3 Baby Steps to Help You Transition to Inbound Marketing

So you're thinking about transitioning to inbound marketing, huh?

Not to be dramatic or anything, but this could be the best decision you make all year (and it's only day 5.)

However, aware that change is often met with skepticism and resistance from upper management, it's important that you approach this notion with a plan. 

If you're going to get buy-in, you're going to have to answer some tough questions, deliver from irrefutable facts, and know which steps to take. 

To help you ease into the transition, we've outlined 3 "baby steps" to get you moving in the right direction. 

1) Transform print ads into digital content

If you've been doing the whole outbound thing for a while, it's likely that you've accumulated a great deal of content. Whether it be print ads, brochures, or PPC copy, it's entirely possible to salvage what you've already put in place during this transition. 

The key to doing so is formatting. 

For example, consider pulling the copy from one of your print ads and transform it into a shareable social media graphic or better yet, an infographic. 

Unlike a stale print ad, infographics are formatted to be highly shareable while telling a story through the visualization of data. Due to their visual, digestible format, they spread online like wildfire. 

Before you run another PPC campaign, consider allocating your budget towards building out a digital content library. While a PPC campaign will eventually run dry, a strategic library of online resources will encourage a steady stream of traffic to your website as time passes. 

2) Start nurturing your leads through your website 

Let's face it, cold-calling is the pits. 

Whether you've been responsible for placing the calls or you've been a victim of the calls during dinner, no one is getting excited about interruptive marketing these days (or ever for that matter.)

It's ineffective, annoying, and down right cold. So with that being said, it's about time that you drop the approach. 

Wondering what you're going to do with all of this free time on your hands now? 

We suggest you focus your efforts on making small tweaks to your website in order to help people find you. Search engine considerations like optimizing your website for certain keywords will help to ensure that you're not only driving traffic to your website, but the right traffic. 

This means being sure to include a targeted keyword in your meta descriptions, page titles, alt text, urls, etc. For more on this, check out our free guide, How to Rank Higher in Search Engines. 

From here, you'll want to work on creating calls-to-action and landing pages that aim to nurture your visitors and leads so that when it does come time to call them, they're not only expecting your call, but they're looking forward to it. 

While this might sounds like a lot on your plate, start small. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day...

3) Leverage segmentation in email marketing 

Do you ever hear anyone talking about the astonishing results they saw from their last direct mail campaign?

Probably not. I mean, they don't call it "junk mail" for nothing, right?

Rather than continue to tie up your time sending out mail that will inevitably go unanswered, consider the benefit of timely, segmented emails. 

Not only are you saving trees, but as you build out an online contact database, you'll find that it's easy to divide your database into smaller subsets to eliminate that cold, unpersonalized feeling. 

The more segmented your email lists are, the more relevant content you can deliver to each of the recipients. 

Relevant content leads to interest and as you continue to feed their interests you'll find that they'll be more willing to take action. 

Need more help planning?

Our Beginners Guide to Inbound Marketing details data on how inbound aligns with consumer behavior, strategies for getting found online by the right audience, and more. Simply fill out the form below and it's yours.