Do not be afraid! Facilitate the activity of small and medium-sized companies in the field of internal marketing by following these five tips

This is an extension of the tips provided  for the CIO  article “13 Ways to Make Your Inbound Marketing Stand Out.” The advice used there below along with 4 other ways to make your inbound marketing efforts more successful.

Traditional marketing methods such as direct mail and trade fairs seem to have cut through the landline. Inbound marketing (digital marketing, online marketing, or whatever else you might want to call it) is a common occurrence, and companies are increasingly dedicating more and more of their budgets to it. Everyone seems to be doing it!

But just like that good old landline, more people than you think still cling to their old marketing methods, particularly in the SMB space. According to Smart Insights, 1 in 5 small to medium-sized businesses did not plan to use digital marketing at all in 2017. Despite the advantages, the complexity and sheer number of channels to keep up with is proving overwhelming for small businesses.

As a result, they lose out on the advantages of inbound marketing, including the ability to reach a larger, more targeted audience and reduce marketing costs. If this is you, fear not. I will give you 5 easy ways to start your inbound marketing campaign.

1. Start with your goals

Inbound marketing is a broad task and includes many things. No company, especially SMEs, can do everything. You need to narrow it down to activities that will be most beneficial to your business.

So how do you know where to spend your time? Well, first you have to figure out what you hope to get out of it. Want more website traffic? Perhaps you want to focus on SEO and paid advertising. Do you want to raise brand awareness? Content and social media marketing might be a better use of your time.

If you skip this crucial step, you will only be spinning your wheels. Set your goals to ensure that you get a return on investment from your efforts.

2. Know your audience

You should create profiles (commonly known as buyer personas) to ensure that everything you do, especially in content and social media, matches your target audience. These characters should include demographics (location, age, gender, education, occupation, etc.), the social networks they frequent, and more.

Most importantly, your characters should focus on the goals and challenges of your audience. These factors should determine everything you do, from choosing the products/services you want to offer to the type of content you offer.

Like setting goals, developing buyer personas helps ensure that you spend your limited time on efforts that will actually pay off. You cannot be everywhere, and you cannot please everyone in the world. Buyer personas help you see what networks and what type of content will work with the audience you really want.

3. Automation

Automation sometimes gets a bad rep, especially in social media. After all, people want to interact with others, not machines, right?

correct. But you simply can’t keep up with digital marketing without some automation. You want to be able to post multiple times a day at times when your audience is most likely to engage with your content. Even if all of these times fell during your working hours (and often don’t), would you really stop whatever you’re doing to post multiple times a day?

It’s a good idea to automate things like the times your blog posts and social media posts will go live. But, don’t go crazy. You should always deal personally with the people who follow you and who like or comment on your posts.

4. Re-purpose

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel when you start with inbound marketing. Offline marketing materials can find new life online. For example, a newsletter you mail to subscribers can be converted into an email newsletter and split into blog posts. Brochures and product specifications can form the basis of the pages on your website.

Take a look at your pantry of old marketing materials. You will likely be surprised at what can be reused online, saving you a lot of time and effort.

4. Be patient and persevere

Inbound marketing is a long game. While you can make some quick wins (especially with pay-per-click ads and some SEO techniques), it will take some time to see real growth. Don’t pull the plug because you don’t see results right away.

Your goal should be long-term sustainable growth. This requires patience, time and an ongoing strategy. When you see the results, you are not done. You need to keep going. The results of digital growth stop when you stop investing time in it.