Deliverables from Inbound Marketing to Increase Sales

Inbound marketing is a four-step process that entails attracting leads, converting them to customers, closing a sale, and maintaining a positive rapport to encourage repeat sales. In trying to meet these benchmarks, marketing deliverables are crucial. Which inbound marketing deliverables should you focus on to increase sales?

The following 7 inbound marketing deliverables will encourage sales:

• Optimized website
• Downloadable content
• Content marketing
• Video marketing
• Social media marketing
• Email marketing
• SEO

As you begin strategizing and forming your inbound marketing campaign, you’ll want to ensure these deliverables are ready for your audience. Ahead, we’ll discuss each deliverable in more detail so your sales numbers can begin their upward climb. 

7 Inbound Marketing Deliverables to Use for More Sales

1. Website Optimization

Optimizing your website should be the first order of business for your inbound marketing campaign. What kinds of deliverables do you want to ensure are present on your newly designed website? Here’s a list:

• Exit intent: If a site visitor is about to navigate off your site, exit intent pop-ups can convince them to stay or convert on a soft-sell. Another great place for exit intent is your web store, where an abandoned cart pop-up or email just might get the customer back into the purchasing mood.
• Live chat: As excellent as your marketing team is, they cannot work 24/7. A live chat widget on your website fills in the gaps after hours and on weekends. The chatbot can answer customer questions or redirect them to a support page or someone at your company who can help the next day.
• Lead generation: Lead generation opportunities should exist across every corner of your website, from the abovementioned well-timed pop-ups to CTAs, client logins (when appropriate), and more. 

2. Downloadable Content

Another inbound marketing deliverable to incorporate into your campaign is downloadable content. 

People like to get something for nothing. That’s why you should incentivize the lead to give you their contact information by offering downloadable content. You can either provide a download button right in the opt-in form or send the lead a download link in their welcome email. Knowing they have the content coming will encourage the lead to open that first email. 

What kind of downloadable content should you offer? You might try a few chapters of an eBook, a checklist or resources list, or a whitepaper. 

No matter which type of content you think is suitable, the value of the content is what matters most. Determining what makes content valuable means you first have to do audience research. 

Once you know the pain points of your audience, it’s a lot easier for you to dig into your content library and find relevant subject matter.

3. Content Marketing

As your marketing plan begins taking shape, it’s time to move on to another inbound marketing deliverable, and that’s content marketing. Having a working editorial calendar in and of itself is considered a deliverable, as is a strategy document.

Let’s begin by talking about your editorial calendar. To ensure your company can continue producing thoughtful, relevant, and engaging content for your audience, you need an editorial calendar. 

This calendar will lay out which topics will be covered and when according to your publishing schedule, such as weekly or biweekly. The target keywords will also be included.

Your strategy document goes hand-in-hand with the editorial calendar, as it’s something your writer(s) should refer to when crafting content. The document includes metrics, engagement strategies, and your company’s audience personas. 

In a survey of marketers, many of them thought far fewer words sufficed. Up to 28 percent of marketers said blog content between 200 and 500 words was best and a whopping 40 percent said content between 501 words and 700 words was ideal. Both groups were incorrect.

Only 8 percent were in the sweet spot of 1,500 to 2,000 words, which is what the Google algorithm currently favors. The exact word length could fluctuate, but long-term content has been a content marketing trend for years. 

Writing long-form content isn’t always easy, but it pays off.

Thought leadership pieces are beneficial as well. If you need a refresher, thought leadership writing is SEO-strategized, authoritative content with the intent to educate and promote. Thought leadership can include blog posts as well as video, webinars, research papers, guest posts, and infographics. 

In our post about thought leadership for hedge funds, we cited a LinkedIn stat mentioning how you can boost your sales by targeting decision-makers with your thought leadership content.

That same report also found that the strong vision you can establish through thought leadership content can allow you to sell at a premium to C-suite executives and them willingly buying. 

4. Video Marketing

Although video marketing usually falls under the umbrella of content marketing, we thought it warranted its own discussion pertaining to its use as an inbound marketing deliverable. 

According to Oberlo, video demand has increased steadily since 2018. In that year, 54 percent of people said they wanted businesses to begin posting more video content. 

The same report also notes that as of 2019, many marketing firms had already hopped on the video marketing bandwagon, up to 87 percent. These companies mostly used video for marketing, but it can translate to sales too. 

When we talk about videos, we don’t solely mean 10 or 20-minute instructional YouTube clips. You can also host a video webinar or make a podcast more visual with an accompanying video.

These inbound marketing deliverables can then be used in many ways.

Inbound marketing examples

Here are some examples: 

• Embedded into blog content: If the topic on your editorial calendar for this week is the same as a topic you covered in a video, you can make a very comprehensive post. Use the blog content to augment the video and add other useful information in writing. 
• Posted on social media: Even outside of YouTube, social media has become very visual. You can use Instagram’s IGTV to post longer-form content (your account must be verified to post an hour’s worth of material). Facebook also lets you upload 10-gig files up to 240 minutes. 
• Linked into emails or newsletters: In 2018, RetailDive found that most consumers–72 percent–preferred watching videos to reading text. By using video in your email correspondence, you could see higher click-through rates. 
• Incorporated into a landing page: An informative video about a new product or service doesn’t just have to go on YouTube or your homepage, but can go on your landing page as well. A video breaks up the text and makes your landing page more engaging. 

The way video webinars generate more sales speaks for itself.

By charging registrants to access your webinar, you bring in revenue. Just keep your expectations grounded. Letter.ly and many other sources have found that your revenue attendance will be only 45 to 50 percent of those who say they will show up.

Even if you don’t make as much money off the original airing of the webinar, you could charge if you re-air. You can also create a transcript of the webinar which would be paid access only.  

5. Social Media Marketing

Your biggest inbound marketing deliverable in the sphere of social media is the creation of a strategy or roadmap. 

Today, social media is a more powerful marketing and sales tool than ever, but standing out above the competition is the only way to get seen and heard. 

You need to decide what content will go to which audiences.

Remember also that some platforms have restrictions. Using video marketing as an example, Twitter cuts your videos off at 2 minutes, 20 seconds. If you want to post a longer video, you’d have to insert it as a YouTube link, which is decidedly less appealing.

Given that your primary goal is to increase sales, your social media posts should reflect this. The content you post might come from your blog or other social channels with the intent of driving traffic back to your website.

Then, since you’ve recently redesigned and optimized your site, you have the tools to convert and sell to your leads/customers.

Another important aspect of a social media marketing campaign is determining what success is for you. A 2020 Sprout Social report on social media trends shows that to many marketers, engagement and likes matter.

Up to 72 percent of marketers said comments and/or likes were the top metric of success. Another large group of 62 percent focused more on retweets and/or shares while 60 percent prioritized interactions. Only 32 percent of marketers said revenue attribution was a gauge of a successful social media campaign while another 32 percent cared about driving customers to take action.

Likes and comments can translate into sales provided you know who’s liking your content and you find a way to engage with them.

In the case of your campaign though, these might not be the top metrics you pay attention to.  

6. Email Marketing

Throughout this entire post, we’ve discussed the inbound marketing deliverables you can use as part of your company’s email marketing plan. From links to long-form thought content, video, webinar replays, and even downloadable content, your email correspondence can be yet another useful vehicle to increase sales. 

7. SEO

Last but certainly not least, we wanted to discuss SEO. Since you’re taking the time to revamp your company website, updating it with SEO in mind will pave the way for more traffic and increased sales. 

SEO encompasses all areas of your website, from the removal or editing of broken links to link-building and adding keyword-rich meta descriptions. To generate those keywords, you must do deep keyword research. The keywords you use should be most relevant among your audience segments. 

By targeting those keywords, your site’s ranking could increase. It’s important to keep in mind that keyword relevancy changes all the time. Doing keyword research regularly will keep your company abreast of changing trends and areas of interest among your audience. 

Besides the content of your website, its loading speed is another SEO concern. Slow-loading websites tend to rank lower, even if you’re doing everything else right from an SEO perspective. Perhaps you need to shrink your image size, reduce elements on a page, or use a different server to get your site loading quickly. 

An SEO strategy is centric to your website performing at its best, so it’s worth taking the time to get it right. Your site can then drive the kinds of sales your campaign predicted. 

Where to Focus Your Attention

Inbound marketing deliverables include an optimized website, downloadable content, written and video content, SEO, and strategies centered around email and social media. 

By focusing your efforts on creating a campaign that encompasses these deliverables, your company could be rewarded with a sales influx.  

Contact now Mediaboom to boost your Inbound marketing deliverables.