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2012 Inbound Marketing Handbook  Handbook


Summary of Contents:

Chapter 1: Rethink End-To-End Engagement (Pg.7-20)

  • The buying process has evolved
  • Comparison of buying processes – “then” versus “now”
  • Power the customer engagement cycle with inbound marketing
  • Customer engagement increases your long-term value
  • Work Smarter, Not Harder: Synchronizing search, social and content
  • The true value of SEO
  • Your customers are active on social platforms
  • Consumers are sharing online content
  • The value of inbound lead sources
  • Inbound marketing is a “no-brainer,” but not everyone is doing it
  • The drawbacks of outbound marketing
  • Don’t ignore the drawbacks of inbound marketing either
  • Develop a strategic inbound marketing process
  • My action steps to inbound marketing success

Chapter 2: Understand Your Target Market’s Behaviors on the Path to Purchase (Pg.21-28)

  • An overview of persona marketing
  • Craft an inbound buyer persona
  • Step 1: Identify your target audience segments
  • Step 2: Define their needs
  • Step 3: Define their online behaviors
  • Step 4: Define their interests
  • Step 5: Define their turn-offs
  • Step 6: Create your composite inbound buyer personas
  • Choose the right tools for the job
  • My action steps to inbound marketing success

Chapter 3: Establish SMART Objectives to Achieve Optimum ROI (Pg.29-42)

  • Develop SMARTER objectives
  • Identify the most pressing inbound marketing challenges
  • What are the facts related to this challenge?
  • Why does this challenge exist?
  • What are the three greatest resources you can bring to bear on this challenge?
  • What are your top inbound marketing goals?
  • From general goals to smart objectives
  • Example: Translating a general goal into a smart objective
  • Measure what matters most
  • My action steps to inbound marketing success
  • Section Two: Practice

Chapter 4: Attract Attention with Relevant and Timely Search Results (Pg.43-80)

  • A definition of search engine optimization
  • Before you start, have a strategic, methodical process in place
  • Selecting the right SEO tactics is a balancing act
  • The most widely used tactics are not necessarily the most effective
  • Dimensions of difficulty and effectiveness raise practical questions
  • Less effective tactics can still play a key role
  • Define key characteristics of successful SEO campaigns
  • Process-centric
  • Research-driven
  • Optimization-oriented
  • Socially-connected
  • Main search engine ranking factors
  • What SEO tactics should you select?
  • Keyword Research
  • The equalizing forces of relevance, volume and difficulty
  • Actions to take in your keyword research
  • Use PPC to test elements
  • Keyword tiers and the customer engagement cycle
  • Case Briefing - Tactics in action: How to lift long-tail search traffic
  • Content creation
  • Write for people, not search engines
  • Use customer vernacular
  • Develop a content strategy
  • Write relevant and engaging content
  • Focus on both quality and quantity
  • Structure content appropriately
  • Case Study - Leads Tripled, Conversions Doubled with Revamped Web Content
  • Title tags
  • SEO landing pages
  • External link building
  • Have great content
  • Research your market
  • Select good targets
  • Obtain well-built links
  • Write numerous press releases
  • Organize and develop a strategy
  • Follow the rules
  • Social media integration
  • Optimize social media profiles
  • Use keywords in status updates
  • Closely coordinate your search and social teams
  • Distribute content via social media to build links
  • Target social news and bookmarking sites
  • Protect your online reputation
  • Encourage social networking on your website
  • Meta description tags
  • URL structure
  • Competitor benchmarking
  • Internal linking
  • Tactics in action: How to target internal site links for improved SEO
  • My action steps to inbound marketing success

Chapter 5: Build and Engage Social Networks (Pg.81-100)

  • Social media’s role in the inbound marketing mix
  • Differences between social networks and other social media platforms
  • Engage your target audience on social networks
  • Case Study: Connecting social network engagement to sales conversions
  • Organically increase the reach of your social networks
  • Engage the vocal minority (and pitch the social authority)
  • Engaging the vocal minority
  • Pitching the social authority
  • Checklist: Blogger relations best practices
  • Case Study: How the Cleveland Indians are pitching the social authority
  • Achieve success with a branded social network
  • Tactics in action: How to succeed with a branded social network
  • My action steps to inbound marketing success

Chapter 6: Create and Share Engaging Content (Pg.101-114)

  • How does engaging content accelerate inbound lead quality and conversions?
  • Content creation is worth your time and effort
  • Fulfill the need for content
  • Conducting a content inventory audit
  • Example: Auditing existing content for repurposing
  • Repurpose existing content
  • User-generated content (UGC)
  • Original content
  • Tactics in action: How to use video content to drive direct sales
  • Selecting content topics
  • Set a goal beforehand
  • Educate – don’t sell – new prospects
  • Choose content formats mindfully, not by default
  • Write to your ideal customer
  • Find more opportunities through search data
  • My action steps to inbound marketing success

Chapter 7: Construct an Inbound Marketing Architecture for Synchronizing Channels (Pg.115-128)

  • With a hub-and-spoke architecture, leads converge on a conversion point
  • Without an architecture, leads are lost before reaching a conversion point
  • Organic Search: The solid foundation beneath the architecture
  • Spoke Sites: Social networks for community building and engagement
  • Spoke Sites: Multimedia sites for content aggregation and sharing
  • Hub Sites: Blogs and websites for inbound traffic convergence and conversion
  • Launching an inbound marketing architecture with a plan and a purpose
  • Case study: Inbound strategy draws 70% more leads and 25% more revenue
  • Summary questions
  • My action steps to inbound marketing success
  • Section Three: Perfect

Chapter 8: Measure and Take Actionable Insights on Data (Pg.129-150)

  • Focus: Set goals and objectives
  • KPIs: Build a bridge between objectives and metrics
  • Measure: Identify what is (and isn’t) working
  • Metrics that demonstrate the performance of your SEO programs
  • Branded vs. non-branded search traffic
  • Inbound links and referring urls
  • Keyword performance and rankings
  • Traffic from organic search
  • Unique search terms driving traffic
  • Metrics that demonstrate the performance of your social marketing efforts
  • Social reach and growth
  • Social media engagement
  • Visibility and brand sentiment analysis
  • Share of voice
  • Traffic from social media
  • Metrics that demonstrate the performance of your website activity
  • Unique visitors
  • New vs. repeat visitors
  • Bounce rate
  • Most/least popular pages
  • Metrics that demonstrate conversion success
  • Conversion rate by channel
  • Conversion rate by referring url
  • Understand: Look for ways to improve
  • Control: Decide and prioritize what can be acted upon
  • Improve: implement plans to improve performance
  • Select the right analytics and monitoring solutions
  • Analytics and monitoring solutions
  • Case study - Analytics drive 26,000 new monthly visits to blog
  • My action steps to inbound marketing success

Chapter 9: Budget Time and Money Wisely (Pg.151-166)

  • Required budget for inbound efforts
  • Where should you allocate your biggest budget increases?
  • Quantify the impact of budget increases and decreases
  • Forecast your budget in terms of ROI
  • Basic ROI model
  • ROI model for Blog
  • Basic forecasting model
  • Factoring in the right expenses
  • Show correlations when you can’t calculate the actual value of impact
  • What is your division of time and money?
  • Outsourcing inbound marketing management
  • My action steps to inbound marketing success

Chapter 10: Commit to Ongoing Improvement (Pg.167-177)

  • Get in a growth mindset
  • Fail fast and fail forward
  • Fill your mind with positive thoughts
  • Summary questions
  • My action steps to inbound marketing success
  • Appendix A: Sample interview questions
  • Appendix B: Inbound marketing metrics
  • Social Marketing Metrics
  • SEO Metrics
  • Content Metrics
  • MECLABS marketing optimization glossary