What is an inbound marketing campaign?

An inbound campaign is a form of marketing that aims to attract customers to your business. Whether you’re creating a campaign for your entire website or for the launch of a new product line, the key is to provide valuable, meaningful and problem-solving content that promotes your brand’s authority.

Essentially, inbound campaigns encapsulate a range of methods that boost the visibility of your business, help your target audience to find you on the world wide web and provide information that your customers want to know. So, how is this done?

Inbound campaigns typically cover a large variety of marketing methods. The most common include content marketing, search engine optimisation and social media, as well as website design and layout, email marketing and paid media. For example, if we look at content marketing, your campaign may involve creating guides and blog posts, writing newsletters, or creating visual content like videos.

How to design an inbound marketing campaign

Now that we’ve covered the definition of inbound marketing, it’s time to get started. Here are the steps required to design an effective campaign:

Identify your target customers

The first step of any inbound marketing campaign is to identify your target audience. This is essential, as understanding your demographic will allow you to tailor your strategy and deliver a campaign that truly resonates. After all, customers are more likely to trust and purchase from a brand that directly speaks to them.

To identify your target customers and create your personas, there are several areas to consider, including:

• Customer values, priorities, interests, needs and goals
• Customer pain points and challenges
• Identifying valuable and meaningful solutions
• Utilising feedback to better understand your existing customer base
• Reviewing current trends within your industry
• Analysing your competitors

Set your goals and benchmarks

The next step of inbound campaign planning involves setting your goals and benchmarks. For this stage, we recommend making your goals specific. For example, while a vague aim like ‘boost traffic’ is a step in the right direction, a more specific aim that incorporates numbers and time stamps will allow you to measure progress.

For example, rather than ‘generate leads’, you could aim to ‘achieve 1,000 new leads via blog posts within three months.’ This definitive goal outlines the number of customers you’re aiming to attract, the method to be used and the timeframe to achieve said results.

Do keyword research

When you’ve outlined your target demographic and goals, it’s time to understand what your customers are searching for. In marketing, this is known as keyword research and this step is crucial to the success of inbound campaigns.

Keyword research is essentially a method of finding out what people are searching for, how many people are searching for it and where they are searching from. It’s a metric that can provide a wealth of information, not only about your demographic but also about current and seasonal trends.

This process will allow you to create a list of keywords, terms and phrases that can be used on your website. By including the right keywords, you’re using the same language as your customers and essentially, helping the right people to find your business.

Create campaign resources

Completed the three steps above? Now it’s time to think about your inbound campaign resources. This is your opportunity to create content that capitalises on all of your research, shows that your business understands and cares about your demographic’s pain points, and offers valuable information, solutions and help.

The types of resources you create will depend on your business, demographic, budget, products and goals. However, here are some effective options:

• Designing landing pages and blog posts to house your new content
• Creating compelling new offers and sign-up opportunities that are too good to miss
• Producing newsletters and email content for your existing audience
• Sharing your content via social media posts

Set your campaign live

You’ve done the hard work and now you’re ready to launch your inbound campaign. This step is often twofold: first, it involves reaching out to your existing customers; second, it’s time to put your research to good use and bring in those new leads.

For your existing customer base, a targeted email campaign can be highly effective. This may include offering a limited-time and exclusive offer, such as discounts on a new product line or a free trial. While for new leads, this step may start with social media ads and sign-up opportunities.

Monitor the effectiveness

Now that everything is live, this is where those goals come into play. There are many ways to monitor the effectiveness of inbound campaigns but campaign automation can save you valuable time and resources while providing you with invaluable knowledge and insights.

Automation allows you to monitor the effectiveness of your campaign in real-time, adjust your current campaign using live data and amplify visibility to make sure your message is being heard.