Strategy Before Tactics

Have your ever tried to assemble furniture from Ikea without reviewing the instructions? What are the odds that it’ll all fit together or that you won’t have a spare part in the end?

Blogging, website design, social media and email marketing — these are some of your furniture parts. As part of a complete desk and used correctly, they’ll help make a solid work surface. Without this strategy, however, you may end up with a shaky desk.

The first step in the inbound marketing process is always developing a strategy built on an understanding of your target buyer persona. You must define your ideal buyer and fully grasp how they operate and what pains they have.

By understanding their specific, common challenges is at the heart of an effective inbound marketing strategy. Your products or services must truly solve your persona’s pains in a remarkable way. This defines your story. Identify these offerings, because these are the offerings that have a meaningful impact on your customers’ purchasing decisions.

An inbound marketing strategy with a message that speaks directly to your buyers’ greatest pains is the one that grabs your persona’s attention. And when your tactics work together under one, unified strategy, that is when you generate an abundance of quality leads.

Tell A Remarkable Story

No matter what your business or industry is, standing out from the crowd is essential to your survival. The options available to your prospect are plentiful, being remarkable isn’t a luxury in today’s noisy world – it’s a necessity.

Differentiating your branding and marketing are about creating truly remarkable stories – stories worth remembering and sharing. To battle through all of the noise you must conduct your business in such a way that people want to talk about your company, learn more and take action.

Telling a remarkable story inspires your clients to spread the word for you, through online reviews, email, social media, in blogs and in person. Not only is this the most cost-effective form of marketing, it’s also the most impactful.

Rather than paying to advertise your business, people are telling your stories for you, encouraging others to find you and learn more.

These remarkable stories are the linchpin to wildly successful inbound marketing and inbound sales.

Quantifiable Goals Must Be Your Guide

How do you get where you want to go if you don’t know where it is you’re going in the first place? How do you craft a strategy without being perfectly clear about what goals you wish to accomplish?

An inbound marketing and inbound sales program that generates leads and drives revenue necessitates a strategy that’s built specifically to achieve set goals.

For example, if you want to reach $5 million in revenue in the next year, you need to understand how many prospects you must close, how many leads you need to generate and how many people you need to drive to your website.

This insight shapes the sales and marketing tactics which will encompass your complete inbound strategy.

However, goals are only valuable if they are specific, quantifiable and actionable.

Of course you want to increase revenue. But how could you determine the best sales and marketing tactics for your program if you don’t know exactly what you want to achieve?

These kinds of goals empower you to track the performance of your inbound marketing and inbound sales programs and make necessary adjustments that drive maximum results.