Questions to ask to gauge if you're getting the attract stage right.
1. Is your website seeing increased traffic?
a) Yes, my website is getting gradually more visitors each month
b) Yes, some increase
c) No increase in web traffic
2. Do you have a company blog, where you post at least once a week?
a) Yes, our blog is integral to our strategy
b) We blog sometimes, but it's sporadic
c) No, we don’t blog 3.
3. Is your web content carefully optimised for keywords to help you get found online?
a) Yes, SEO is important for us and we monitor keywords regularl
b) We occasionally analyse keywords
c) We don't really think about SEO
4. What percentage of your web traffic is converting? (ie. they give you their contact details)
a) Consistently above 1%
b) Give or take about 1%
c) Way below 1% 5.
5. Are you getting external websites linking back to your website?
a) Yes, backlinks keep rolling in
b) No, we’re not getting enough referrals
c) We don’t get any links 6.
6. Do you have a community of followers on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn that engages with your content on a regular basis?
a) Yes, we get plenty of retweets, ‘likes’ and shares on Facebook and LinkedIn, and Google ‘+1s’
b) We try to reach them but few people interact with us
c) We don’t use social media
So how did you get on? If you answered
a) to most of them, then give yourself a big pat on the back! You've got a clear idea of who your audience is, you engage them consistently, and you're on track for populating the rest of the inbound marketing funnel with the right kind of leads. Mostly
b) means you probably have an idea of what you should be doing, but feel like your department isn't quite doing enough of it. You're attracting some good leads but not quite enough of them to make the nurturing stage really worthwhile for your business. Mostly
c)...chances are you're either new to digital marketing or just starting out with an inbound marketing approach. No need to fret as they're plenty of blogs and resources to help you with your content strategy, SEO, and social media (here's a LinkedIn guide and here's one on social PPC for B2B). Whether you answered mostly a), b), or c), it's important to realise that having the right skill set in your inbound marketing team is essential for getting great results at each stage of the funnel – for more practical advice on that, download our guide on How to build a winning inbound marketing team.