How to Transition your Company to Inbound Marketing

Transitioning from outbound to inbound marketing is not easy. Your company has been investing in traditional TV commercials and print materials for years. And, if these tactics generate great ROI, it will be difficult for you to convince your boss that switching to online marketing won’t destroy their current marketing strategy.
That’s why you need to transition to inbound marketing strategically. Here is how.

Combine Online and Offline Marketing Campaigns

Many businesses focus on combining inbound and outbound marketing tactics. They see omnichannel marketing as one of their most critical marketing investments in the future. The idea is to meet customer needs at every touchpoint, regardless of the device or channel they use.
Therefore, instead of ditching your offline campaigns and switching to online marketing right away, make this transition more subtle and gradual. The idea is to combine inbound and outbound tactics and get the best of both worlds.

Mix Offline Commercials with Social Media Marketing

If your company is investing a lot in traditional TV commercials, that’s great. But, have you ever considered using these ads to point customers to your online channels?
For example, you could start by adding a hashtag to it. This is a strategy many popular brands, including Coca-Cola, use. As an Olympic sponsor since 1928, the company launched a global #ThatsGold campaign during the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. They brought the #ThatsGold hashtag to life via global TV commercials that featured popular athletes and the most spectacular moments from previous Olympic Games. The campaign evoked positive emotions in their audiences and became a global hit, inspiring millions of people around the world to use the hashtag actively on their social accounts.
To engage audiences, use hashtags in quotes, online conversations, Twitter and Facebook chats, website content, etc. The idea is to unify your message across multiple channels.

Merge a Landing Page with QR Codes

Print materials are still an important part of your marketing campaign. Customers still like to learn about new brands, products, and deals through print catalogs and direct mail. For example, talk to your marketing team and ask the designers to leave space for a QR code. Quick Response (QR) codes are powerful because they’re mobile-friendly and fast. A user just needs to scan the code that will directly point them to a certain online destination. This could be, for example, a landing page that promotes your new giveaway, your product page, or even your Facebook page.

Measure the Results of your Campaigns.

Now that you have rolled out several online and offline campaigns, you should set your KPIs and start measuring their effectiveness. There are many digital marketing tools, such as Ahrefs, Moz, Google Analytics, Serpstat, etc. that let you measure different aspects of your digital campaigns. The idea is simple – staying on top of your campaigns’ performance and informing your boss and marketing and sales teams about their results. With the help of reporting tools like Reportz, you can even combine the metrics from different tools you use and measure them from a single marketing dashboard.
However, to properly use any of these tools, you first need to choose the right metrics. The KPIs you choose need to be directly linked with your business goals, such as boosting brand awareness, increasing revenue, forming new partnerships, etc. This is the only way to know what tactics worked for you and stop wasting money on the campaigns that don’t deliver the right results.

Roll Out a New Inbound Campaign

Next, it’s time to start creating new inbound campaigns. To make the idea easier to sell to your boss or the rest of your marketing team, you could propose to roll out a few additional campaigns that won’t require any additional staff or investments. Here are a few simple ideas that may serve as a solid starting point for you.

Repurpose your Existing Content to Build Lead Magnets

Your company’s marketing and sales teams have already gathered lots of valuable content. Any kind of marketing collateral, including case studies, in-house research, blog articles, customer testimonials, online reviews, online brochures, quality product photos, may serve as invaluable content sources.
You can combine or change their format to create new content pieces. For example, you could use customer testimonials and reviews to create unique customer success stories, combine blog articles into a single, comprehensive guide, or break your ebook down into a series of informative newsletters. The idea is to create valuable content your customers will want to download in exchange for their email address.

Design Visual Content on Social

You don’t have to be a graphic design expert to create killer social media content. This is where visual content creation tools can help a lot. With Canva, you can create professional inspirational quotes and graphics. Easel.ly is great for designing infographics, while Animaker is perfect for making video content. Meme generator and GIPHY will help you design memes and gifs that are crucial for your social strategy. There is a tool for every kind of content you want to create, so don’t worry. It’s easier than you thought.
No matter if you’re creating original photos and graphics or using the abovementioned tools, one thing remains the same – your content needs to remain consistent. Use the same filters, color patters, fonts, and design features when creating each piece of content to make it easier to recognize and memorize.

Start Creating Content Strategically

This is one of the most important ways to increase industry authority and get your company’s website noticed in the sea of competitors. However, remember that, today, generic articles and topics don’t work. Customers expect fresh, insightful, and helpful content around the trending topics. That’s where tools like Buzzsumo can help, as they let you research the most popular topics right now.
Also, in addition to creating top-notch content, you need to make it visible. Sharing it on social is important, but it’s just half the job done. The other half is optimizing it for search engines and helping your blog pages appear in the SERPs. For starters, research for popular keywords in your niche and optimize your content for them. In addition, combine these keywords with conversational and long-tail keywords that have a lower search volume, but are less competitive than popular phrases.

Conclusions

Switching from offline to inbound marketing is not simple. It takes lots of strategizing, as well as significant money and time investments. Precisely because of that, the transition to online marketing needs to be gradual. For starters, combine online and offline marketing campaigns to boost your reach and target wider customer groups. Then, start measuring your results to see what works for you and allocate your money wisely. When you’re ready, launch simple online marketing campaigns that will deliver great results and won’t require any extra cash.

Do you have an inbound marketing strategy? How does it work for you?