The 6 phases of rolling inbound out in a global organization

You are a global organization. You have decided to go inbound with your marketing and sales efforts. But where should you start and how should you go about it?

In helping several global companies roll inbound out into 15 different markets, we have gathered a lot of knowledge. We thought you might find this interesting. So here you have them – the 6 phases of implementing inbound marketing in global organizations: 

1. Establishing buy-in

Before you get started, you need local ambassadors. As a global organization you’ll face the challenge of physical distances between employees. You can’t go about helping employees make every single decision, not only because your popularity would probably drop by the minute – but also because you are simply not physically present 24/7. So, you’ll need proper buy-in.

What exactly is proper buy-in? Particularly for organizations that have been around for many years, it is quite hard to determine when proper buy-in has been actually established. Routines die hard. When it comes to inbound, changing your routines means that you as an organization go from helping your customers through your products to just helping.

Seems quite simple. But it is a hard thing to do for most companies, because the “old way” of selling and marketing is so engrained in the way most of us used to work. So, ask yourself: While loving the idea and concept of inbound, your employees might have trouble actually doing things the inbound way. If so you will need to advocate more and root inbound locally.

2. Competence assessment 

Once employees have bought into the methodology, you need to map out competences. You could do this via tests or exercises to understand their level of competence. 

This is incredibly useful in order to find strengths and weaknesses when it comes to working with inbound. Is the local office missing a skilled content producer? Who is the go-to guy when it comes to workflows? Does anyone understand how lead scoring works? This knowledge will help you scope what it takes to get inbound off the ground. 

3. Education or recruitment

Now that you know where the weaknesses lie, it’s time to fix them. Make sure your team is educated. We’re talking good old training here. Make it mandatory to take certain HubSpot certifications, make employees search for educational content, try using the portal for testing purposes or call your HubSpot lifeline.

In some cases, it can be useful to hire someone that has the skillset, you are looking for. 

4. Onboarding and implementation

Up until now, it’s been about preparing the local office. Now it’s time to push something live for the world to see, and equally important, for your organization to see.

Start out with a pilot project. The main goal here is to get things up and running to motivate and keep momentum rolling. Super conversion rates and excellent traffic results are not the main goal here – your main priority should be to showcase internally that wheels are turning, that all parts are working together and how to get things live fast that actually have an effect. 

5. Analytics & development

Once the first campaign is live, it is time to evolve. Analyze what is working, how it’s working and how to take it a step further.

Then improve and develop the content, workflows and campaigns, and remember to have fun along the way! 

6. Expansion

Our 6th phase is of the essence in a global organization. You are now in a place, where you have successfully kickstarted a local market with inbound. Now, with the experience and knowledge from your existing pilot as a foundation, repeat steps 1-5 for the next market. And then the next. And the next.

Don’t rush going global, instead make sure that learnings aren’t lost from market to market. For instance, you do not have to reinvent the wheel every time with the pilot project.

There will be local differences, and it is very important to take these into account – but wherever possible, make sure to recycle where it makes sense, and learn from the mistakes you have already made in other markets. That way, you will be able to spend your resources wisely, and on the things, that really matter. Namely working all those new leads.