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Building An Inbound Marketing Program: The First Year

Building An Inbound Marketing Program: The First Year

 

Are you wondering what the first few months of an inbound marketing program look like, and how long it will take you to get it off the ground?

It isn’t instant, but know that each step you take builds off the earlier work and momentum can grow exponentially. (See what 11 months of inbound marketing did for JONES partner Primaris—download the case study here.)

 

Inbound marketing is a powerful long-term approach to growing your business. Rather than the quick-and-easy spike seen in traditional media’s exclusively marketed promotions, inbound marketing’s results develop as deep, rich leads over time, with an impact that lasts beyond an initial honeymoon phase.

Here’s how that long-term growth begins.

Months 1-2: Building a Content Strategy

Before you start writing a blog, loading videos to YouTube or creating accounts on every social media platform available, inbound marketing starts with taking step back and developing a strategy to guide your efforts.

That strategy should outline an inbound marketing campaign calendar, complete with content designed to reach each of your customer personas at every stage of the sales funnel.

Content can take on many different forms, from blog posts to infographics, case studies to webinars. Find inspiration in these blog posts:

 

Part of planning your content strategy (which, by the way, will ideally include input from other departments to create a cohesive message) include planning how to promote the content you create. Outbound emails, blogging and social media are all tools you can use. As you build your strategy, develop calendars for each that work together to build your audience and lead generation potential.

Here are two templates you can use for that planning:

With your plans in hand, it is time to start creating.

Months 3-6: Creating Content and Attracting Visitors

This is where the results begin, and honestly, this stage the next and will blend and overlap as your inbound marketing program builds momentum.

During this phase, your team—whether that means in-house staff, freelancers, an agency or a combination of all three—begins actually creating and releasing the content planned out in those early months. (Find more about resourcing your inbound marketing efforts here. This can mean writing and publishing blog posts, posting downloadable content to your website, and promoting all of them through the combination of emails, paid advertising, and social media you chose in the planning stages.

  • Some tools to help with content creation:
    Blog writing templates—5 templates for different blog formats to get you started.

  • Blog essentials checklist—Tips to optimize your blog for search, readership and engagement

  • Landing page templates—A model for drafting the landing pages and forms that convert visitors to leads as they download offers from your website.

Content creation and promotion is a continual effort. While you will have an influx of new content at the beginning, a key to successfully using the inbound marketing method to generate leads is a consistent flow of valuable information your prospects are seeking.

Beyond Month 6: Converting Visitors to Leads, Nurturing Leads, Enabling Sales and Refining Strategy

By six months in, your inbound marketing machine should be rolling, continuing to develop new content, while also moving the leads you’ve generated toward a sale.

Lead nurturing sets in place an automated flow of communications with your new leads, offering them additional, relevant information and setting up the information your marketing team needs to qualify leads for sales.

It is this time, with a solid foundation established, that has the most potential for increased web traffic, leads and sales. Continual testing and monitoring of results will help you refine the approach and content to drive more high quality leads.

While inbound marketing is not an overnight magical solution, experience has proven time and again that in those first 12 months, and beyond, it has the power to increase website traffic and result in more qualified leads and more lucrative conversions than traditional marketing alone.

Get a closer look at how inbound marketing could benefit your business in Your First Year of Inbound Marketing: What to Expect. The download is free, and the information is based on actual results.

If you are already using inbound marketing, tell us what surprised you about the first year.

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