How to Create a Super-Successful Inbound Marketing Campaign in 2016

2016 is expected to be a huge year for digital marketing as expectations are high that more companies, we’re talking major brand names here, are increasing their digital marketing budgets. Given that consumer behavior is constantly changing owing to the internet, and despite the looming dwindling economic fortunes of many countries, especially oil reliant states, digital spending still continues to soar; it’s only natural that more companies will increase their digital marketing spending for this year.

As a digital marketing professional, you will aim to deliver more value-driven results to your clients through inbound marketing in 2016 in order to continue to build on the momentum of last year. In order to achieve this, you need to forge a super-successful inbound marketing campaign for this year.

With marketing trends and best practices constantly changing, you need to focus your efforts only on methods that will yield the highest returns in 2016, which is what I’ll be sharing with you in this blog post.

Focus on Customer Experience

Gone is the era when consumer experience is limited to the job of designer alone. In 2016, to create a successful inbound marketing campaign, everyone working on the growth of the brand should share the common goal of reducing friction with how consumers access the brand.

If you’re going to be creating content for a brand on other publications, you need to focus on how to eliminate every obstacle in the way of the readers getting to see the content. This means you would focus on content that are not only unique but can be easily consumed, which leads us to the next point: interactive content.

Invest in Interactive Content

If inbound marketing will be considered as a medium to reach your consumers wherever they are, content is how you make this medium work for you. With competition in creating content for consumers becoming fiercer as more digital marketers are creating a sheer volume of content on a daily bases, finding a competitive edge is absolutely necessary in 2016.

For your inbound marketing campaign to gain significant traction among consumers in this year, you’ll need to invest heavily in interactive content. This is even more so as mobile traffic continues to thwart desktop.

Expect your prospects to perform the following actions when consuming content online:

• Click to watch videos
• Use apps to consume content on their mobile devices
• Click on links in images, while they ignore in-content text links
• Search for your brand or clients’ brand on major publications
• Interact with brands more on social media

Since interactive content is easier to digest for consumers, you should pay more attention to content forms that will satisfy their requirements.

Have a Documented Marketing Plan

Every aspect of inbound marketing ought to be well planned, if you’re expecting quality results from your campaign. Not only should you invest some time in planning out what you intend to do and how you’re going to go about it, but all these stages should be documented.

According to Content Marketing Institute’s annual research on content marketing, those with a documented content marketing strategy are far more likely to see themselves as effective at their campaign efforts and also feel significantly less overwhelmed with every aspect of content marketing, among other benefits.

If the idea of having to create a comprehensive or exhausting content marketing strategy scares you, you should start with something really simple, and improve on it as time goes on. As a matter of fact, the simpler it is, the easier you’ll find executing your plan. The goal here is to make sure you’re not working on something vague but to have really focused and well-thought out plan you can follow through.

Invest in Social Media Ads

Last year, we witnessed as the percentage of users that see your updates on Facebook shrunk compared to the actual amount of users that liked your page. This, in retrospect, means you have to spend money on ads to gain more exposure on Facebook.

Has this turn-out reduced the quality of user engagement on Facebook? No. Rather, Facebook, as well as other major social media outlets, have only grown in size and engagement since then. Other social media networks have all rolled out their ads platform, indicating that users may soon be compelled to pay for more exposure on their platform.

In order to experience the success imperative of a serious social media campaign, you should expect to invest in social media ads. Don’t forget that an effective on-going social media campaign is vital for inbound marketing success.

Embrace Guest Post Contribution

Contributing to other sites is known to help create awareness for your business/brand. How would guest posting play in inbound marketing in this year? To get a perspective on the importance of contributing to other sites, major publications are seeing an increase in the number of external contributors.

Having your name and image on major publications in your industry will help boost the exposure your brand gets, and also enhance the credibility of your business. These benefits are vital to help achieve a successful inbound marketing campaign in 2016.

Conclusion

Creating a successful inbound marketing campaign is all about adopting the approaches that are currently shaping consumer behaviors. As we’ve seen in 2015, more consumers will shift towards mobile and seek more convenient ways to interact with brands and businesses. By adapting you campaign to suit this culture, your campaign is set to become successful in 2016.

Do you have any more ideas you think will help inbound marketers succeed in 2016? We would like to hear from you.

Featured image credit: Sam Hurley (Flickr.com)

Screenshot image credit: Forbes.com