HubSpot Inbound Certification I. Essentials Remember, consumers don t want to be sold to, they want to be educated, and inbound tactics can deliver the kind of information your prospects need to help them make smart, well informed decisions. You can begin to do this by keeping these best practices in mind. First, by using buyer personas, second, by using the buyer s journey, then by creating remarkable content, and knowing how to leverage it. So, you could say that they re a pretty big deal, but how do you create buyer personas? There are three things to keep in mind - research, identifying trends, and creating persona profile stories. And always focus on the Why or the motives of your buyer personas, not their actions. The follow-up question to pretty much every question should be, "Why?" By now you may be thinking, how many personas should I have? As many as needed, as long as you start noticing trends that will help you build out your buyer personas. That brings us to the buyer s journey. Every interaction your persona has with your organization should be tailored to where they are in the buyer s journey.
The buyer s journey is the active research process someone goes through leading up to a purchase. Knowing the buyer s journey for your persona will be key to creating the best content possible. Instead of talking about top, middle, or bottom of the funnel, the buyer s journey is made up of 3 stages: the awareness stage, the consideration stage, and the decision stage that portray the experiences your potential customers go through.
Inbound Marketing is Content plus Context. Your content is your marketing toolkit. Things like blogs, interactive tools, photos/infographics, videos, and ebooks/presentations work to attract, convert, close, and delight. Context is who you re creating it for: you can t just write any blog posts, you have to write the right ones, tailored to who you re trying to reach and what they re interested in. The best content the stuff that s really going to fuel your entire inbound strategy has to be grounded in the correct context. It s not enough to just write a blog post or send out an email. The content in that blog post and that email need to be tailored to who you re trying to reach (your persona) and what they re most interested in seeing (which depends on where they are in the buyer s journey). II. SEO Search engines need to provide the most relevant, useful, and trustworthy answers. To find them, they send what are known as spiders, or web crawlers, to crawl through all of the pages on the web, searching for that content. Those spiders try to figure out what each page is about. This is why having a solid, consistent SEO foundation is critical to being found through search engines.
From that data, they create a list of results that are relevant and useful to the searcher. Then, they rank those results based on the popularity and authority of those websites. The more visits a website gets, the higher it will rank. In this example, you can see that by looking under video search, funny boat names is a related keyword phrase, as is Boaty McBoatface. You can also use a tool like Wordstream s keyword niche finder or the Google webmaster tools to get suggestions. A keyword like jackets is referred to as a short or broad keyword, because that s exactly what it is - short and broad in scope. If a small store specialized in jackets, it would be immensely difficult for them to rank for jackets. There s lots of competition around that keyword, and some very popular, trustworthy sites filling up the top spots. The keyword is also pretty general - the small store wouldn t get any qualified visitors from it. But let s say you searched for something more specific, like men s wool red sox jacket size medium. You d get more specific results that would better answer your question. This more specific keyword phrase is called a long-tail keyword. A long-tail keyword is a primary keyword--usually 2-3 words, such as red sox jacket -- that s expanded upon with additional context, such as men s wool red sox jacket size medium. Be sure that the keyword fits as a description of what the page is all about. In this case, the page is all about this this jacket. You re optimizing for the visitor first, but it's also how a search engine can understand the purpose of the page to know how to best index it. It s important to optimize your pages for long-tail keywords for two reasons: 1) if you re trying rank for red sox jacket --good luck. That s not going to happen. The best way to show up for a primary term like red sox jacket is to be specific about the jacket in which you re referencing. 2) when you optimize for a longtail keyword such as men s wool red sox jacket size medium you re also optimizing the page for wool red sox jacket or red sox jacket size medium. These are all keyword phrases that a search engine is able to fish out. First, optimize the page around a primary keyword. Be sure that the keyword fits as a description of what the page is all about. You re optimizing for the visitor
first, but it's also how a search engine can understand the purpose of the page to know how to best index it. Add the keyword to the page title. The page title shows both on the browser tab for the page, and also as the link to the page in search results. If optimizing a website page, include your company name as well. Use the vertical bar, otherwise known as a pipe, to separate the two. Make sure your company name comes after the pipe, as people (and search engines) read left to right and it s important to call out the keywords in focus first. Next, add your primary keyword to the URL. This can also be seen on the page and within search results. If using a long-tail keyword, use dashes to separate words (companyname.com/long-tail-keyword-phrase). If editing a live page, any change that you make to the URL will create a new page. So make sure to set up a 301 Redirect that will direct the old URL to the new one, sending people seamlessly to the right page. This will save all of your SEO credit and ensures that you don't break any links to the old page. If there are any images on the page, add the keyword to the image alt-text. Search engines can't read images, so alt-text allows a search engine to understand what that image is about. This also allows that image to get found in image searches. Next, add the keyword to the meta description. This is the short summary below the link (or title) to your page in a search engine results page... Each page should have a unique meta description, no longer than 140 characters. Though it doesn t directly affect SEO, its optimization can improve the rate of people clicking through to your page. Another way to improve your SEO is to include relevant links within the content. Linking to relevant, reliable sources helps build the trustworthiness of your site. Don t go overboard - link to one or two sources per paragraph at the very most. You don t want your page to look spammy! We ve talked quite a bit about getting search engines to understand your pages, but how can you get them to see you as a trustworthy and authoritative site? Well, much of this will come from your great optimized content, but some of it also comes from the number of links that are pointing to you. This is a part of what s called off-page SEO. Search engines follow links between pages to see how they re related to each other. Links coming into your website are called inbound links. Search engines view inbound links as a vote of confidence. If a trusted site is linking to you, your website becomes more trustworthy.
But not all links are created equal. Make sure that you're earning high-quality links, and not focusing on quantity. High-quality links come from existing authoritative websites that are relevant to your business or industry. To figure out which websites are authoritative, use a tool like the Moz Open Site Explorer or HubSpot. Links to see all of the websites who are linking to you and their authority. Set up a page for your business on the top online directories. Directories are websites like Yelp, Yellow Pages, and local chambers of commerce. Having a page on a directory will increase the number of links and citations to your website. Citations are online mentions of your business name and address, even if those outside websites don t link to you. Both will help with your offpage SEO. Finally, if your business is location-specific, create a Google+ Local Listing Page. This will help tie your website to a specific location, which Google will use in its search results. If your business is in a single location, link to your homepage. If your business has multiple locations, link to dedicated location page for each (ie - yourwebsite.com/boston). III Content Typically a content process has 4 steps. Those steps are plan, create, distribute, and analyze. Then, take what you learned in your analysis and repeat it all over again. So you have your definition of content simply put, content is information. But content is best defined by three things: its purpose, its format, and its topic. First, what is the purpose of this content? Is the purpose, essentially your goal, to get more people to your site, or to get them to convert to leads? That s the big difference between these two. Content offers are a form of content that are typically gated by a landing page or behind a form. The purpose of a content offer is to convert visits to leads. Whereas your blog posts, videos and website pages are open access to anyone on the internet. The purpose of these pieces of content is to attract strangers to your website. To easily come up with the best topic for every piece of content you create, there are just two things you need to know. These two things are the keys to creating remarkable content. They are- your buyer personas (who you re trying to reach) and the buyer s journey (what content will be most interesting or helpful for them).
Blogging When picking your topics, do keyword research. Keywords are the words and phrases typed into search engines. They re the topics that people are trying to learn more about. Which keywords do your buyer personas use? Which are associated with your industry? Write about those topics to get found and start ranking higher in search results. Lastly, and this will help create a longer-term blogging strategy, make a list of topics that support a specific conversion. For example, if you have an ebook that you want to promote, then consider making a list of blog topics that support this ebook s content. This way, if someone finds your blog post and finds the blog helpful, the chances of them wanting to click a call-to-action to access a relevant offer increases. Next, include a long-tail keyword in the title. A long-tail keyword is a primary keyword--usually 2-3 words, like Internet Radio Show --that s expanded upon with additional context, like How to Produce an Internet Radio Show. Be sure that the keyword fits as a description of what the page is all about. Look at URL Structure
Additionally, you might want to insert a CTA after the first few paragraphs. To avoid looking too pushy too soon, try including a passive CTA through hyperlinked text. It s important to include these passive CTAs, as you can t always count on your visitor reading your entire post and converting. Think about it, when s the last time you watched a YouTube video to the end? By not including a CTA near the beginning, you may be missing out on a valuable conversion opportunity.
Lastly, include a CTA at the end of each post. This offer should be relevant to the blog content that a visitor has just read. Your visitor is there to learn something from your blog post, so provide an offer that gives them more educational content to continue learning.
Moz s free title tag tool Social Media Social media can be used at every stage of the inbound methodology. Use it to attract visitors by sharing remarkable content across channels. Convert new visitors into leads by offering opportunities for visitors to subscribe and receive updates or special offers. Close by acting on insights that you gather through social monitoring and provide value to prospects online. Delight customers by being a warm personality and creating unique ways to engage with audience members.
1 Platform What platform is it? Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.. Additionally, social messages that contain video are shared 1200% more than text and links combined! This means that whether it's an image or a video, visuals drive audiences to act. You can even get creative and make your own unique social images on platforms such as Canva or Pablo. Or if you re searching for beautiful and free stock images you can try sites such as PhoType or Kaboompics. Important social media metrics that can help you calculate the value of your efforts on social media are Reach, Engagement, and Audience Growth. Reach is used to measure the size of your potential audience. This includes people who are directly and indirectly in your social network. Engagement measures the number of interactions with your brand, such as likes and shares. Audience growth refers to the number of new audience members you attract.
Let s look at an example, let s say a social media manager spends 6 hours per week on social media. At the end of the week, he or she generates 1500 new visitors and 225 net new leads. The marketing team at this company has a lead-to-customer conversion rate of 4%, which means 9 of these leads will go on to become customers. Each customer has a lifetime value of $1,000, which means that this week, social media helped earn $9000 for the business in only 6 hours! Awesome job! There are many ways to calculate ROI that are unique to each business, so be sure to find the one that fits your company and then apply it.
Call to Actions When analyzing the effectiveness of a CTA, a good goal to aim for is a 1-to-2 percent click through rate. This means that out of all who viewed the CTA, 1 to 2 percent clicked on the button. So a successful CTA would result in 1 or 2 visitors clicking on the CTA out of 100 people. When comparing clicks to submissions, ten percent is a great goal. For those that clicked on the CTA and made it to the landing page, how many of those people submitted the form and became a lead? If we had 50 people that made it to the landing page from the CTA, and if 5 of them filled out the form on the landing page, we d have a 10% click-to-submission rate and in turn, a successful CTA.
Landing Pages In terms of a conversion rate, a good goal to aim for is 20%. That means that 20% of the total people who get to the landing page eventually fill out the corresponding form. It s important to note that the buyer s journey factors in here.
Thank You Pages
When considering which offer you ll present on the thank you page, you re aiming to move your new leads one step further into the buyer s journey. If they ve just downloaded an educational whitepaper, they re just gathering information, so they re probably not quite ready for a free trial. Choose your CTA very carefully and if you feel like the call-to-action might be too aggressive or unnecessary for your new lead, then you don t have to include it.
So what do you segment by? An internet high-five if you saw this coming...you segment by our Buyer Personas. Buyer Personas are so, so important to our inbound strategy, so it s no surprise that they ve popped up again. You can segment people by geography using criteria such as IP country, time zone, area code, and address. You can use data about a person s company such as its size, the nature of their business -- B2B, B2C, Non-profit, etc. -- and their industry. You can also segment your leads by their role, seniority, what department they belong to, or their specific function within a department. If you use a CMS that has the ability to track a lead s behavior on your website, you can use that to gauge how interested leads are and what they re interested in. For example, you can use conversion events (like downloading an ebook about Twitter), email opens, and page views. If you have marketing intelligence software, you can go one step further and actually incorporate information about your lead and their company into your segments how many followers and fans do they have on twitter or Facebook? What search terms do they use to find your website?
Use actionable language to grab attention and convince leads to complete an action. Use verbs in your CTAs, such as get, start, or reserve. You can also let your lead know what they can do by clicking your email s in-text-ctas or buttons they can save time, or generate more leads, or increase efficiency by x%.
Smarketing What is smarketing? Smarketing is the process of aligning the marketing and sales teams around common goals within a business or organization, with the goal of improving revenue.
Sales
Notice that both the voicemail and email get the same point across: delivering value in a helpful tip as well as offering to set up a meeting. You re still leaving the power in the buyer s hands.
The Pillars of Delight Let's start with first pillar: Innovation. Change is better than the status quo. You should be innovating to serve people with the products or services that they need to achieve their goals and solve their problems. Innovation is applicable to everything from your products or services, to the experiences and the interactions that create your customer s perception. The second pillar that you need to embrace and follow is communication. Personal communication is always better than impersonal. You should be thinking about how to foster personal communication throughout a person s experience, whether they re a customer or not.
And finally the third pillar of delight: education. Empowering people is better than ignoring People. You should be educating people to grow their knowledge. Maybe it s education about your industry or product.