The first thing every content marketer should know about Inbound Marketing is there is no “quick and easy” way. An effective Inbound Marketing campaign either takes a sizable budget to outsource OR substantial internal resources to produce real results.
There are certainly steps you can take internally, and there are plenty of ideas for pushing your content out into the world. But first, let’s talk a bit about how Galileo Tech Media’s approach to Inbound Marketing is unique. And effective.
What we see so commonly is the attitude that asks “How do I sell at a profit?” There is nothing wrong with making a profit! But in today’s world, the smarter, long game question should be “How do I create value for the client? And for their customer?” You have to be customer centric to build sustainable campaigns online.
Gaining Attention Through Wise Content
Through Galileo’s execution of Inbound Marketing tactics, we place emphasis on what we call Wise Content. More than just well written words, we are concerned with Content that:
- Earns the attention through quality and targeted interest;
- Targets and nurtures prospects through the entire purchase process, not just when they are immediately ready to buy;
- Is Measured, Tested and Optimized constantly;
- Connects existing customers to prospective customers and get them to communicate their satisfaction with the brand…since nothing closes a sale better than a referral;
- And is not false or misleading – a brand has to be transparent and authentic in its marketing;
- Communicates the correct tone of message to the different audiences it supports.
Now, while we can do all these next steps for you, perhaps you’d like to try to kick start your company’s Inbound Marketing campaign internally. We think we can break it down into 2 main pillars: Generate New Content and Share That Content.
Generate new content by:
Blogging
Blogging is all about bringing visitors to your site organically.
- Posts should answer your audience’s questions and respond to their needs.
- Rely on your site’s Analytics to write about the topics your audience is most interested in [i.e., most popular pages].
- Guest blogging. Use what you know about the content your visitors consume to create new content on sites that attract like-minded visitors.
- Publicizing Reviews. Publish flattering or relevant customer reviews.
- Including a Call to Action. Give your audience a way to respond to your content. Request that they submit some sort of contact information, and then send them Premium Content that you have created – ebooks, webinar invitations, white papers, case studies, etc.
And if you get stuck, check out this amazing PDF guide, 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas. Cancel your company brainstorm, and dig into this guide’s ideas for blogging content, Twitter content, and Facebook content. Here are a few of our favorite ideas for blogging content:
- Point out common mistakes in your industry and offer solutions on how to fix or avoid them.
- Do a weekly or daily links-roundup of relevant news for your community.
- Record an interview with an expert in your field and post it to your blog. – check out Galileo CEO Joseph Franklyn McElroy on radio talk show.
Writing for Your Audience Purposefully
“Brand journalism” is a tactic that all marketers should keep in their toolboxes. The main objective of brand journalism is lead generation. It generates leads by giving customers what they want—not what you want.
To generate quality leads with brand journalism, you can’t just throw up a random Top 10 list and expect results. Your content must connect with your readers and fit your overall marketing strategy.
Here are a few pointers to create brand journalism that finds the facts and the “truth about the facts,” as well as builds trust in your brand.
Align with your company strategy
As mentioned, keep your marketing strategy in mind. Do you want to build brand awareness? Consider a series of features that profile your people or your clients. Do you want to establish your CEO as a thought leader?
Consider a series of blogs where he can express his point of view. To help establish your company as a trusted expert, show your audience that you know they’ve done their research, but you also want to provide two little-known tips to help them maximize spend.
Write to your target audience and write it well
Write to your buyer personas. If you don’t have an in-house writer with top-notch feature-writing skills, hire a professional content marketing writer.
Keep it engaging
Your content should inform and connect with your audience. Give your customers an opportunity to comment. Ask questions in your blog. Share liberally on social media and invite comments, shares, and retweets. Respond authentically to all comments. (No canned responses!)
Keep the tone of your articles and blogs conversational while still adhering to your company’s voice. For example, silly jokes may not fit a medical device company’s blog, but they may work great for a brew pub.
Keep it honest
Follow the ethics of journalism. Tell the truth at all times. Don’t write that your company is the Number One producer of The Widget without a source to back up that claim. If you quote from another article or website, attribute the quote. Write accurate, engaging articles, not sensational, baseless articles.
Outsource
Seek out well-known bloggers or industry leaders with vast social media presences to contribute a guest blog or article. They will share the article on their site, with their contacts, which will get your content in front of a wider audience. Also consider publishing content on LinkedIn, Forbes, and industry trade magazines to tap into their vast audiences of business folks.
As Ann Handley of MarketingProfs wrote, “good content is not storytelling. It’s telling your story well.” (Note our attributed source!) Go out there and tell your story, share your opinions, do it well, and start tracking those quality leads.
Call Upon Experience
Galileo’s Founder and CEO, Joseph McElroy, has been in the business a long time. He’s not only a technology and inbound marketing expert, but developer and artist. Joseph understands it takes much more than “words” to enhance a brand. It takes wise words, wise content.
Joseph’s experience with big-data tools, inbound marketing strategy and implementation, link building, and all the ins and outs of wise content development have brought him in contact with some of the top brands in the world. And helped him come up with the ultimate inbound marketing guide.
And he’s given and seen a LOT of presentations on Inbound Marketing. Both as CEO here, and as the founder of the New York Inbound Marketing Professionals Meetup in NYC. He’s written a post for LinkedIn that’s earned a good deal of attention – take a few minutes and read Joseph’s Ultimate Introduction to Inbound Marketing.
