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Inbound marketing

Are Inbound Marketing tools needed to implement a digital strategy?

When you think of Inbound Marketing, many people immediately think of the system tools available on the market today from e.g. Hubspot, Apsis, Episerver, Sharpspring etc. But do you really need a marketing automation tool/inbound marketing tool to implement an inbound marketing strategy?

What are MA systems used for?

There are lots of benefits to using an inbound marketing system for data collection, automating workflows, qualifying leads, web analytics, etc. For example, in most systems you can set up workflows where several follow-up emails are automatically sent out after a lead has downloaded a guide/whitepaper. It saves a lot of time and you can then follow up if the lead has opened the email or clicked on any call-to-action etc.

Often the systems are also directly linked to a CRM so that it is easy to categorise leads and send them on to sales etc. You can get help creating and structuring full campaigns where you can follow the customer journey from adword campaign to sale, even if the customer journey is sometimes over 12 months. It is also easy to get an overview of everything related to digital marketing in one place. All of this is fantastic and time-saving, especially for a larger organisation where several 100s or even 1000s of leads are processed every day. But is this needed for the smaller business? How many leads is it reasonable to expect at the start of a digital strategy?

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Digital marketing for the small business

If you're just starting to implement a digital strategy, such as Inbound Marketing, it won't be pouring in leads from day one. It's a long-term effort that requires patience and commitment.Starting with a heavy, complex Inbound Marketing tool can be overwhelming and there's a chance you won't even get started using the system. For those who haven't decided which system to choose or just want to test how a marketing funnel works in practice, there is the option of setting up a funnel with the basic features without an Inbound system.

The time you need to set up the funnel is relatively small compared to the time saved.If you choose not to use an Inbound Marketing tool, there is a risk that you will miss out on leads that you send emails to coming back to your website. Tracking in a 360 perspective also becomes difficult. Starting up without a system can be a good start and although there are risks, you will get the most necessary information.

How do you set up Inbound Marketing without a system?

  • Set up accounts for google analytics and google search console and link them to your website.
  • Get mailchimp for newsletters
  • Produce traffic-driving and SEO optimized content, e.g. blog,
  • Produce great downloadable content to convert traffic. Ask website visitors to enter their email address to access the guide and send the email address to yourself.
  • Add the email addresses in the newsletter via mailchimp with good call to actions.
  • Monitor traffic via Google searchconsole and Analytics.
  • OPTIMERA!

Learn more about how to get started with your digital marketing here!

When should you get inbound marketing tools?

When your digital marketing efforts have grown to the point where there are more leads than you can handle manually, about 5 per week, then it's time to scale up and get a system that can handle your leads. Then it will also be profitable from a time-saving perspective and optimization can happen more smoothly. Please give extra thought to which Marketing automation tool you choose because once you start with one, it's often a lot of work to switch to another and recreate the structures again.Go for it and if you want someone to talk to about implementing digital strategies or help with producing all the content you need, we're here for you.

Download our guide to Inbound Marketing

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