SEO Chronicles | Inbound Marketing

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It's a fact: Inbound Marketing is no longer a simple complementary strategy to general marketing. Today it is the pillar that supports the rest of a company's marketing tactics. For this reason, a well-structured plan is currently more than necessary, indispensable for the success of any company, regardless of its sector or size. And like any marketing strategy, it must consist of a careful and well thought-out process so that it really fulfills its purpose and is not a worthless document in the company. If you have never had a plan like this before and you don't know how to create it, here we offer you a simple seven-step guide to delve into the advantages of Inbound Marketing.

1. Know your company and your competition
Can you say that you know all the departments in your types of nurse databases company well? And what about those in the same industry as you? If you don't fully understand the values, proposals and needs of the sector in which you work, you won't be able to put together a plan with the necessary complexity to work.

Start by asking yourself (and answering) questions about the characteristics of the product or service you offer, as well as the population that benefits from it and the human and technical resources you have at hand to carry out your tasks, but also ask yourself about those companies that can offer something similar to yours; for example: find out which ones they are, investigate if your prices are competitive or are they much higher or lower than theirs, identify if your products or services have any particularity that makes them unique compared to other similar ones.

Build your own Inbound Marketing plan
2. Define your goals
If you don’t know where you want to go, how can you chart your course? Set realistic and very specific (but not simplistic) goals so that you don’t lose interest, but don’t get discouraged either. And set a deadline: between six months and a year is a good time frame to achieve initial results. What kind? It could be “increase profits by 10% by the end of the year” or “get 500 Facebook followers per month for the next six months.”


3. Take stock of the items you currently have
You probably already use more than one Inbound Marketing tool: email, social media, a website, a blog. Well, now it's time to integrate them all into a larger strategy. Add SEO and SEM techniques to your blog content, and manage your social media with PR tactics to attract more people; convert them into potential clients with a landing page on your website and a confirmation email, and finally close the sale with some nurturing emails, which will not be any less warm or personalized just because they are automated.


4. Organize your actions
It's easy to get overwhelmed when it comes to long-term plans, but there's nothing worse than falling into despair. Relax a bit by sending everything that isn't going to directly help you get more clients to the bottom of your list. That way, you can give your full attention to only the things that deserve it.


5. Let's get to work!
You've got everything you need for your plan ready. Now put it into action. The best thing to do here, to stay on track, is to set a first stop after 60 days. Create a detailed, dated document with all the blogs, keywords, campaigns, and other strategies you'll be developing for the next two months. This will make it easier for you to stay on track.


6. Rate yourself
You've already passed the first stage. Congratulations! It's time to retrace your steps to find out what's working and what's not in your plan. Monitor your keywords to optimize your SEO; analyze your visits, leads and clients to perfect your website... This is a process of continuous improvement.


7. Detect the faults
Were there any mistakes? Surely there were, but don't worry, it's the most logical thing. The important thing is to learn from them and not repeat them. Marketing - although it has its rules - is an issue that, because it works with very different groups of people, becomes very personal, so what may work in one case may be a failure in another. That's how it is: trial and error.



Always keep in mind that an Inbound Marketing plan can take weeks or even months to show obvious positive results and even then it will always be subject to improvement. It is better to move forward calmly and steadily than to take an unstable or unethical shortcut and have a quick and easy success that we will only see collapse later.