Marketing Sherpa - 2012 Inbound Marketing Handbook

Synchronize search, social, and content to get found more often, more effectively by more customers

The 2012 Inbound Marketing Handbook includes:

• Step-by-step guide for creating an effective inbound marketing strategy
• 177 pages on how to get found by your ideal customer
• More than 20 worksheets and exercises
• 23 charts with analytical commentary
• 10 case studies and “case briefings – tactics in action”
• Learn how to execute SEO, social, and content marketing tactics
• Aligning buyer personas to the customer engagement cycle
• Planning and justifying budgets in terms of ROI
• Q & A sections in every chapter
• Action steps to inbound marketing success
• Download the FREE Excerpt

Published May, 2012

This publication is sponsored by Marketo

Rethink Your Marketing – From Finding Customers to being Found

Sprinkled all over the planet are individuals and/or companies that need your products and services. Some of them are in your database, but many are not. You may have hundreds, thousands or millions of ideal customers that have no idea you exist.

Inbound marketing provides an opportunity for marketers: to get found by your ideal customers.

Integrating SEO, social media tactics and content creation – also known as inbound marketing, has transformed the way marketers engage with their audience. Organizations long accustomed to "finding customers" are now adjusting their strategies to focus on more inbound tactics to help them "get found by customers".

This new focus is causing marketers to rethink and adjust their engagement strategies. Buyers no longer wait for Sales to get involved to discover options or research product alternatives, now more customers' research answers to their questions long before meeting with sales, and receive instant access to more content from multiple sources. The bar for customer satisfaction, loyalty, awareness and involvement continues to rise.

To be successful companies must take the necessary steps to synchronize their search, social, and content to significantly reduce costs, increases sales, and improve ROI.

According to the new MarketingSherpa 2012 Inbound Marketing Handbook, these results don't just happen. Organizations must develop a scalable and repeatable process for synchronizing tactics. This new handbook will guide you through the development of an effective process that can scale to meet the growing, ongoing need for inbound marketing across your organization.
You'll learn:

• How inbound channels help customers find and choose you. 
• How search, social and content marketing interact with each other to produce ongoing enhanced results. 
• How inbound marketing powers the customer engagement cycle across awareness, consideration, inquiry, purchase and retention.

These are just some of the many strategic process components, outfitting marketers with a comprehensive and systematic approach to inbound marketing.

10 Steps for Success: Synchronizing Search, Social and Content

Inside the 177-page handbook will equip you with a 10-step, research-supported process for synchronizing search, social and content to create a transformative, scalable inbound marketing strategy, including how to:

• Rethink end-to-end engagement 
• Understand your target market's behaviors on the path to purchase 
• Establish SMART objectives to achieve optimum ROI 
• Attract attention with relevant and timely search results 
• Build and engage social networks 
• Create and share engaging content 
• Construct and inbound marketing architecture to synchronize channels 
• Collect and measure actionable insights on data 
• Budget time and money wisely 
• Commit to ongoing improvement

Also built-in are best practices, worksheets and Sherpa case studies – developed through extensive interviews with brand-side marketing VPs and directors – to illustrate and reinforce these steps.

2012 Inbound Marketing Handbook – What it IS and what it ISN'T

The goal of this handbook is not to be the "be-all-end-all" on the topics of SEO, social and content; rather, its purpose is to outline practical steps organizations can take today across all three areas to get found more often, more effectively, by more customers. We'll help you:

• Understand the needs and behaviors of their target audience 
• Align buyer personas to the customer engagement cycle 
• Establish SMART – specific; measurable; actionable; realistic, and time-bound - objectives 
• Map goals to best-suited tactics 
• Execute SEO, social, and content marketing tactics 
• Evaluate, reassess and take actionable insights on data 
• Plan and justify budgets in terms of ROI 
• Commit to continual learning and improvement

Not to mention 10 in-depth chapters with a glossary devoted to making sure your inbound marketing objects are met.

Case Studies, Exercises, Charts and Insights Included in the Handbook:

• With a hub-and-spoke architecture, leads converge on a conversion point – p. 124 
• Without an architecture, leads are lost before reaching a conversion point – p.125 
• Power the customer engagement cycle with inbound marketing – p.11 
• Craft an inbound buyer persona in 6 steps – p.25 
• Dissect your inbound marketing challenges – p.34 
• Tie objectives to personas – p.42 
• Link analysis – p.76 
• Increase your social reach – p.95 
• Repurposing existing content – p. 109 
• Define a plan and purpose for sites in the inbound marketing architecture – p. 131 
• Develop a criteria-based matrix for prioritizing actions – p.151 
• Making a SMART objective SMARTER – p.153 
• Assess whether outsourcing is right for you – p. 175 
• Identify your skills and knowledge gaps – p. 181 
• Most marketers agree on importance of integration, but don’t always practice it – p.18 
• Three-dimensional view of SEO tactics (usage, effectiveness, difficulty) – p.50 
• Usage and effectiveness of social media platforms for marketing purposes – p. 87 
• The effect of content creation on lead quality and conversion rates – p. 106 
• Three-dimensional view of content effectiveness, difficulty and usage – p. 107 
• Expected 12-month changes in SEO and social marketing budgets – p.174 
• How the average SEO and social marketing budgets are allocated – p.171

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