Essentials of an Effective Inbound Strategy
1. When creating a buyer persona, you should ONLY interview your ideal customers.
TRUE
FALSE
2. Which Buyer's Journey stage does someone fall into if they are experiencing and expressing a problem?
Awareness
Consideration
Decision
3. Inbound marketing represents a fundamental shift in the way that organizations operate because it is marketer-centric.
TRUE
FALSE
4. At a high level, what three things should you keep in mind when creating buyer personas?
Identify trends, differences, and detractors
Research, identify trends, and create persona stories
Make assumptions, identify trends, and ask sales for input
Research, make assumptions, and identify trends
5
Buyer personas represent the ideal customers your organization is trying to attract, convert, close, and delight. Personas are most effective in:
B2B and B2C organizations
Nonprofit, educational, and B2C organizations
B2B, business-to-government (B2G), and e-commerce organizations
All organization types
6. Each prospect who comes to your website for the first time is always in the Awareness stage of the Buyer's Journey.
TRUE
FALSE
Optimizing Your Website for Search Engines
7.Include your primary keyword in all of the following page elements EXCEPT:
Headers
Page title
Navigation
Body
URL
8. What are inbound links?
Links to external resources
Links pointing from one of your blog posts to another
Links that you create within your inbound content
Links coming into your website
9. True or False? Every page should have a unique meta description.
True- give a short summary of the unique content on that page
False- use the same one for your business for consistency
10. As you launch a new website, your boss tells you that she wants to get found for the keyword “teamwork”. Which is the best response to her request?
"Great! That keyword is broad enough to match the searches of all of our buyer personas."
"I'd recommend choosing a long-tail version. Long-tail keywords usually have more search volume than broad keywords."
"I'd recommend choosing a long-tail version. There will be a lot of competition for that keyword and some popular sites may already hold the top ranking spots."
"Great! That keyword is broad, so it probably gets a high volume of searches, meaning lots of new visitors for us."
11. Which is a main component for how search engines rank search results?
The number of visits to the page.
The number of social followers of the business.
The number of authoritative links to the site.
The number of keywords on the page.
Creating Content with a Purpose
12. Fill in the blank: The outlined Content Process steps are plan, create, _______, analyze, repeat.
publish
research
distribute
target
13. An adventure travel company wants to create a piece of content for their buyer persona. This persona is interested in building team trust, since they work in an industry with high employee turnover. Which would most likely be an effective Awareness Stage offer for getting this persona’s attention?
A blog post on the top 10 spots for off-site adventure travel
A case study on how the company helped another business with their off-site team building experience
A webinar that covers the adventure travel company's new travel package that helps with team bonding
An ebook on how to build trust inside a team with trust building exercises
14. Content is defined by 3 things. What are they?
Purpose, format, and topic
Who, how, and why
Audience, creator, and distributor
15. If your content is focused on different solutions to your buyer persona's problem, where would that content fit into the Buyer's Journey?
Awareness
Consideration
Decision
16. You have spent a lot of time planning and creating a great content offer. You are now done with the content process and should move on to create your next piece of content.
TRUE
FALSE
17. Which of the following is NOT a metric to consider when analyzing a content offer?
Number of leads generated
Number of social shares
Performance by format type
Open rate
The Fundamentals of Blogging
18. Which of the following would be the most appropriate call-to-action to place at the bottom of an Awareness Stage blog post?
"Download the Team Building Checklist"
"Download Our Pricing Guide"
"Request a Free Quote"
"Sign Up for a Consultation"
19. Analyzing the number of views for a blog post can tell you all of the following EXCEPT:
How much traffic each post is driving
Which blog posts are performing best
Whether you've picked the right call-to-action for your post
Which topics are resonating with your readers
20. You just wrote a blog post and published a tweet promoting it. Should you share the post on Twitter again in the future?
Yes - as long as it’s relevant, you can keep sharing it over time
No - only promote your blog posts when you first publish them
21. Your boss wants you to blog primarily about your company, its services and various corporate events. What is your response?
That’s a good idea - we want to attract the most qualified visitors with our posts, so we should help people understand our business. If we write about ourselves, they’ll be more likely to purchase sooner.
That’s not a good idea - we’re trying to attract new visitors with our posts, people who haven’t yet heard of our company. If we write about ourselves, they won’t find us in their searches.
22. You work for a travel agency and need to write your next blog post. What topic should you write about to attract families that have never heard of you and are looking to take a vacation?
Why your agency provides the best experience for families
The best family-friendly vacation destinations
The affordable pricing of your family-friendly vacation packages
The latest trip that your agency organized for a family
23. Blogging increases the volume of traffic to your website in all of the following ways, EXCEPT:
More unique pages are associated with your website
Your posts will generate more conversion assists
Outside websites will link to your posts
Your posts will get shared in social media
Amplifying Your Content with Social Media
24. Fill in the blank: __________ helps marketers establish a consistent tone on their social media networks.
A social media monitoring stream
A social benchmark report
A social media publishing schedule
A social media style guide
25. Which is NOT a best practice for publishing on social media networks?
Create a social media style guide
Always use an auto-publishing tool to save time
Customize your content for different social media channels
Share relevant industry content
26. How should industry benchmarks be used when developing a social media strategy?
To develop social media posts that will be published
To compare your results to other businesses
To generate revenue from social media
To create a social media style guide
27. All of the following are terms that you could monitor to find your prospective customers on social media, EXCEPT:
Terms that your competitors use to describe your business
Terms that your buyer personas use to describe your industry
Terms that are used in trending hashtags
Terms that you would use to describe your industry
28. True or False: Social media can be used at every stage of the inbound methodology.
True- Social media can be used to attract visitors, convert leads, close customers, and delight promoters.
False- Social media can only be used to attract visitors and monitor leads.
Enticing Clicks with Calls-to-Action
29. A CTA should always contain:
An image
Less than 7 words
An action verb
All of the above
30. Fill in the blank: A call-to-action (CTA) is a button that promotes an offer and links to a(n) ______.
Landing page
Thank you page
Website page
Email
31. You would like to increase the number of clicks on your current CTA. What is the suggested approach to making changes to a CTA?
Test multiple things at once to maximize the value of your experiment
Give it a totally new look
Don't change the CTA - change the page that it's on
Change one element at a time
The Anatomy of a Landing Page
32. True or False: A landing page navigation menu should be different from the rest of the site.
True. Your menu should be shorter to direct people to particular areas of your site.
False. Your menu should be the same as the rest of your site to be consistent.
True. Your menu should direct people to related content offers.
False. Your menu should not exist on a landing page.
33. Fill in the blank: Landing pages are designed to _________.
Be the page that a lead “lands” on, after filling out a form
Convert visitors into leads
Deliver a content offer to a lead
Close leads into customers
34. A form on your landing page should only ask the questions that your sales team needs to have answered.
TRUE
FALSE
35. Landing pages should contain all of the following EXCEPT:
Social sharing icons
A video
Website navigation
A headline
36. A landing page should connect to a thank you page.
TRUE
FALSE
Guiding the Next Step with Thank You Pages
37. Does this example follow best practices for thank you pages? “Thank you. We will send an email to you soon!”
Yes. The message is concise.
No. It’s not clear when the lead will hear back.
Yes. It explains that the next step for the lead is that they’ll receive an email.
No. The title of the offer is not in the message.
38. A thank you page optimized for lead engagement contains:
A link to a specific blog post related to the topic
An image
Testimonials
A link to your About Us page
39. A thank you page allows you to complete all of the following EXCEPT:
Delivering the offer to the lead
Enabling social sharing
Promoting additional offers to the lead
Emailing the offer to the lead
Sending the Right Email to the Right Person
40. What does the open rate of your email indicate?
That your email is getting to your contacts' inbox
That your email has converted leads
That people are enticed to click on the offer in the email
That your subject line is effective
41. Fill in the blank: Personalization tokens and list segmentation are both examples of using _____ in email.
lead nurturing
content
A/B testing
context
42. Your boss asks you to do some reporting on your email performance from last quarter. Which email metric can you ignore?
Industry average
Open rate
Click rate
Bounce rate
43. Fill in the blank: A ______ is an email that has been returned to the sender because the email address is invalid.
Soft bounce
Hard bounce
44. Which of these is NOT a best practice when optimizing your emails for mobile?
Use a responsive template. That way your email will conform to the device your reader is using.
Make your content comprehensive. Since people carry their phones with them everywhere, a captive audience is more willing to read a longer email.
Bigger is better. When it comes to text, images, and calls-to-action, be aware that people will be reading your email on smaller screens.
Use clear and concise messaging. People are more likely to scan emails, regardless of what device they are using.
45. At the start of the year, your company has 5,000 leads. Over the course of the year, you generate another 1,000 leads. True or false: you now have 6,000 leads in your database that you can email.
False: The average email list decays about 25% a year.
False: You cannot use email marketing to close leads into customers.
True: An effective email marketing strategy is self-sustaining and will always help to generate new business
True: Purchased lists will allow a business to continuously add leads to their funnel with no adverse effects
The Power of Smarketing
46. According to the marketing and sales funnel, prospects are defined as:
Website visitors who have signed up for a blog or an email newsletter
Anyone in the sales and marketing funnel who has requested a demo or trial
A lead that has expressed interest in purchasing your product/service
Anyone that has downloaded a content offer
47. Fill in the blank: Dashboards are key to integrating smarketing into an organization because they provide _______, _______, and _______ updates as to how marketing and sales are performing.
occasional, private, transparent
occasional, public, transparent
frequent, private, transparent
frequent, public, transparent
48. Marketing’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) to sales should always include:
It’s not important to include anything specific in a marketing SLA, just having one is what matters.
The promise to engage with each lead at least three times before identifying them as a Marketing Qualified Leads.
A list of all leads on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly basis that are not yet Marketing Qualified Leads.
Number of Marketing Qualified Leads provided to the sales team on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly basis.
49. Smarketing is only helpful for increasing revenue for large organizations with 100+ employees.
TRUE
FALSE
50. Fill in the blank: Marketing and sales should be aligned around the same goal. Typically this is a shared _____ goal.
Revenue
Persona
Visit
Return on investment (ROI)
Taking Your Sales Process Inbound
51. As an inbound sales rep, acting as an information gatekeeper and holding power over the entire sales process helps you win more sales.
TRUE
FALSE
52. Which of the following is the best example of why the sales process has changed?
Buying habits have changed.
Sales reps want to remain in control.
Buyers have difficulty finding the right information online.
Sales reps were bored.
53. What are the four guidelines to keep in mind when connecting with your leads over the phone?
Build rapport, know your audience, speak the prospect’s language, be helpful
Build rapport, sound happy, be helpful, schedule follow up call
Be nice, know your audience, follow your planned agenda, be helpful
Sound interested, know your audience, follow your planned agenda, schedule follow-up call
54. Your company has decided to use an inbound approach to sales. Which of the following does NOT align with your company’s new inbound sales practices?
Using a scripted sales pitch on all calls.
Leveraging the buyer’s context on calls.
Building relationships with your prospects.
Utilizing content from each stage of the Buyer’s Journey.
55. How can sales reps gain trusted advisor status in the eyes of the people they connect with?
Understand the prospects problem and identify quick wins for them
Have a lot of LinkedIn connections
Be in their industry for ten or more years
Build up their personal brand as a thought leader in their industry
The Pillars of Delight
56. Who is responsible for delighting customers?
Only the executive leadership team
Only those that hold public relations roles
Only customer-facing teams
Everyone at your organization
57. Which interactions will build or destroy trust?
Only pre-sale interactions
Only post-sale interactions
All of the interactions
None of the interactions
58. It’s recommended you create some sort of interaction that takes place after someone purchases your product or service. What’s the most efficient and scalable tool you can use to do this?
Phone call
Email workflows
Social media
Mail them a thank you note
59. When should you focus on delighting people?
After they have used your product or service
At the beginning of the sales process
From the very first moment someone interacts with your business
From the moment they become a customer to delight them into promoters
60. What are the three pillars of delight?
Invent, Communicate, Educate
Invent, Serve, Collaborate
Innovation, Communication, Education
Innovating, Connecting, Teaching
