If you are new to inbound marketing and your efforts are not translating into results, it’s best to pause and check if you are doing something wrong. Things that may work in traditional marketing can be incompatible with inbound marketing.

Impatience:

If you are in a hurry to see results, you are likely to be disappointed. Inbound marketing usually takes over six months to produce good results, but once the momentum is established, it gets progressively better. This may seem slower than traditional methods, but eventually, slow and steady wins the race.

If you want traffic right from the word go, you have the option of supplementing your inbound marketing efforts with other traditional methods like PPC campaigns. Once relevant free traffic becomes significant, you can slowly phase out paid traffic.

Working aimlessly:

For inbound marketing, you have to set SMART (specific, measurable, attainable and relevant) goals. Besides giving direction to your efforts, it also helps you evaluate progress and make the necessary course corrections. You can’t expect to reach where you want if you drift aimlessly.

Taking content shortcuts:

For inbound marketing, you need a blog that is updated regularly. This keeps your website interesting for visitors as well as search engines. It also gives a reason for visitors to share, bookmark and return to your website. Every blog post gives you the opportunity to attract new visitors, add calls to action, improve your search engine rankings and build your email list.

Trying to manage without a blog by taking visitors straight to a sales page is not going to work. There are multiple problems with this approach.

Visitors come with the expectation of finding useful information and don’t like landing on a sales page. They are too common these days and the fact that you are trying to sell something to them becomes obvious.

You are not likely to get a second chance. If visitors decide to move away, there is little hope of getting them back because you are not giving them a good reason to return. You also lose the opportunity to build your email list.

Trust is essential for inbound marketing and without good content, it will be hard to win the trust of your visitors.

Spamming:

It is essential to clean up your email lists regularly to ensure that those who are getting your messages are expecting them. Always honor unsubscribe requests.

When many people mark your emails as spam, there is a greater likelihood of your servers getting blacklisted by email service providers and your emails ending up in junk mail folders. It can gradually hamper your ability to communicate with your target market and also can annoy people who have not opted to receive your promotional mails.

Sending irrelevant content to your subscribers:

Sending irrelevant content is one of the major reasons for people unsubscribing from mailing lists. Although you may think that the content is relevant to your business, it may not be relevant to the recipient.

Your target market is likely to have multiple buyer personas. Therefore, it is important to segment your email lists so that you can customize each email and send it to the right groups within those lists.

For example, if you are a web hosting provider, your target market will include people with a range of requirements starting from those who are looking for free hosting to people who are looking for high-end hosting. A free shared hosting offer will not make sense to the higher end of the market, and a 10 percent discount on a dedicated server will not be relevant to someone looking to host their first website. Hence, it is essential to segment your audience and keep all your emails relevant.

Inbound marketing requires careful planning and execution to be effective. The effort is worth it because eventually you will win the trust and respect of your target market and build a base of loyal customers.