7 Fantastic Inbound Marketing Campaign Strategies

The entire purpose of a marketing campaign is to make an impact with a specific customer segment. The right campaign can leave a lasting impression that can pay off with long-term repetitive sales. A poor campaign, on the other end of the spectrum, can leave an organization completely devastated and potentially out of business.

Inbound marketing is a proven method of reaching the appropriate customer segments for a product, but you need to have a solid campaign strategy to achieve the best results. These inbound marketing campaign strategies will help you get the most value out of your next efforts.

1. You Need to Have a Real Call-to-Action

Think about the last time someone made a sales pitch to you that was successful. Why caused you to have the desire to actually purchase something, especially if you weren’t planning on buying it before? There are three elements that must be considered.

1. It must be tailored to the customer segment in a personal way.
2. There must be an added element of value to encourage a sale.
3. Inferred scarcity must be present to cause someone to act.

A CTA isn’t going to be effective if it doesn’t clearly communicate your goals. Use strong language terms, be clear and precise in your value descriptions, and make sure people know this is a limited time offer. In doing so, you’ll have more action.

2. Target 1 Customer Segment Only

People will always debate quality over quantity. Every marketer has their preference, but quality should always win out eventually over quantity. It’s fine to have 1 million visitors to a website every month, but what if your conversion rate is just 0.5%? That’s 5,000 conversions from 1 million visits. Now let’s say you get 100,000 visits, but a 10% conversion rate. You’ve suddenly doubled the amount of potential revenue.

This is why it is beneficial to target 1 specific customer segment with an inbound marketing campaign. By putting all of your attention into this one core group, you can receive better returns than spreading yourself out thin.

3. Make Sure That You Tell Your Own Story

Your story is more important than you might think. People have been telling stories for generations as a way to influence opinions, from religion to soda sales and everything in-between. Stories are an easy way for people to relate with each other and the products that an inbound marketing campaign represents. People will feel a burning need to purchase that item because it speaks to them at their inner core.

Some campaigns will attempt to make up a story or insert specific components to add a little “flavor” that makes it more exciting. With information resources so widely available today, prospects can quickly research your story to see if it is real. If it isn’t authentic, then your goods or services are suddenly worthless.

Media variation in your story is also important. Adding video and graphics to your content will help people linger with your campaign and that will increase the chances of a sale being made.

4. Make Your Content Easy to Share

You may not want to go viral, but having the chance for a campaign to spread like wildfire is something that shouldn’t be ignored. If you make your information easy to share, then you’ll be able to experience the true value of the modern internet: brand ambassadors. People who love who you are and what you do will share your information to their contacts. This one action lends “word-of-mouth” support to your campaign and encourages more people to get involved.

What makes content easy to share today? Adding a component of fun to it. Here are some ways that you can quickly make your campaign more friendly to sharing.

• Use short titles that catch the eye through humor or temptation that are fast to read.
• Improve your meta descriptions to be a miniature CTA to encourage a click.
• Have sharing buttons included with your campaign to experience up to 7x better growth.

5. Encourage People to Interact with Your Campaign

People interact with campaigns when there is something fun for them to do. Take AMC’s The Walking Dead zombie maker marketing campaign. People were encouraged to upload a photograph of themselves and then the interactive element would turn that picture into an undead creature. It was so fun for fans to do that they widely shared the marketing campaign so everyone could zombify themselves.

You don’t have to go to this extreme to generate interaction. Something as simple as a contest or a raffle can help people start getting involved with your inbound marketing campaign. Even a fundraiser for a charitable cause can be enough to get your targeted customer segments involved.

6. Give Your Brand a Face

People need a personal element with which they can identify to form a relationship with a business. People might choose to purchase their insurance from Geico, for example, but what makes this company stay at the top of their mind until they do sign up for a policy? The gecko, of course.

Think about the first brands that come to mind right now and then think about what makes them stand out for you. Most brands stand out because they have a unique face on their inbound marketing campaign and that triggers a memory of the brand’s logo, slogan, and overall value. You might have the face of your campaign already in the office – a message from the CEO is just as meaningful as a message from Flo, the Progressive spokesperson.

7. Do Something Completely Out-of-the-Box

With all of this advice in-hand, it is important to realize that many businesses are following the above 6 steps in remarkably predictable ways. The ultimate goal of inbound marketing is to stand out, so you may need to take your creatives in a different direction. Take a risk and do something that no one else has ever tried.

There is danger in going off-the-grid. An idea might seem to be good on paper, but doesn’t perform well within the customer segment. A big miss can be enough to put you out of business.

What an audience celebrates more than anything is an innovative idea. The time machine commercial from Doritos is a classic example of this. So are the commercials from Old Spice or the Dollar Shave Club. As long as your target message hits your target audience in a positive way, you’ll be able to find the success that you want.

A good inbound marketing campaign helps people realize how specific goods or services can solve problems for them. Communicate that using these strategies and you’ll be setup for success.