To run a successful inbound marketing campaign, you need to match the right people to the right job. Inbound marketing uses blogging, SEO, social media and lead conversion strategies to create an intimate dialog between your company and consumers. Staffing choices can be critical to your success.
Anyone can blog, but to craft a consistently good, authoritative post on a regular basis takes experience and skill. A good blogger knows his or her topic cold and knows how to connect with readers, how to capture their interest and engage them with questions and comments. The best bloggers know how to mix topics and sentiment, facts with emotions, and utility with controversy. The right blend creates buzz, captures leads and produces loyal followers.
Now try to find someone who also has the technical side of inbound marketing down to a science. Getting found on the search engines requires business acumen, keyword strategy and experience in optimizing web pages, blog posts and social media content. Search marketing strategies must adapt to the new search technologies and policies as they roll out from search engines and social media. Your SEO expert must be aware of these changes and act quickly to take advantage of them.
Marketing staff that may have shone when creating static print advertisements or writing impersonal bulk mailing materials may lack the necessary people skills, personality or warmth to connect successfully with consumers on Facebook or Twitter. Social media marketing requires superb interactive people skills, flexibility, spontaneity, the ability to quickly embrace new technologies and -- this is probably the most critical key to success -- a personality capable of connecting quickly with consumers on an intimate level that honestly reflects the corporate image you are trying to project.
Attracting visitors to your website and blog is only half the inbound marketing battle. You also need people who understand the dynamics of lead capture and conversion to customers. Today's marketer is also a salesman and vice versa. The first step is understanding your target market - who they are and what they want. Your must create compelling content, such as whitepapers, videos and webinars that will convince your target market to sign up and enter your sales funnel. Lead conversion experts then create lead nurturing campaigns to further interest leads and begin to build relationships with them. Ultimately, you need someone experienced in marketing, advanced content creation, landing page optimization and customer relationship management to successfully build your brand and capture leads.
If so, how much will they cost on a freelance or full-time basis? Will you need a team, complete with a team leader and experts in the inbound marketing disciplines? How much will that cost? Many firms turn to professional inbound marketing agencies. A properly staffed inbound marketing agency already has qualified people with the necessary skills and experience to strategize and execute effective inbound marketing campaigns. A good strategy is to hire an inbound marketing agency for several months to a year to get your campaigns running smoothly. Meanwhile, you can include your own staff in the project, and they will learn from the experts. Eventually, you can have your own internal team of inbound marketers without incurring the risk of building your own team from scratch.
For more information on building your inbound marketing team, download our free whitepaper.
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