

Conversion optimization is what type of process?

Iterative process

What are the benefits of closed-loop marketing?

Marketing - Get up to date info and status updates - Learn which marketing programs are working and which aren't - Increase marketing ROI Sales - De-duplicate contacts - Prioritization of contacts - More educated contacts - Increase close rate and sales ROI

What are tactics used by inbound marketers to nurture evolving relationships with customers?

Marketing automation, conversational marketing

Inbound marketing

Marketing focused on being discovered by customers; attracting customers through relevant and helpful content, and adding value at every stage in your customer's buying journey.

Conversation

Oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas

Empathize

People want to feel like they have an actual connection with your brand persona

To accomplish a strong conversational growth strategy, refer to what method?

SCOPE

Buyer personas

Semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on real data and some select educated speculations about demographics, behaviors, motivations, and goals

What are the elements of a strong conversational growth strategy?

Shared knowledge; deliver the right message, at the right time, with the right information, on the right conversational channel, every single time

What does SCOPE stand for?

Standardize, Contextualize, Optimize, Personalize, Empathize

Buyer's journey

The active research process someone can go through leading up to a purchase

Data-in

The data you collect, either by asking for it explicitly, or gathering it through analytics implicitly

Contacts

The most important inbound tool; the heart of your inbound marketing efforts; anyone your company markets to, sells to, partners with, engages with, or employs; an individual you're creating a relationship with

Sales enablement

The processes, content, and technology that empower sales teams to sell efficiently at a higher velocity

What are the steps for implementing a conversational growth strategy?

Think, plan, grow

Why do you only want to test one element at a time?

To ensure your data is accurately demonstrating impact

Contextualize

Understanding where a visitor is in the buyer's journey ensures you're delivering the right information when they need it; You want to make sure you're using the information your company has about each visitor to delight them with a more personalized 1:1 experience.

Content acts as your ___________.

Voice

Iterative process

Way of looking at wider picture of continuing to provide value to customers and systematically improving it

Prospect

Website visitors who you've gathered minimal data on or who have signed up for a blog or an email newsletter

Consideration stage

When a prospect has clearly defined and named their problem or opportunity

Decision stage

When a prospect has decided on their solution strategy, method, or approach; considering all available vendors and contemplating the final decisio

Goals

When setting out with your inbound marketing efforts, start from a place where you know what you want to achieve