4 Mistakes That Can Derail Your Inbound Marketing Campaign

It's not easy to develop and launch a successful inbound marketing campaign.

One little mistake and your whole campaign can be derailed in a matter of seconds.

Has this ever happened to your company? You've developed this amazing campaign that everyone in excited to launch and right before you're ready to launch you realize you missed something. Making this campaign a total nightmare.

Before you launch your next campaign here are some mistakes you should look out for.

How You Can Derail Your Inbound Marketing Campaign

1. Forgetting to Establish Timelines or Goals

Every campaign you develop, should have set timelines and achievable goals. These may seem extremely obvious. Unfortunately, many people forget this step. How are you going to know if your campaign is on schedule or behind if you haven't established a timeline thats clearly defining when certain steps and items should be complete. Mostly likely you won't. In that case you might completely miss your deadline.

When developing your timeline, start with the date in which you want to launch your campaign. Once you know your timeframe you can work backwards identifying when key elements need to be accomplished. Don't just say ... I want to launch this Ebook next week. You need to think realistically. Are you or your team able to meet that date? It is important to note that each component isn't going to take the same amount of time. Some components will take longer than others. Individual components can include; ebook creation, landing page setup, social media artwork, editing and revisions; as well as developing an email announcing the launch of your campaign. A timeline is a great way to ensure that you and your team members are staying on track.

Along with establishing a timeline, you will also want to establish goals for your campaign. Don't just pull random goals out of thin air. Develop smart goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time defined.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you want to generate more leads?

• Are you looking to increase your social media reach?

• Do you want to nurture existing leads?

After the launch of your campaign, you want to be able to determine how successful the campaign was. Without any goals to look back on you won't know if your campaign was a total flop.

2. Not Utilizing ALL  of Your Marketing Tools

You cannot just create an ebook and only place it on a landing page. In order for your inbound marketing campaign to be successful you need to utilize a number of marketing tools.

Marketing tools include:

• Landing Pages. This is going to be where your information lives. Whenever, you use other marketing tools to promote the launch of your campaign you want to make sure that you are directing traffic to your landing page. Use your campaign to capture more information from your visitors and leads. By directing traffic to a landing page your are able to increase conversions, rather than if you sent them to your homepage in the hope that they would  eventually find your landing page.

• Call to Actions. Place call to actions all over your site promoting your new offer. No one is going to know about the launch of your new campaign if you don't promote it through call to actions. Consider adding a call to action on your blog articles, on the top of your blog, and on your homepage. Is is a call to action to call attention to your new offer, don't let it sit on the back burner.

• Email. Don't just use email to nurture leads. Email is a great way to tell your contacts about the launch of your new campaign.

• Blog. Are you developing a Ebook? Consider using your blog as a way to promote your Ebook. Take a section of your Ebook and post it as a blog. Just don't forget to tell your readers that they're reading an excerpt from your newest Ebook. Remember to link to your Ebook. No one wants to go searching through your website to find the rest of the Ebook.

• Social Media. Don't just think of social media as way to spread the reach of your campaign after the launch. Develop creative content and updates that members of your company can use to promote your campaign the week before it is set to launch. However, this can quickly derail if the night before something major keeps you from launching your campaign.

Don't hinder the success of your campaign by forgetting to utilize key marketing tools. How else do you expect to spread the reach of your campaign? You aren't going to mail your contacts a copy of your newest ebook or video series.

3. Forgetting to Coordinated the Launch of Your Campaign

So you've developed this great campaign, wouldn't you want to tell everyone about it? Hopefully, all of you are thinking YES! So, why would you only want to use one channel to launch your campaign? All to often, companies will only promote their new campaign through email. To gain more traffic and buzz about your campaign, coordinate the launch of your campaign by using as many marketing tools as possible.

Now this might seem repetitive but when you're getting ready to launch a new ebook; develop a campaign that includes a social media push, email blast, call to actions and publishing content on your blog. When I say social media push I'm not just talking about posting updates about your ebook. Consider developing cover art thats associated with your offer. When you use more than one marketing tool, you'll end up seeing a much larger return.

4. Forgetting to Test

This is probably the most important. Don't wait til the day before you launch your inbound marketing campaign to test  individual components of your campaign. One little thing can quickly derail your campaign, especially if it's something like a wrong URL being placed on your thank you page, sending your leads the wrong information.

Don't just assume everything is set and ready to go. Consider double and triple checking every step of the campaign. You don't want to miss something simple that could have easily been fixed days if not weeks prior to the launch.