Recently after writing a blog post about how inbound marketing isn't rocket science, a few clients asked me to boil down inbound marketing to its most simplistic nature.
So here it is… inbound marketing as easy as 1, 2, 3.
1. Create Content
The most common form of content creation that we are used to with B2B is blogging. So, the first step is to create a blog and start blogging. Yes, you need a plan and yes, you need to create content that's relevant to your persona... but don't hesitate to get started writing blog posts and doing it consistently 2 to 3 times per week, EVERY week!
2. Distribute Content
Assuming you are optimizing your content using HubSpot or SEO tools within your content management system (Wordpress, etc.), organic search will take care of itand you will get people to your blog from search traffic. If you want to build a steady stream of blog traffic, start to distribute your content via social media, and heavily promote subscribing via email to your blog. If you can optimize your posts for organic search, consistently push your content through social media and get a strong subscriber base, you are going to grow your blog's authority.
3. Generate Leads
The third step, generate leads seems to be the most difficult stage for inbound marketers. That might be true if you try to skip steps 1 and 2. If you don't consistently create content, you won't have a widely distributed blog and won't get enough traffic to get many leads. The most common formula for determining the leads you are going to get are based on visitor-to-lead conversion rates. Without a fair number of visitors you can't generate many leads unless you have an incredible visitor-to-lead conversion rate. See our ROI Calculator that walks through the exercise of looking at how many visitors to leads you need to meet your new business revenue number from inbound marketing.
If you follow steps 1 and 2, step 3 will take care of itself. Most inbound efforts that fail aren't because of a failure or breakdown in step 3 (Generate Leads). The inbound program is unsuccessful due to not focusing hard enough on steps 1 and 2. If you are not publishing regularly, and then failing to publish via social media and promoting subscriptions, you will never succeed in generating leads.
One Last Thought on Lead Generation
One last thought on generating leads… you also need to make sure that you are including effective call to actions (CTAs) within each blog post. Without these CTAs you won't be able to drive your visitors to subscribe to your blog, have them fill out a conversion form or subscribe to your blog.
If having success with inbound marketing is important to you and your team, embrace the inbound culture and start writing more often and sharing everything. True thought leaders enjoy writing about their view of their industry and want to spread the word. So get started with steps 1 and 2 and see how successful you are with step 3. Step 3 is where you get your positive ROI but you won't get there if you don't focus on the basics. It's as easy as 1, 2, 3!
If you would like to learn more about inbound marketing from one of our Inbound Marketing Consultants you can schedule a Free 30-minute Inbound Marketing Consultation. 
