104: Growing Inbound Leads by 50% (w/ Brad Hoos, The Outloud Group)

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Why Inbound Leads?

Like many agencies, they relied for years on doing great work, delivering results, and getting referrals. They had a growing brand and a strong reputation and were growing year over year.

But recently, they finally decided to invest more in marketing, for 2 reasons.

First, they were structurally ready for it. They had a strong team and processes, able to handle an influx of growth. Second, they were ready to hire a dedicated person to own growth. So they brought in David Hoos (a proven B2B marketing leader) to lead marketing & growth efforts.

They decided that high-quality, inbound leads coming in through the website would be the best reflection that their marketing efforts were working. So that served as their primary KPI for success.

Then they took a few strategic steps to grow that number.

How they moved the needle

1. They took inventory of current performance.

They analyzed past data to learn what had stagnated, what was trending in the wrong direction, and what was trending in the right direction. This included studying lead quantity and quality, organic traffic, and kw rankings.

2. They focused on building domain authority by sharing original thought leadership.

They hadn’t invested in SEO up to that point and were getting outranked by agencies with less expertise, performing worse quality work.

So they set out to improve their domain authority.

They had published a number of pieces of content, sharing original research, insights, and thought leadership. Some of this lived on their blog, but much was gated behind an email wall, or in white paper form. Most of the content was created to showcase their experience with clients during the sales process.

Making the decision to “ungate” it, they realized they had to unapologetically see themselves as thought leaders in the space, and be proud to share what they knew with everyone. Sharing these insights has help gain them additional attention, backlinks, and publicity.

They’ve shared the insights at conferences, through PR, podcasts, and more. As a result, they’ve used it to build their domain authority.

3. They started speaking at events.

They found that traffic would increase leading up to the event, spike the day of the event, but then go back to normal.

But it was a great opportunity to make an impact, and continue building domain authority and brand awareness.

4. They guested on podcasts.

They’d find podcasts where listeners were their target audience, and aim to deliver as much value in the interview as possible. This drove site visits and backlinks, further advancing their SEO efforts.

5. They put their people front and center.

They started showcasing the actual experts and thought leaders: their team. As a services business, this helped prospective customers trust them, and feel like they knew who they’d be working with.

Combined, these efforts produced a bigger cumulative effect:

• Someone might search for “influencer marketing agency”
• They’d find The Outloud Group in a list of top agencies
• So they ask peers if they’ve worked with them
• Then hear them on a podcast or at an event

The results

They increased high-intent inbound leads, sourced through their website, by 50%.