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How to Build an
Inbound
Website
Track 2
CONTENT TARGETING
and LEAD NURTURING
In this three part eBook series, you will
learn the step by step process of making
a strategic inbound website.
In part two, we examine content targeting,
lead nurturing, and making and sustaining
a positive impression with your leads.
Inbound Website
Overview
RESULTS, REVENUE, AND LEADS
click for stop
INBOUND LEADS VS OUTBOUND LEADS
WHAT IS AN INBOUND WEBSITE
CONTENT TARGETING AND LEAD NURTURING
Create a Relevant, Personalized Experience
BOOST RELEVANCY
USING SITE SEARCH
LEAD NURTURING
WEBSITES
Websites have evolved from being
simply informative to be a
significant contributor, perhaps
even the primary one, in helping
your organization achieve
its business goals.
OPTIMIZING THE WEBSITE EXPERIENCE
CONTENT PLANNING WORKSHEET
PART ONE - SNACKABLE CONTENT
PART TWO - PREMIUM CONTENT
CALLS TO ACTION
EMAIL NURTURING CAMPAIGNS
A website is the
center of customer
engagement – and
therefore, drives all
levels of growth.
Inbound Website
Overview
are now the focus of websites
and digital strategies, shifting
away from historic metrics
like Social Shares, Visitors,
Search Engine Results,
and Page Views.
RE
LE
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D
S
UE
V
EN
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LT
SU
RE
RESULTS,
REVENUE + LEADS
S
It’s all about delivering the results that matter most to your
organization. That may be revenue, membership, acquisition
or other key metrics. Everything needs to be tested and
analyzed, revised, and polished.
SOCIAL SHARES
PAGE VIEWS
VISITORS
SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS
Marketers must
actively engage and
build relationships with
prospects via targeted
content marketing on
their website, blog, and
social channels.
Inbound Website
Overview
¢
INBOUND
LEADS
¢
INBOUND
LEADS COST
61%
less than
outbound leads
¢
$
$
$
$
The more leads, the happier
your organization becomes –
and it’s a proven fact that having an
inbound website provides more
qualified leads than outbound
marketing alone.
$
OUTBOUND
LEADS
So then, you might ask - how do I build an
inbound website? Follow the simple steps and hands on
activities in this eBook series and, in no time, you will increase
qualified leads, boost visitor engagement, produce more
brand advocates, and generate more revenue than ever. #inboundwebsite
Inbound Website
What is an Inbound Website?
An inbound website extends an
inbound digital strategy from
SEO, social, and blogs to your
entire website. It will help you:
EBOOKS
Improve your
SEO rankings
WEBINARS
Be found by
your prospects
An inbound website helps you make your
visitor’s journey and experience as rewarding
as possible. The benefits from a well-designed
inbound website are priceless:
Easily create and
manage content
Increase visitor
engagement
Boost your
social presence
Build conversion
paths
Today’s inbound websites serve as a gathering place for your
customers where they soak in your marketing messages, respond
to your calls-to-action, and convert to qualified leads. An inbound
website will help you understand what activities are most effective
in converting visitors into customers and make it easy to emphasize
those activities for future visitors.
SOCIAL
The website is the
hub of your inbound
marketing strategy.
T
U
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K
EC
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PA IN
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LA
RM
FO
INBOUND
WEBSITE
S
WEB ADS
BLOGS
ENGAGEMENT
A good inbound website can help you effectively engage your
visitors. It can help you route them to premium content (content that
usually is behind a login page) so that you can capture leads and
turn anonymous visitors into known ones. An inbound website will help
you increase the connection visitors have with your organization,
and help convert them to customers or members.
CONVERSION
PREMIUM CONTENT
PRESS
CONTROL
You can control the message potential customers receive as
they move through the buying process - Visitor, Engaged Visitor,
Prospect, Customer, Advocate. Having control of your message and
your story is paramount. The mountain of content that is needed to
be successful to execute an inbound strategy can appear to be a
major roadblock, but doesn’t have to be.
C O N T E N T TA R G E T I N G
Inbound Website
Content Targeting and Lead Nurturing
Your website has been found...now what?
Part 2: Making A Great First Impression & Building
Trust In Your Prospect
You have
between three
and eight seconds
to engage
a visitor.
Once you attract a visitor to your site, the journey has
just begun. The real trick is getting that visitor to stay, look
around, and engage with your content. The more targeted
you can make your content, even for anonymous visitors,
the greater the likelihood that they become a customer
and help you achieve your digital business goals.
When it comes to developing an effective website,
you need to provide not only information that is relevant
and easily accessible, but content specifically targeted to
their needs. The goal of any website is to engage visitors,
convert prospects to customers, and retain customers.
What this means for a website that wants to make a
business impact is CONTENT is KING. Content has to be
designed in a way that attracts the attention of search
engines. It’s the heart and soul of the user experience.
It determines whether a visitor stays or leaves. Knowing
the context by which that person visited your site lets you
construct a message that converts efficiently.
If content is
in fact King,
then having
context for the
user is God.
-Gary Vaynerchuk,
The Art of Marketing
Inbound Website
Create a Relevant, Personalized Experience
Content Targeting: Using data about your visitors to
provide relevant, contextual content to move them along
the buyer’s journey.
Content Targeting
First impressions count. Visitors decide within a few
seconds of visiting your landing page whether this
relationship is worth pursuing. All it takes is one back
button click or a distraction to another site and your
visitor is gone. A landing page or your home page is what
entices visitors to stick around and see if your product or
Many marketers believe that design and interactivity
are the key factors in what makes a home page or
landing page successful. However, have you looked at
the majority of websites? Take a look at two websites
side by side, go ahead, we’ll wait. Ok, did they look
somewhat similar? Websites today, for the most part,
service is worth their interest.
all look the same.
Deliver the right message at the right time to the user
WAYS TO TARGET CONTENT:
KNOWN VISITOR
Title, Role, Customer Status,
Social Graph, Behavioral Attributes,
Previously Consumed Content
ANONYMOUS VISITOR
Geolocation, Search Term,
Industry, Company, Time,
and Device Type
It’s content that truly sets your site apart
and it is the content within the right
context that will engage a visitor.
The first step in building a relationship with your website
visitor is relevancy. Whatever the question, problem,
or task that brings a person to your site needs to be
answered within those first few seconds.
Inbound Website
How to Boost Relevancy
Make sure you have buyer
personas defined for your
organization.
Look at the search keywords that visitors used to
get to your site and try to infer which relevant
message should be applied to the buyer persona
searching for those keywords.
Put yourself in the shoes of this buyer persona,
and explore what will grab their attention if they
had searched for one of those keywords on your
landing page.
Remember, your content on any site – whether
main site, landing page, or microsite- is all about
your visitors. Don’t waste time right now telling
them how great you are. Provide relevant
information that will grab their attention
(e.g. Calls to Action based on search terms)
and entice them to stick around.
To determine what might be relevant, know what
paths are most popular, and what offers work
best by using the data from your analytics,
CRM, and marketing automation systems.
Visitor to Prospect to Customer
Your website and digital business
strategy starts with anonymous
visitors coming to your site to
help answer a question they
have or learn more about your
organization. To connect your
inbound strategy to your website,
one of your primary goals should
be gaining more insight from
these visitors – who they are,
what they are looking for, and
how you can help.
That initial visitor may or may not take any further
action on the first visit. But if you’ve done your job
successfully by creating engaging content, you’ve
planted a seed of interest in their mind. Now it’s up
to you to stay in touch, encourage the relationship,
and bring them back time after time, eventually
converting them into a customer.
How do I convert anonymous
visitors into known prospects?
If the journey is going to be successful, you need a
roadmap of where you want your visitors to go. If they
have come searching for something specific, help them
quickly find what they are looking for so they don’t
have to do the work themselves. Most online marketers
recognize that visitors will only click three to six times
within a website to find the desired information.
Inbound Website
Using Site Search
ELEMENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL
SEARCH INCLUDE:
Indexing of both text on web
pages and multimedia content
Delivering results
in milliseconds
Automated query
suggestions
Visual cues to help users
quickly recognize information
Categorizing content properly
enables you to quickly deliver
more effective search results
that will make sense to your
website visitors. At the same
time, it is essential for
delivering the right content at
the right time.
While you should aspire to present what your visitors
need when they arrive, frequently site search is the best
way to help them find what they are looking for. Users
that conduct a site search view many more pages on
your site than those that don’t, and stay on your site
People search to locate expertise
longer. Since your search function plays a vital role
in website navigation it must be fast and accurate.
Providing filters (aka faceted
search) to allow visitors to
narrow down search result
by attributes like content type,
author, timeframe, product or
service, or price.
site views
200%
visit duration
350%
increase
increase
bounce rate
97%
Site
search boosts
engagement
– it’s that simple.
decrease
Inbound Website
Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing is the process
of building relationships and
focusing on leads that are not
yet ready to buy, with the goal
of successfully earning their
business over time.
Successful lead nurturing delivers content that is
valuable, timely, relevant, and responsive to that
prospect’s situation - so that he or she remains
engaged and progresses down the sales funnel.
The easiest way to think about the nurturing process
is to compare it to dating:
You ask them out on a date...
a visitor signs up for a blog or email list
You go out on many dates based
on your interests...
you nurture your lead through email to serve
relevant content
You propose to them...
you engage in the sales process with them
You get married...
they buy your product or service
You can nurture a lead through many channels;
two of the most effective methods are content
targeting and email. Lead nurturing educates your
visitor through disciplined content specific to that lead
– either based on buyer persona, lead scoring,
or your specific nurture tracks.
Key lead nurturing tactics include sending
personalized, triggered emails and personalized
landing pages to your leads. Additionally, make sure
you are defining the content you provide by prospect
stage (e.g. a visitor who has yet to fill out a form).
CONTENT
TARGETING
CHANNEL
You go out to a bar...
find out where your audience is on the internet
You make eye contact and strike
up a random conversation...
a visitor goes to your website
You find commonalities...
a visitor consumes a piece of content
EMAIL
CHANNELS
Inbound Website
Lead Nurturing
Setting up nurturing strategies
for these different personas
or nurture tracks is imperative
to success in moving the lead
through the buying process.
Some relevant questions to ask
when setting up your nurture
strategies are:
?
How many interactions do I want the
lead to have prior to being handed over
to sales? How many do I expect them
to have?
?
For leads with a lower lead score,
do I increase the time between
touches?
?
How will I direct content to the
prospect and drive them back to
my website?
How to Score ( with leads )
Lead scoring plays a vital
role in the identification of
where visitors are in your
sales process. There is a whole
science behind being able
to score the consumption of
content based on buyer
behavior. There are many
different ways to do this
including frequency,
time frame, and other
characteristics.
The most common way to score leads is based on
buying behavior. You should rank the pieces of
content or even actions that denote value, but are
not a buying signal, as low. These pieces of content or
actions, such a blogs or social sharing, might show a
visitor’s perspective on how they value your company,
but aren’t necessarily a buying signal.
Premium content, like white papers and eBooks,
have higher values and as such have longer forms to
capture lead information. The act of downloading
premium content often shows a strong buying signal.
If a visitor is willing to provide you with more
information, they are most likely further along in the
buying process, and white papers and eBooks are
pieces of content that classically show evaluation or
comparison of another product or service. However, it
all depends on an analysis of visitor behavior and their
buying processes.
Inbound Website
Optimizing the Website Experience
Maximizing the website experience itself requires marketing
optimization. Your content does not exist in a vacuum. With all
of the information that site visitors have access to, what you
provide must be able to stand out and grab their attention.
This is where context comes into play –
CONTEXT
Provides useful insights into
your users’ unique wants
and needs.
C
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A/B
/B
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IN
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TA
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ET
A marketer needs to constantly analyze and assess what
compels visitors to take action, and continue to optimize
the site experience to achieve the desired outcomes. You
may need to experiment with content, copy, and layout to achieve maximum results. With A/B or multivariate
testing and content targeting, you have all the tools you
need to test and figure out what works.
N
G
CONTENT PLANNING
The best way to do this is via
useful content that will help
A
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YW
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device
A
H
H
RC
BE
C
A
LO
SE
TE
mobile
SI
your visitors solve the
problems they came to
your website for in the
first place.
CONTINUe >
Content Planning
Worksheet
RD
S
use
Inbound Website
Content Planning Worksheet
When developing an inbound
strategy, it is important to
have both premium and
non-premium or snackable
content on your website.
Great content makes great
websites, and great websites
make profitable companies.
Included in this worksheet are
two content plans –
part
part
SNACKABLE
CONTENT
PLAN
PREMIUM
CONTENT
PLAN
1
2
part
What Snackable Content Is:
This includes blogs, infographics,
or videos. It’s free content for visitors
and does not require filling out a
form to access it.
1
Why You Should Develop
Snackable Content:
This type of content is great for answering a lot of
the most prevalent questions about your company
and industry. Developing videos or infographics help
you solve your site visitors’ issues and challenges and
provide deeper insight into your organization and your
products or services. Blogs help communicate news or
viewpoints that can then be readily shared across your
industry. Overall, this content category is important
for sharing information and generating interest in your
brand and what you do.
Snackable content sparks discussion, is the number one
tool in getting found via SEO, and helps turn customers
into advocates and champions.
The Content:
Decide what your organization wants to discuss in your
blogs and videos and then create a content plan to
do that. Decide who has the most knowledge about
a subject and can write about it. It’s key to have
management support for this strategy to ensure that
those with expertise can contribute content. Here are some
things to do when strategizing how to develop content:
Create a content calendar that keeps all future
pieces of content and their creators on a schedule.
A great example can be found here.
Develop author cards that identify the name of the content
creator, their position, and expertise level. (see tab
three labeled author card template in the content
calendar template you just downloaded)
Send editorial briefs to writers explaining the subject
and who will be reading it (e.g. buyer persona the
content is geared towards), along with deadline,
length, and possible examples or suggested resources.
Inbound Website
Content Planning Worksheet
POTENTIAL CONTENT TOPICS
CAN INCLUDE:
?
WHO ARE YOUR COMPETITORS AND WHAT
ARE THEY KNOWN FOR?
?
?
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST FLAW ABOUT
YOUR INDUSTRY?
WHAT IS THE NUMBER 1 QUESTION YOUR
CUSTOMERS ARE ALWAYS ASKING YOU?
Analyze:
Once all of the content has been reviewed and
posted, start to analyze who is actually reading it.
Use Google Analytics or other analytics tools to
track the information of the site visitors.
Some key metrics to look at are:
Time spent on the page
Organic search
Page views
Marketing Qualified Leads from blog views
Referrals
Review Process:
Assign one person to manage and oversee the
content. This person can review, edit, and ensure
that the content is posted on time. Have a review
process in place that will ensure every piece
of content follows your message and has a
clear purpose.
Social media shares
Take this information and use it
to fine tune future content for
the people visiting your site.
part
What Premium Content Is:
These pieces of content can
be white papers, eBooks or
webinars. Premium content
should have higher value for
your visitor, and usually is longer
than a blog or video.
2
Compelling CTAs (Calls to Action) that you can
sur face as links, buttons or images are critical in
bringing interested customers to your content.
Once a visitor clicks on a CTA, this brings them to
a landing page that requires the visitor to submit
information about who they are.
? Questions to address at this stage:
What will your CTA look like? Where will it be on the
site? What information should you collect on the
landing page?
Inbound Website
Content Planning Worksheet
Why Premium Content Is Important:
Potential buyers are reading the content provided
here to figure out how they can do their jobs better
or improve their lives. Offering information that can
help with problems that customers have is an essential
part of developing this type of content. Targeting
buyers where they are in the sales cycle determines
whether they are offered a webinar, eBook, or other type
of information.
? Questions to ask at this stage:
Where in the buyer cycle are your customers?
What information will be most beneficial to them?
What type of content should be offered?
The Content:
Determine what part of the sales cycle your potential
customers are at and what information will help them
the most at this stage. Then determine what format to
display this information in that will be most beneficial.
Here are some things to keep in mind
when developing a premium content
strategy:
Buyers are busy people and may not read
all of the content
Make content that is easy to read and can
be skimmed through
Develop content from a buyer’s perspective
Offer actionable items that will help
with problems
? Questions to ask at this stage:
Who will create the content? When will it be published?
Who is in charge of publishing it?
See the premium content template tab on
the Content Calendar template you recently
downloaded, or download it here.
Create A/B Tests or Variances:
With the right digital marketing tools you can test
variations in text, button design, or different images.
Create a few variances for offers and test them, so
you can apply the science of marketing to your efforts
and remove the guesswork. After you test variances,
you can implement the test with the best results.
? Questions to ask at this stage:
What will you test? What do the different variances
look like? Which ones should be used to target
specific customers?
Inbound Website
Content Planning Worksheet
Promote:
Use your CTA or premium content as a supplemental
incentive in your outbound as well as social campaigns.
Make your CTA’s and premium content easily shareable
over social networks. This will help drive visitors to your
landing page to create new prospects on their way to
becoming marketing qualified leads.
? Questions to ask at this stage:
What social networks work best for this particular piece
of content? What websites or communities will find this
piece of content useful? What’s the best way to share
this content in your targeted sites or communities?
Analyze:
Much like the previously discussed snackable content
- whitepapers, eBooks and similar forms of content
come with metrics that you can analyze to better
understand who is reading and interacting with it.
In the case of premium content, you have additional
insight stemming from the landing page form
including their names, titles, industry, or products and
services they are interested in. The more you explore
who is engaging with your content, the better you
can create content for the future.
? Questions to ask at this stage:
What is the conversion rate on your CTA’s?
(Total number of visitors to the page divided
by number of visitors who fill out the form)
How many visitors does the landing page get? Is the
premium content shared over social networks?
What timeframe produces the most effective results?
This is especially easy to explore when sharing content
via email campaigns, or social networks, but can also
be useful when looking at analytics on your website.
You may learn over time that sharing content at a set
hour of day for example, delivers the best results.
Inbound Website
Calls To Action
CTAs or Calls to Action are
links, buttons, or images on
your site that tell the user to
do something. A landing page
is the next step after these
CTA’s. When a visitor fills out
a form on a landing page,
they then access the premium
content from a thank you
page or follow up email.
Once the visitor is engaged on your website, and
has found content that helps them address the
reason they came to your site in the first place, it is
now appropriate to ask for information about that
visitor - an email address, a phone number, and the
opportunity to establish a social relationship.
These Calls to Action (CTAs) are a critical step in
the process that moves your visitor from anonymous
to known. Once you’ve captured a prospect’s
information, have a plan in place to use channels
like email and social media to connect so you can
start or continue the conversation. Yet, how do
you trigger offers if they abandon the visit partway
through your site?
step
1
Determine which, where, how and what
• Determine which premium content pieces will have a CTA
• Determine where to put these CTAs on your site
• Design is important - determine how these CTAs will look
• Engage right away - determine what the CTA will say
step
2
Target your CTAs to the right audiences
• Determine which CTAs are shown to specific visitors based on
content targeting – we recommend using the Ektron content
targeting widget
How to
create a
great
CTA
• Send targeted CTAs with applicable premium content to leads
after they attend a webinar or other top of funnel activity –
make sure your marketing efforts are a closed loop process
• Utilize key website behavior, like site search to determine the
best location on your site for CTAs
step
3
TEST AND OPTIMIZE
• Use A/B testing or multivariate testing on your CTAs to
determine which are performing best
• Without actionable insight, you are just looking at numbers –
analyze your CTAs and test CTRs and conversion rates
• Use an analytical package, like Google Analytics, to look at
conversion success and make adjustments based on the data,
this will lead to increased ROI and increased conversion rates
Inbound Website
Email Nurturing Worksheet
Email Nurturing Campaigns
Identify your buyer personas.
Buyer personas are real life
representations of types of
buyers that visit your website.
They include demographic
and firmographic information,
as well as qualitative details
about their current challenges
and pain points.
Age
Gender
Demographic
Information
Wants / Needs
Likes / Dislikes
Specific Problems
There are a number of ways to create personas,
but if you start small and focus on just a few personas,
you can use data you most likely already have, and
perhaps augment that with survey data or input from
individual interviews.
TO DO:
Create 2-6 buyer personas with full details.
( Here are some great links to learn more about buyer
personas, if you do not already have them for your
organization. Here, here, and here. )
Biggest Objection
Day to Day
Responsibilities
Positions / Titles
Name
BUYER PERSONA
BUYER PERSONA
1
2
Inbound Website
Email Nurturing Worksheet
Map out a 3-8 step email nurturing campaign for each
buyer persona you have identified based on either
the content you currently have or the content you
are going to create. Structure offers in email based on
buying patterns of that persona for your organization.
For example, touch 1 focuses on blog material, whereas
touch 3 or 4 provides premium content, and touch 6
provides a case study on your product.
Touch 1, etc:
blog content CTA
message
Implement your new email
nurturing tracks
send email campaigns to specific
smart lists based on buyer personas
Track their success within your
marketing automation system with:
Open rate
Click rate
Download rate
Opt out rate
Best Practice:
Tie your email nurturing campaigns to your website and keep them in sync.
So when a persona comes to your website, they see the same offer that was
just included in your last email. Or, if they acted on your offer, and consumed
that content, they see the next one.
1http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/31555/Inbound-Leads-Cost-61-Less-Than-Outbound-New-Data.aspx