The primary goal of inbound marketing is to draw prospects to your website by distributing valuable content and then convert them into leads through the use of premium offers and nurturing campaigns.  Content has a part in nearly every marketing function including traditional techniques such as teleprospecting and direct mail.  The inbound process involves providing a clear path for qualified prospects through the purchasing process.  A focus on educating your audience has been the dominant trend, with the personalization of brands and connecting with your audience on a social level becoming increasingly important.  As Google and social media platforms continue to alter their newsfeed algorithms, supplementing organic efforts with paid advertising will be necessary to command the same type of reach once expected through posts to company pages.  Having a flexible and detailed plan that outlines every aspect of your inbound marketing strategy will keep your campaigns consistent and organized. 

Analytics:

Website Visits:

“Web traffic is to Internet marketing as location is to real estate. It's the only thing that really matters. If you cannot generate targeted visitors to your site, you will not make any sales.” – InternetSeer

Inbound marketing success hinges greatly on your ability to drive visitors to your website.  Your company blog and social media play major roles in making this happen.  Statistics show that companies that publish 12-16 blogs per month drive 3.5 times the traffic as opposed to those posting 0-4 per month.  Recognizing the factors that draw in visitors will help you generate more traffic.

Page Views And Conversions:

“A conversion goal is reached when a visitor finds his way to a particular page on your website. For example, if you are selling an ebook, a conversion takes place when a customer reaches the thank you page after buying the ebook. A conversion goal can be set up to measure any similar action that you want your visitors to accomplish while on the site.” – Houston Chronicle

Taking note of what subject matter resonates with your audience and which pages are converting them to leads will help shape the content you produce and optimize pages that are not performing as well.  Assumptions made during the creation of your marketing plan don’t always come to be.  The ability to pivot your strategy properly involves analyzing the actions being taken by your prospects.

Email Open And Click Rates:

“According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), email click through rate is the most important email marketing metric as 70% of marketers’ track click through rates as a way to measure the success of their email marketing campaigns.” - SuperOffice

Email open and click rates allow you to track your prospect’s progress through the buying process and gives you further insights into their key areas of need.  Personalization is extremely important in email marketing and that doesn’t mean just adding a prospects name and company name.  Tailoring your content, and even products and services, to address a specific need of a potential client is the newest trend in personalization.

Social Media Engagement:

“Promoting your brand through social media is therefore vital to businesses, but getting your content on these channels isn’t what gets you the sales. The key to becoming a successful social media user is in the engagement.” – Social Media Week

Some key metrics to keep an eye on in regards to your social media efforts include post reach, number of followers, likes, shares and comments.  Each of these factors plays a role in determining the overall reach of your content.  Additionally, directly interacting with your prospects with live social media touches will help establish the relationships needed to drive B2B complex sales.

Leads And Lead Scoring:

“Lead scoring lets you assign a value (a certain number of points) to each lead based on the professional information they've given you and how they've engaged with your website and brand across the internet. It helps sales and marketing teams prioritize leads and increase efficiency.” - HubSpot

And here it is, the main objective in any marketing campaign, driving qualified leads.  Developing lead scoring metrics that communicate where someone is in the buying cycle will let you know who is ready for a live touch and who may need more time to make a purchase decision.  Identifying what constitutes a lead, marketing qualified lead and sales qualified lead allows you to determine which stage of the buyer’s journey a prospect is in.  This ensures sales will only receive truly qualified leads.

The First Stop On The Road Through Inbound Marketing: Research

The Second Stop On The Road Through Inbound Marketing: Content

The Third Stop On The Road Through Inbound Marketing: Distribution

The Final Stop On The Road Through Inbound Marketing: Analytics