10 Ways to Improve Your Inbound Marketing Strategy

Inbound marketing is a digital marketing methodology that aims to attract users in a non-intrusive way by using the right content at the right time.

We all know that from time to time it's important to reassess your overall strategy and look at how you can give it an extra boost. To help you with this, we'll look at 10 techniques you can use to improve your inbound marketing performance. Let’s get started!

10 Ways to Boost Your Inbound Marketing Strategy

Inbound Marketing is based on attracting the prospect to you, not seeking them out. We've compiled 10 attraction techniques to help boost your inbound marketing strategy.

1. Work Your Blog and Content Strategy

Your blog is one of the most important channels - or even main channel - for your content strategy. Do not ignore this essential inbound tool! Having a blog is one of the best bases of any inbound strategy because it organically attracts traffic and leads. Make sure that your content is high quality, that you post regularly, and that you are addressing topics of interest to your audience.

2. Personalize, Personalize, Personalize

The conversion funnel should serve as a guiding source when planning your inbound marketing strategy. With this in mind, use customization to personalize your content for every stage of the funnel. The more relevant your content is to the user, the more appreciated and connected they feel to the brand. Here are some personalization ideas based on each phase.

• Top of the funnel (TOFU): In the first phase of the funnel, the user has determined that he have a need so they are searching for relevant information. Use your social ads, blog content, and video content to respond directly to this information searching phase using proper keyword research.
• Middle of the funnel (MOFU): In this second phase, the user is evaluating the different options on the market. You can use downloadable content that will allow you to get more information about the lead. With this information you can launch personalized email campaigns and remarketing tactics to move the lead down the funnel.
• Bottom of the funnel (BOFU): The final stage of the funnel is when the user is ready to make a purchase. Use tactics like free demos, discounts, or trials to get them to commit to you. And after the purchase don’t forget to maintain their loyalty, using personalized emails, coupons, or discounts.

3. Use Your Lead Magnets

Are you using all of the lead magnets at your disposal? Lead magnets, or Inbound Marketing tools, are techniques and elements that help to organically attract users. They provide value, are based on the Buyer Persona and the customer journey. These special inbound marketing tools are the very things that help move your lead down the conversion funnel. Ensure that you are using all them correctly and in the most optimal way.

The most important lead magnets are:

• High quality content
• CTAs
• Landing pages
• Forms
• Chatbots

There are many types of lead magnets and many different ways you can use them. A classic example is a CTA within a blog post (in fact, there are two in this very blog post! Can you spot them?).

4. Include CTAs

Call to actions are elements that serve to get your users to perform a specific action. Many people think that putting CTAs here and there is good enough, but this is far from the truth. Instead of placing your CTAs wherever, develop a strong strategy that will encourage users to move along the conversion funnel and get your better results.

Use these techniques when developing your CTAs:

• Remember that a CTA is in fact content! Instead of treating it like a navigation button, start seeing and treating your CTA as a content piece. This will help you strategize them better.
• A good design will be crucial to its effectiveness. Try A/B testing to see which CTAs get more clicks.
• Defining its function and its phase within the conversion funnel is critical. Consider that you will have different CTAs for each phase of the funnel.

5. Revise Your Landing Pages and Forms

Landing pages and forms turn anonymous visitors into leads.

Take a look at your current landing pages and ask yourself two questions: Is the content on this landing page in line with what the user needs, and Does the UX and design encourage the user to stay on the landing page? These two factors will play a very important role in conversion rates.

Here are two tips for creating a good landing page:

• Have the product, content piece, or main element take up a majority of the landing page. It sounds obvious, but this ensures that your user doesn’t get distracted by your landing page, or feel like they have been tricked into clicking on your website.
• Have the form appear on the user's screen without the user having to scroll. This encourages users to fill out the form easier and with less steps.

Don’t forget about your forms! Take a long hard look at what you're asking leads to fill out. Are you asking for too much? Including too many questions in a form can lower the conversion rate. Remember, the answers should only help you define whether the person is a marketing qualified lead (MQL) or not. Consider which questions are relevant and absolutely necessary.

I recommend using progressive forms. This means every time leads return to your website, new questions appear on the form. This allows you to get more information about the prospect, while also not annoying them with the same questions.

There is a time and place to use long forms, but only when the value content you offer is equivalent to what you’re asking for. Basically, make your content worthy of filling out a longer form.

6. Workflows, Email Marketing, and Lead Nurturing

Email marketing is an essential strategy within inbound marketing. To this day it remains a key tool for lead nurturing.

Take a look at your workflow and see if you are utilizing their full potential. Working workflows properly will allow you to nurture your leads and accompany them in the different phases of the conversion funnel. For example, if a user downloads an ebook or whitepaper, set up a workflow that continues to send them more relevant content. If they respond well to these emails (opens the emails, clicks the links, etc.) you can consider reaching out personally after determining if they are a SQL.

7. Don’t Forget About SEO

While SEO and inbound marketing are not exactly the same things, they do have very similar goals. SEO is a crucial tool for your inbound marketing strategy. Using SEO techniques helps attract visitors to your website, so optimizing it will help boost your inbound marketing processes and turn visitors into leads and then customers.

8. Link Building

Link building is the strategy of placing incoming links from your website onto other relevant, high-quality websites. To be effective, the following parameters must be taken into account:

• Diversity: If all of your links are coming from the same domain, your link building strategy will not be effective. Ensure you are diversifying your link building, so that many different websites are linking back to you.
• Quality: It is not enough to have many backlinks - they must be high quality. Try to aim for links from websites that are related to your industry and have a strong domain authority. For example, an online sports store, will get more value from links from a sports blog than a marketing blog.
• Quantity: Having many links pointing to your site from different domains tells Google you are relevant and a trustworthy source in the industry. But if quantity is an issue just remember that Google values quality more than quantity.

9. Utilize Social Media

Don’t forget about social media in your inbound marketing plan. Apart from spreading your content, social media can also help you with lead recruitment, branding, and brand awareness. Links from social networks, although dofollow, are also taken into account by Google at the SEO level. So keep your social networks active with a lot of content.

10. Don’t Ignore Paid Advertising

A good inbound marketing strategy combines the paid and organic parts intelligently. Using paid ads, like Google Ads or Social Ads will reinforce your Inbound strategy. For example, the keyword study that you did for your SEO blog articles can also help you for your SEM campaign.

In general, PPC ads is good for quick, short-term results, while pure SEO Inbound is more of a medium-to-long-term strategy, but with very good results when you start to pull. If you find your inbound marketing plan is off to a slow start, consider strengthening it with SEM.