Marketing personas are the starting point of planning inbound marketing. Inbound specialist Richard Strange explains how to get started and gives the toolkit you need to achieve great marketing personas

1. hosted by
The fully-certified Hubspot Gold Partner

2. RICHARD STRANGE

3. Situation
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Living life at the coal face
Often Late in the buying cycle
Branded Keywords are tough
Overshadowed by the vendor in results
Selling identical products
Leads are location led: UK/regional/local
Dominance of sales not marketing
Co-marketing is a challenge

4. TRUST CURVE
product research stage
hard to diff – it’s
down to prices and
offers

5. START
•
•
•
•
Personas
Differentiate
Personality
Demonstrate your Service, Experience and
Sectors

6. Content
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
YouTube - transcripts
Optimise pages on solutions
Get decks and pdfs
Rewrite
Reformat, rename, re-brand
Images – rename long tail
Look in Sales’ emails
Webinars – again get vendor
Get vendor to guest blog
Case studies
LinkedIn discussions, vendor portals
Put out lots of help and service content - +
customer services
•
•
•
Original content
Reviews – you’re at the coal-face
Vendor has:
–
–
–
–
•
•
•
•
•
•
product managers
channel managers
territory managers
vertical and bus transformation
No follow links to the vendor
Simplify blogs for the real people and their
bosses – make it easy to say yes
Get your badges on show
Be the most talked about
Follow the vendor’s calendar
seed content early for upcoming events
and exhibitions

7. Reformat and Repurpose Content
Vendor website
YouTube - transcripts
Optimise pages on solutions
Get decks and pdfs
Questions in vendor webinars
Rewrite, reformat, rename, rebrand
• Images – rename long tail
• Case studies
• Put out lots of help and service
content - + customer services
•
•
•
•
•
•
• No follow links to the vendor
• Simplify blogs for the real
people and their bosses – make
it easy to say yes
• Get your badges on show
• Be the most talked about
• Follow the vendor’s calendar

8. Original Sources
• Look in Sales’ & Service emails
• Collaborate with Vendor
–
–
–
–
product managers
channel managers
territory managers
vertical and bus transformation
Webinars – again get vendor
Get vendor-people to guest blog
Case studies
LinkedIn discussions, vendor
portals
• Put out lots of help and service
content - + customer services
•
•
•
•
• Reviews – you’re at the coalface
– X vs Y
• LinkedIn discussions, vendor
portals
• Follow the vendor’s calendar
• Seed content early for
upcoming events and
exhibitions
• Hire Industry Bloggers and
Trade Mag Journos/Editors

10. SEO and keywords
• Google page #1
–
–
–
–
•
•
•
•
wiki
youtube
vendor
product url
Go long, go solutions, go problems
Understand Hummingbird
No follow link exchanges
Bag the product name URL?

11. Progressive
• Use forms to gather intelligence
– for sales
– for marketing
• Use TYPs
• Ask in email – what to do you
want from us?

12. PAID MEDIA
•
•
•
•
•
•
Be selective on PPC
Branded keywords – quality score
Consider social media advertising
Content CTAs in trade email newsletters
Mini events – have a content agenda – ask
Consider sponsorship – for content and
building family

13. PERSONALISE
• by industry
• product
• content on the page

14. Lead Nurture
• Qualify and learn
• Use it to show off your
customer service
• Don’t jump in too fast
• Use it to show how
simple it is working
with you
• Show them how
you’re different

15. Social Media
•
•
•
•
•
Groups
Twitter – your new PR wire – feed them
Where your customers are
Twitter – follow the vendor
Leverage your whole company

16. BE INBOUND
•
•
•
•
Transform your organisation
Whole of company
Whole of channel and customer chain
Be helpful, useful and interesting

17. Analytics
• For ROI and co-marketing – measure
• ROI at marketing ‘event’ level
• Better qualified sales leads

18. hosted by
The fully-certified Hubspot Gold Partner