Recently I had the opportunity to travel to Chicago to meet with a new client and conduct an Inbound Marketing Planning Day workshop. During the inbound marketing planning day, we met with the company’s top executives and those that will be carrying out the inbound marketing strategy. We discussed various facets of the program, set the strategy, and answered questions. This meeting took place over one very full day— started at 9am and ended at 5pm, and we had lunch brought it. As you can see by the topics listed below that we covered throughout the day, it was an intensive day of training and strategy creation. 

Topics Included in the Inbound Marketing Planning Day

• Responsibilities and Accountability

• Target Personas

• Brainstorming

• Content Creation—Blog Titles and Premium Content Ideas

• Landing Pages, Thank You Pages, and Follow Up Emails

• Lead Nurturing

• Lead Generation

• CRM

• Social Media Strategy

• Goals

What To Do After the Meeting? 

While the inbound planning day is important to the overall strategy creation, it’s what happens after the meeting that’s even more important. This is when what was discussed during the meeting gets put into action and the plan is carried out.

The first thing we do is put all of the to-dos into our Basecamp project management tool and make sure that everyone involved is aware of their roles and assignments to follow up on. By utilizing a project management tool and having weekly calls, we are able to monitor progress, answer questions, and see the implementation of the inbound marketing strategy become realized.  

How We Continue to Help

As you can imagine, there are many things to be done and it can be overwhelming for some. We understand that and have created a process for helping clients implement their strategies and to keep in close communication. Here are just a few of the things we do.

• Weekly Calls

• Distance Meetings as Needed

• Client Educational Webinars

• Monthly Client Email Newsletter

• Inbound Help Email Support

• HubSpot Training

Running in the Right Direction

The first 2- 3 months of a client’s inbound marketing program includes more strategy and planning than it does content creation, but this is an important step and can’t be taken lightly. As a former professional triathlete and coach, I find the following anecdote is applicable. It doesn’t make sense to spend time training, perfecting your nutrition, and developing your race strategy if you get to the starting line and start running in the wrong direction. This is true with inbound marketing and what happens with inbound marketing strategy. Without having a sound strategy in place before you start creating and publishing content, your chances of meeting your objectives is questionable.