It is a concept that has taken over the marketing world in the last decade and has changed the way most marketing professionals do their jobs and generate leads for their business.
That said, I want to clarify that inbound marketing is not just for marketers or professionals. This methodology has also changed the way sales and customer service teams at many companies work with their prospects and customers.
For many, the concept of inbound marketing could almost be considered simple. But the truth is that adopting and implementing an inbound approach is actually an extremely detailed and complex process.
Inbound requires manpower, time, planning, strategy and technology to see real results that impact the business.
That being said…
What is an Inbound Marketing Agency?
An inbound agency is one that partners with clients to align their people, platforms, and processes to attract, engage, and delight their customers using the inbound methodology .
There are several components that go into an inbound strategy, so choosing an agency to work with can be beneficial.
The best way to break down what an inbound marketing agency does is to look at each team involved in making inbound successful at your company and what their role and responsibilities are in relation to your inbound strategy. This should help clarify what kinds of things you'll need to do if you're getting ready to implement an inbound strategy at your company and why you might want an agency's help in this process.
Marketing and Inbound
Simply put, the role of marketing in an inbound strategy is to generate leads and increase demand for your product or service.
Some of the marketing responsibilities during the inbound process include : creating buyer personas, content, forms, landing pages, thank you pages, chatbots, email lead nurturing, and automation.
The heart of inbound is content.
This is how you’ll attract visitors to your site . The content you create should be driven by your defined buyer personas . Those personas will also dictate what types of channels and social gambling data japan networks you’ll leverage, as well as the messaging on your website, landing pages, and thank you pages. Fully developing that ideal customer profile is a critical step in starting an inbound marketing strategy.
Once you’ve created the right content and attracted visitors to your website , it’s key to get the prospect to convert or give you their information. Once you have them in your database or CRM, you can “ nurture ” them with more relevant content and information to help guide them down the funnel until they’re ready to buy (sales).
This can be done through automated emails that offer your prospects the next relevant content to continue their journey, including blog posts, templates, guides, or eBooks.
Sales and Inbound
The role of sales during the inbound process is to work with leads that are considered qualified in your CRM.
Inbound leads should be tracked by using an inbound sales approach. This requires your sales team to understand your ideal customers, their buyer personas, and the journey each lead took with your content and resources before becoming a sales-ready lead.
The key to success with the inbound methodology is the alignment of marketing and sales.
Both teams should be working toward the same big goals, as well as helping sales leads move through the funnel. Making sure they have the same goals and opinions as to what constitutes a good lead, a bad lead, and a qualified or sales-ready lead is vital to your sales process.
You can ensure this by implementing a service level agreement (SLA) early in the process to ensure all sales and marketing teams are on the same page and speaking the same language.
An SLA is an agreement between marketing and sales that holds each team accountable to specific, agreed-upon expectations that align with the same goal: generating revenue.
You can also have things set up like playbooks and sequences to help guide your sales reps through what steps they should take and how often they should take them with an incoming lead. For these types of tasks you can use HubSpot, which helps set guidelines and parameters around what is expected from a sales-ready lead so nothing falls through the cracks.
Technology
Throughout the inbound process, you'll likely be using software . Such as a CRM, a marketing automation tool, a customer success platform, a sales intelligence tool, or an employee communication tool like Slack or Skype.
All of those platforms are extremely important to how your team functions and your inbound strategy. They’ll make sure that there’s a unified location for all of your lead and prospect information that everyone can rely on. Having a CRM that acts as the single source of truth for all of your teams makes it easier for them to work with and hand off leads, but it also ensures that the lead has the smoothest experience possible with your team.
There needs to be someone who owns the adoption, implementation, and maintenance of those platforms completely . This department or job function is often called revenue operations and is vital to a company’s success.
Measurement
One of the most important parts of any new strategy is measuring the impact your efforts are having on your company’s bottom line.
This is also an important piece for a company’s leadership team . They will likely want to see the ROI they receive from their teams by investing so much time and effort into an inbound strategy.
You'll need to have goals and a way to track them for things like attributed revenue, organic traffic, and conversion rates before you get started. We can't speak for agencies, but ideally everything you do should be revenue-driven.
Marketing efforts should be tied to the revenue it generates for our business, from content creation to sales outreach and even customer service/success efforts. This keeps everyone aligned around the same goals which are to serve customers to the best of our ability while achieving revenue growth as a company.
Why should you connect with an agency?
Now that you know all the pieces that go into a successful strategy, it's probably clear why you might want to hire an inbound marketing agency.
Getting inbound off the ground and running takes time, resources, and a lot of strategy . Depending on what your current business looks like in terms of size, capacity, and acceptance, choosing an inbound agency that serves as an extension of your company will help ensure success.
Whether you need help designing the entire process, developing a strategy, or creating content for your blog, a well-equipped agency will be able to help you in the way your business needs.
The best digital agencies are masters of inbound . They must believe in and use the inbound methodology for their own company and act as the ultimate case study for success. When you choose a partner, you are really choosing an extension of your own team and you need to have the utmost faith in them and their expertise.
Choosing the right agency should not be something you take lightly . They will be with you for the long haul. You should be just as picky about the person you choose to hire as a partner as you are about the person you hire to work on your own team.
