An inbound marketing specialist can help you outperform your competitors by attracting attention to your company to drive conversions organically.
There’s more to content marketing than simply having an online presence. Posting sporadically with an occasional blog or Instagram post just doesn’t cut it, especially in today’s marketing climate of the pressure to be everywhere, on all platforms at all times.
Effective digital marketing requires an intentional strategy to even slightly move the needle forward. And to be truly successful, you will likely need to create a dedicated inbound marketing position within your organization responsible for key metrics.
Inbound marketing experts are essential members of any marketing team. These specialists employ a strategic approach, creating well-targeted content that aligns with the needs of your target audience. As such, they’re adept at attracting and retaining customers and swiftly moving them through the buying journey.
Inbound marketing specialists strive to create a loyal customer base, grow awareness of your company brand, and aim to increase your return on investment (ROI) for your marketing campaigns.
To start working with an inbound marketing expert, it’s critical to understand exactly what they do and what their specific role is at each step of the customer lifecycle. But Let’s dive in by first breaking down what inbound marketing is all about.
What Is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing attracts attention to a company brand by offering valuable content that meets the needs of a target audience.
This helps build trust and nurture lasting relationships. A successful marketing campaign incorporates a combination of different types of content across multiple platforms simultaneously, which may include blogs, webinars, ebooks, podcasts, and case studies.
Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing
Inbound marketing differs from outbound marketing in the core approach.
With traditional outbound strategies, a company directly targets a broad range of potential customers. Outbound marketing relies heavily on repeated exposure to a company’s products over and over to drive sales. This marketing strategy often includes traditional advertising, billboards, and commercials to name a few.
Alternatively, inbound marketing uses a more attraction-based magnetic technique to draw visitors to your website. The goal of inbound marketing is to offer educational and helpful content to your target audience. In contrast to outbound marketing, inbound marketing has more precise audience segmentation, uses digital media, and is easily measured.
What is an Inbound Marketing Expert?
An inbound marketing specialist develops and implements digital marketing strategies to increase organic traffic to your website and convert prospective buyers into loyal customers.
Using relevant, highly-targeted content, these specialists nurture potential leads. They identify the specific needs of your target audience and produce content that organically attracts attention to your products and services. Their aim is to make your brand the authoritative source in your business niche.
As consumers become less receptive to traditional marketing strategies, companies are shifting to an inbound approach. The inbound marketing expert aims to build trust with their company’s target audience by creating a variety of congruent content mediums.
The role of an inbound marketer is complex and requires balancing the intricacies of multiple marketing strategies at the same time. Their expertise lets them transition seamlessly from developing a blogging content calendar to following up on an email list to updating your website metadata. All content must speak directly to consumers’ queries and concerns. As a result, your audience will be left with a positive image of your products and services—even before they convert! Once created, this relationship can be nurtured to the point where your brand is the next logical step toward meeting customers’ needs.
Inbound Marketing Expert Myths Debunked
Inbound marketing is still a relatively new term, first coined by the marketing geniuses at HubSpot in 2005, and has since grown in popularity.
For some of the more traditional marketing directors and CMOs, these methods were initially met with a dose of skepticism. After all, when you’re used to tried-and-trusted outbound marketing strategies, changing track and hiring for a new role might seem risky.
However, most of these concerns have proved unfounded. Rather, by ignoring inbound marketing, you could lose out on huge revenue gains.
Myth 1: No Instant Gratification
There is a common misconception that inbound marketing takes forever to start bringing in leads. Granted, the general thinking behind this approach is to play the long game. That said, it doesn’t mean you can’t realize some quick gains as well. The inbound strategy is all about quality content.
With an SEO approach, the content might take a while to reach the top of Google’s search engine results page (SERP). However, you can use that same content to promptly reach out to your existing network of leads.
An inbound marketing specialist takes advantage of every opportunity to grow your consumer base. For example, if a previous advertising campaign produced a list of email addresses for prospective customers, your inbound expert could create email content featuring helpful tips. That way, consumers who have already expressed interest in your product or service will receive immediate value. And if you’re tuned into your customer base demographics, highly targeted paid advertising reaps almost instant returns.
Myth 2: The ROI of Inbound Can’t Be Measured
Everything has a digital footprint on the internet. A specialist in inbound marketing can use this to precisely calculate the campaign’s ROI on both macro and micro scales. With the right tools, you can track the detailed impact of your inbound marketing strategy. Having good customer relationship management (CRM) software and analysis tools will provide feedback on the entire process.
To calculate your ROI, first, quantify the cost of acquisition. How much did the campaign spend on attracting leads? Then, subtract the cost of acquisition from the revenue earned. This calculation can be done at the end of a quarter to reflect the broad impact of the campaign. You can also narrow the scope down to certain channels (social media, blogs, emails) or even specific content. When managed by an expert, inbound marketing provides a measurable ROI.
Myth 3: We’re Already on It
Some marketing departments think that inbound marketing tactics require no more than a few simple tweaks or a blog post here or there. They don’t realize the extent of the responsibilities involved.
With inbound marketing, you’re dealing with a pretty big puzzle where the pieces are constantly shifting. There’s an entire strategy that requires a detailed vision and a special skill set.
Not anyone can do it, so stop passing off blog assignments to Leanne from HR.
Inbound Marketing Expert’s Responsibilities
An inbound marketing specialist wears many hats at the same time. From performing market research to nurturing leads, they are constantly in a cycle of creating, implementing, and analyzing campaign strategies.
Research
The details are all important. To find your business’s unique niche, an inbound specialist conducts thorough market research. Using current information on your clientele and your industry, they develop a buyer persona for your brand. Then, by comparing your products and services with your competitors, they will be able to make recommendations to help your company outshine the competition.
Build Brand Awareness
The first goal of an inbound marketing campaign is to attract visitors to your site. This is done by creating valuable, educational content that meets consumers’ needs. Blogging best practices and social media posts are two powerful tools to increase traffic. Also, bear in mind that consumers expect companies to publish content regularly.
An inbound expert will develop a content calendar—informed by market research—that acts as a strategic marketing roadmap. This way, the team knows exactly what projects are in the works while prospects get a reliable feed of resources. A specialist will also leverage SEO principles to improve your site’s search engine ranking. This includes appropriate keyword content, connecting pages with internal links, and using appealing images.
Generate Conversions and Revenue
Of course, the ultimate objective of inbound marketers is to create a paying customer base and generate revenue for your business. But an expert will also track the smaller conversions along the buyer’s journey. This process starts by turning website visitors into viable leads.
Call to Action
Leaving a thoughtful call to action (CTA) at the end of a post provides a means for visitors to get in touch. Specifically, you are offering consumers additional resources—like a free consultation or guidebook—in exchange for their contact info. This is a win-win scenario that will likely leave them eager to learn more about your services.
Follow-Up
With a list of leads, the inbound marketing expert is responsible for follow-up. For instance, after a consultation, a consumer might be left wondering about the success rate of a particular service. What shows up in their inbox the next day? An email of case studies detailing the company’s impact. Leads who feel seen and taken care of are more likely to become customers. And once they’ve experienced the benefits of your product or service, they’ll be loyal advocates of your brand.
Sample Job Descriptions for an Inbound Marketing Specialist
There’s no single way to run a successful marketing campaign. Therefore, the job description of an inbound marketing specialist depends on their unique approach. Moreover, different companies have different marketing needs. That said, there’s still enough common ground to create a standardized job description for the position.
Feel free to take inspiration from our examples to devise pithy yet descriptive pitches that support your search for an inbound specialist. The job description may be the candidate’s first impression of your company. You can use a specific tone or wording to convey company culture and attract the best fit.
Here, the first example uses a more formal tone and the second is slightly more casual.
Job Description Example 1
As an Inbound Marketing Specialist with [company name], you are responsible for attracting prospects through the right channels at the right time.
This involves managing digital assets, such as images, videos, written content, websites, and landing pages.
Your goal is to generate qualified leads that can be converted into customers.
In this position, you will manage several levels of a marketing campaign to nurture leads using social media, email, and SEO.
This role requires working closely with the sales team to generate conversions.
At the end of each campaign cycle, you will be responsible for crafting reports using measurable performance indicators and passing along recommendations for the subsequent cycle.
Job Description Example 2
We are looking for an Inbound Marketing Strategist at [company name].
This position is a match for you if you live and breathe SEO, lead generation, and growth strategies.
In this role, you will build our company’s brand identity and curate its online presence by managing content across platforms.
As an inbound marketing expert, you understand the content marketing landscape and find it easy to unify strategies encompassing blog content, social media posts, white pages, and webinars.
Our ideal candidate must be jazzed about making conversions and be able to excel in a fast-moving environment.
In this position, you will hop between responsibilities, balancing market research with campaign development and reporting. If you have a passion for digital marketing and a wealth of experience using the latest marketing technology, we’d like to hear from you.
Job Qualifications Needed
The job qualifications of an inbound marketing expert include a combination of education, experience, and exclusive skill sets. However, the exact level of expertise will depend on your organization’s needs. Roles at the associate level often require a minimum of three years of experience, while the position of a director may require closer to ten.
Education and Experience
Most inbound marketing jobs are mid to senior-level positions. As such, they often require a mix of education and experience, including:
- A degree in marketing, business, communications, or a related field
- Experience working with digital marketing and lead generation
- Fluency with marketing strategy across digital platforms
Hard Skills
Along with general education and experience, inbound marketers need to be familiar with the relevant software and analysis tools to succeed in the position.
Depending on the seniority of the position, a candidate may require some of the following hard skills:
- Excellent writing skills
- Familiarity with blogging software, content management systems (CMS), and social media platforms
- Experience using a CRM platform such as HubSpot
- Familiarity with Google Analytics and Google AdWords
- Data-driven and research-oriented ethic with analytics and reporting experience
Soft Skills
Inbound marketing is all about building trust with your target audience. Developing authentic relationships takes more than just running ads and writing meta descriptions. An inbound marketing specialist needs mastery of several soft skills to create genuine, relatable content. Moreover, they need to be someone you’d want on your team.
When listing job qualifications, be sure to include the soft skills that you hope to find in your new employee. Some examples of these skills include:
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, as inbound marketing experts, collaborate with both creative departments and sales teams
- Good organizational and multitasking capabilities, supporting an ability to work on several projects simultaneously and track details while still keeping the big picture in mind
- Superior time-management skills and the ability to anticipate campaign needs and tasks rather than waiting for delegation or instruction
Decide on a Job Title
Along with the specific skills and qualifications, the job title for this position will also vary. Inbound marketing specialists may be called some variation of inbound marketing managers, digital marketing strategists, or inbound marketing experts.
Your desired level of expertise and experience will also impact the title and description.
Are you hiring an associate to support a team of inbound marketers or are you seeking a senior director of inbound marketing strategy?
Why You Need an Inbound Marketing Expert Dedicated to Your Campaigns
By providing clarity for your content development and guiding the lead nurturing process, an inbound marketer will boost your bottom line. If you’re looking to increase revenue and maximize profits, including this type of specialist in your content marketing team is a smart move.
A Simple Solution
Inbound marketing is complex. Trying to add this responsibility to an already overstretched marketing team will likely spread human resource capacity too thin. Instead, by including an expert in your content marketing, you can simplify the process. This is because these individuals have the expertise and capacity to take on all the nuances of an inbound marketing campaign.
Keep Your Edge
In today’s world, keeping a handle on the basics of inbound marketing is the very least you can do. Having one of these specialists on your side can take a campaign to the next level. Further, a dedicated expert will help your company transcend the status quo and stay on top of any industry shifts. This might include the introduction of new software or a Google algorithm update.
Increase Revenue
Inbound marketing will increase each campaign’s ROI. An inbound marketing specialist achieves this by collaborating with the sales team to ensure that elevated brand awareness and customer engagement translate to sales. Not only that, the trust that inbound marketing fosters creates loyal and lasting relationships with clients.
Partner With WriteForMe for Content that Supports Your Inbound Marketing Campaign
Inbound marketing not only builds brand awareness but also fosters trust in your business. To do this, an inbound marketing specialist creates compelling content to attract special attention to your company and increase search traffic to your website.
Engaging and educational blogs are a key part of any inbound marketing strategy.
The expert team of inbound marketing specialists at WriteForMe works alongside you to craft quality and consistent content for your business blog to drive search traffic.
Contact us today to request a free content marketing playbook tailored specifically to your company’s needs.
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