Switching to an inbound marketing strategy is never easy, which is why Sylvain Davril, Director of Innovation and Marketing at SunTseu, wanted to focus on the steps of a digital marketing revolution that can be difficult to engage.

The recipe for a good marketing strategy

No, a marketing strategy is not only about inbound (bringing your prospects to you), or intelligent outbound, or marketing automation.

The right marketing recipe lies in the combination of these three elements which are complementary. Here, there is not ONE secret ingredient but many.

Digital marketing revolution: the prerequisites

First of all, the implementation of inbound marketing requires a change in philosophy.

A watchword: give. You have to give before you receive. Give content: webinars, white papers, blog posts (as we do here), etc. There is often a major fear that is almost systematically found: the fear of giving to competitors and of being copied.

It is however mandatory. Yes, there is a risk but there are so many benefits to compensate for it. Just think of your Coca Cola, how many have tried to copy it without ever matching it?

Then, using a marketing automation solution is like driving a beautiful car with full options. A beautiful toy, yes! A beautiful Audi R8 (or other if you prefer).

Except that without gas, you won’t get very far. It’s a pity to have this beautiful baby at your disposal if it’s only to let it sleep on the spot, isn’t it?

The inbound marketing process

Step 1: Content creation

It must be possible to create content easily via the use of a CMS that will allow marketing teams not to be dependent on the IT department (and waste time). The content can be available as self-service (easily accessible without conditions such as blog posts), or it can be a secured content with high added value that will be available by filling a form.

Each content must be segmented by buyer persona because not everyone will like a content (everyone has their own favorite type of chocolate, right? same here).

Step 2: Publication of content

The same as for content creation: we segment the publication channels by buyer persona. A fan of board sports is not necessarily a fan of motor sports. Redbull is an excellent example of channel segmentation with no less than 17 hyper-segmented pages.

Step 3: Amplification

Amplification means making your content visible to everyone. Some will talk about viral marketing or viralization of content: we contaminate the web.

First via SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The goal is to arrive in the golden triangle of Google, that is to say in the top 3 to have maximum visibility (or at least already be on page one).

Then, by using your community of ambassadors composed of your employees and anyone who can become a lever of visibility for your brand.

You should not expect an immediate explosion of visibility, even if this will occur through a virtuous circle combining massive distribution of good content on the networks and therefore better referencing of this content on Google.

Step 4 : First Digital Impression

Once the meeting between content and buyer persona has been established, it will be necessary to establish a good first impression: capital to retain the person (by proposing the download of a value-added content such as a white paper in pop up) and to convert by recovering the e-mail address (which will make your anonymous lead become known for future marketing actions).

This good first impression in the digital world requires that your site or blog is responsive, i.e. adapted to mobile reading devices for optimal comfort of the Internet user or mobinaute. It also depends on the ergonomics and a fast loading time.

Step 5: Lead identification

The identification can be done in different ways:

• Via infered datas (company name, business sector…) collected through the IP address.
• Via the behavior: the pages visited which will induce an interest.

An adequate content with added value can then be proposed in exchange of information recovered by a simple form that can be progressive to recover more information later.

Step 6 : Hot lead to client.

Scoring the interactions with your lead allows you to qualify them and measure their level of interest based on each action taken. Scoring will allow you to transfer only qualified leads to sales with all the information collected to convert efficiently.

Step 7 : Monitoring & KPI

To measure what works and what doesn’t… and act accordingly.