Your Recipe to Start Inbound 

Scaling inbound marketing is notoriously difficult (in the short term). Your focus will be on setting up outbound and generating leads, but consider what specific tactics you could deploy to create more brand awareness. 

As a Series A / B company that is scaling, inbound will need to be carefully structured to help the business reach the next level of growth. It’s the crucial leverage to support demand generation. It needs a well-planned architecture and a long-term view of how it will drive the revenue funnel in the medium to long term. Don’t delay getting started. 

It requires a long-term view. 

How do you know which areas can help drive Inbound? Well, there are six key levers below: 

1. Increase content marketing focus 

Create more inbound leads with blogs, LinkedIn posts, and other assets like playbooks, guides, systems, and frameworks relevant to your ICP. Typically, most individual content pieces won’t work; it’s about consistency and a program, so be aware. Content takes time to scale. I advise creating “playbooks” for your customers as an engaging starting point, such as the Zero to $10 million scaling playbook or the Scaling System Playbook. 

Keep your aspirations simple. Pick niche personas to appeal to and develop insightful content for each buyer journey stage. Don’t try to compete in the general world. 

Instead, go in-depth. 

Also, think about what content is most valuable. I recommend you produce a simple, easy-to-execute content calendar that you can measure effectively. Start with realism in mind. The biggest mistake most people make is trying to do too much. Start with an infinite mindset—how could we still execute this plan in two years without fail? 

A simple content plan that helps sales enablement is FAQs and objections of your ICP. For example, your first strategy could be to list the top 10 sales objections in your sales process and produce ten thought leadership pieces addressing these objections. This is a super simple way to get started and build momentum. 

Remember, you are competing in a highly competitive market. Don’t think you must create lots of content. Think about creating impactful, deep, and insightful content. Less is more. 

Quick tips: 

• Invest in SEO as early as possible (not paid). 
• Hire a ghost-writer (your CEO) or copywriter to scale content. 
• Always create anchor content (MUST DO). 

2. LinkedIn automation 

Use LinkedIn automation tools to raise brand awareness campaigns. Don’t bother sending pitch messages or Emails; that ship has sailed, and the conversion is low. LinkedIn automation can make a difference if you consistently run brand awareness campaigns for your ICP. I’ve used numerous ones over the years, including now a favorite with UserGems. 

Make sure your LinkedIn profile is optimized for inbound awareness. This should be consistent across the whole team. 

The Number One failure of LinkedIn automation is…. Send a connect, send a pitch, follow up on the pitch, and send a reminder on the pitch. You have to do better than this process. Think deeper about the value exchange. Automation must be used in the right context. There is no magic bullet for lead generation. 

You should use automation to scale content distribution, awareness, and reputation. If you do this well over time, your inbound engine will accelerate. 

‍3. Optimise your website and landing pages. 

As a CMO, it’s easy to ignore the website. Be different. Pay attention to the small details:

• Are relevant CTA buttons above the fold?
• Is there enough proof (you need to 10x your proof - badges, logos, testimonials). Make the website feel alive. 
• Are colors consistent with the brand guidelines?
• Do all the links work?
• Is the UI experience good? 
• Does your site get “to the what” quickly enough? 

Pay attention to the basics, cross-check, and follow customer journeys to the end yourself. By testing yourself, you’ll be able to observe the (critically important) minute details that affect inbound lead flows. 

Your marketing site should be even better than your product. Perception is everything when competing for attention and scaling. To create the right impression, adding depth to your site is important. By depth, I mean making it feel to the customer you are bigger than you are (this creates trust), and it means your credibility to the buyer will be much higher. 

4.  SDR structure for Inbound 

For Sales Development Representatives (SDR), design a set of SLAs around key issues:

• Minimum time to respond
• Follow-up method
• Journal of types of response, the stock replies
• Structure for moving forward with prospect conversations
• SDRs need to have a clear system to follow. 

Your inbound SDR (MDR - Market Development Rep) will need as much support and training as the outbound team. Your inbound SDR can be used to drive marketing conversions. For example, have them focus more on MQL to SQL conversion rates, funnel velocity, lead analysis, and more. Give them more responsibility to drive these outcomes than your outbound reps. Don’t make the mistake of leaving your inbound leads with no structure and the approach “Oh, we’ll just follow up” - the better the process for inbound, the greater the chance you’ll convert leads into the funnel. 

Don’t be complacent. 

Remember, they’re your B2B marketing front line.

‍5. Set up the conversational marketing approach with inbound 

Ensure your website uses the latest tools like Drift, Intercom, and/ or Hubspot, etc. Having someone on hand to answer queries might not be possible straight away. Instead, create workflows that automate the early stages of the conversation based on standard questions you expect people to ask (this can be done easily now with AI).  

Ensure your inbound automation process is set up to weed out poor-fit ICPs. But having a tool in place is a high-stakes part of your marketing system. 

‍6. Your brand still makes a huge impact on inbound. 

Although many companies heavily rely on outbound marketing, brand matters more than you think! How can the brand be used in inbound marketing?

• Create original content that can be repurposed across multiple channels
• What do you stand for? A show, a podcast, a publication? Certifications for your personas? What’s your bet for driving the brand into the market? How will you engage? 
• What problem are you evangelizing to the market? 
• What is the brand's personality you want to create in the market?
• Inbound effectiveness after 12 months heavily depends on how well you have built brand awareness to drive inbound traffic. You want to become a leading expert in your field. 
• The biggest failure of inbound is neglecting the brand (CEO, take note if you don’t believe in brand investment). The reality is your performance marketing costs will always be high. What happens if budgets need to change with zero brand awareness? You are screwed and wish you would have invested in brand-building activities 12 months ago.

The brand is making a huge comeback, but it never went away. People just got distracted with demand generation and quick wins. It’s always been true; more than ever, people buy because of your brand. This is because the brand is not ethereal—the brand is simply your personality in the market. Your personality is built on trust, reputation, content (and, most importantly, what you deliver to your customers). Make sure you have a strategy for brand building to drive inbound marketing. 

‍Your Inbound Marketing Recipe

• Write down the steps above as the six steps to scale inbound. 
• Audit each bucket to understand how well you are executing against the key levers. 
• Identify each area's next step (and steps) to start building your system. 
• Create a process around each area to improve month-on-month. 
• Track the metrics. 

And remember, Inbound is all based on content at the core, your differentiated POV, and the system you build to take prospects on a buyer journey with you. Connect all the dots simply, and you’ll be creating an inbound engine.