How Inbound Marketing Works: Content Distribution (Part One)

Last week’s blog, Why Inbound Marketing: The Shifting Tide, gave the reasons why inbound marketing is so important to achieve your sales growth goals. Today, we’re going to connect “how” our marketing priorities will drive answers to “why” inbound marketing.

At the heart of every successful inbound marketing program is a well-conceived and executed content distribution system. The seven-step workflow process of a content distribution system is conceptually easy to understand, but getting the details right can be devilishly challenging. And, oh yeah, we need to assume two things: you’ve got your brand and customer experience nailed, and you’re able to consistently generate thought provoking content.

1) Effectively Use Your Content
Blogs, social media, PR placements and push e-mails are all ways to get your content in front of your prospects.

2) SEO
It’s crucial to use best SEO (search engine optimization) practices when placing content anywhere on the Web. Use graphics, tags, videos and anything else that helps content be found. For assistance in this area, consider using an SEO tool such as WordPress SEO by Yoast, All in One SEO Pack or SEOquake to make sure all your postings attract as many eyeballs as possible.

3) Landing Pages
Post your best content behind landing pages where visitors must tell you who they are in order to receive your most valuable information. While your Website might be able to “triangulate” this information from IP addresses and previous Web activities, it’s better to exchange your valuable content for real names. Thinking about it this way, it only seems fair!

4) Lead Scoring    
When people land on your doorstep, know exactly what you want them to do. Assign values for these actions by clearly defining the value of each. For example:

• If downloading a white paper is a good predictor of future conversion from prospect to customer, this activity should be assigned points.
• If remaining on your services page for two or more minutes is an indicator of future sales success, this deserves a score too.
• Clicking through to your homepage from a broadcast e-mail might be worth some points, but clicking through to a service page should be worth more.

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Next week, we cover the last three elements of a successful inbound marketing/content distribution system:

• Automated prospect nurture programs
• Smart content
• The need for marketing automation tools