So, you’re happy with your inbound marketing performance? You have created a content factory in your business that delivers the right mix of content delivered at the perfect frequency to engage your target buyer personas and bring them through your marketing funnel? Congratulations!
You will have a sense that the implementation of your outbound marketing and inbound marketing strategies is working because the outputs are both overt and significant. Quite simply, your sales department is in love with your marketing department at last. These strategies are helping you reach your target audience effectively.
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All of this means a wider lead funnel, fuller sales pipeline, increased revenues, more clients and ultimately greater market share.
It's a compelling story for your business, one that you can author with commitment, dedication, and consistency. Utilising marketing automation, employing impactful inbound marketing tactics, and enhancing your online presence through search engine optimization, you can actively shape this narrative and effectively communicate your value to the marketplace.
But how do you really measure and improve your inbound marketing performance at a granular level to ensure continued, optimal results?
There are a number of key metrics which you will need to measure the impact of on a regular basis to ensure you are driving constant improvement.
These metrics will help you learn what is working and what isn’t, so that you can maintain momentum and ensure you keep filling the top of the lead funnel.
Your website is the hub of your business. It’s not only your shop window but also your showroom and should be your hardest working sales person. Install Google Analytics and other software such as heat-mapping (try CrazyEgg for example), to provide the data you need on your website performance and activity.
According to Search Engine Journal, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), inbound leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate.
Inbound leads are typically those that have come from someone searching for a term to research a subject, digesting the relevant content, which informs and educates them and then responding to a call to action.
So what are the key metrics that you need to measure your inbound marketing performance in order to keep winning?
If this number is high, it shows they are either in the wrong place or don’t like the look of your site so don’t wish to visit further pages. For a B2B website, anywhere between 25%-55% is normal and a 40% bounce rate is average. A high bounce rate may show that you need to perfect the user experience (UX) on your website to help the customers get what they want.
A conversion can be whatever action onsite that you define – such as downloading a whitepaper or signing up to a newsletter. However, we recommend that conversions have a financial implication and are best measured when focused on leads filling out a form to enter your sales process.
To enhance your conversion rate, you have several options. You can increase the number of visitors by strengthening your inbound marketing efforts. This involves refining your inbound strategy and creating valuable content to attract a more relevant and engaged audience. Another approach is to improve the focus on the quality and type of traffic you're attracting, which is often achieved through better channel management. Additionally, optimizing your Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) techniques is crucial in this process.
By looking at these metrics in the round you can also analyse your traffic, leads and conversion rate by source; content type, organic search, website referrals, email, PPC (Pay Per Click), social media platforms and email marketing.
If you are also utilising offline marketing, be sure to include a way of tracking lead source such as setting up a special telephone number for calls produced from a certain activity like direct mail.
Once you have a good understanding of the above key metrics, your next step should be to dissect these into your individual campaigns and specific content outputs.
Take into consideration the channels you used, the timing of your campaigns and the segmentation of your audience groups and evaluate these individually against impact.
Taking the necessary actions to improve your inbound marketing performance involves refining your strategies to attract potential customers effectively. By enhancing both your inbound and outbound marketing efforts, you can assess the effectiveness of your inbound marketing strategy and its impact on your bottom line. This assessment is crucial for delivering valuable content that resonates with your target audience and drives meaningful engagement.
It is the key to enabling continuously enhanced results. We hope we've answered your question; "How do you measure Inbound Marketing", thanks for reading!