Welcome back, here is my continuation of the concepts I’ve learned from taking the Inbound course on HubSpot. If you haven’t read part 1, click here.
Setting Business Goals
Going into chapter 4 I was introduced to the OKR framework which stands for Objectives and Key Results. It’s the concept of creating a goal-setting system that ensures that the efforts of the company benefits the entire organization. The objective is a statement that defines the value of your goal. This Key Result is a benchmark that could be graded numerically or binarily in that the ladder is rated simply from 1 or 0 meaning you either meet your key results or you don’t. There is a bit more wiggle room with Numerical since it is a percentage based on a scale of 0 to 1.0. Then there is the idea of McKinsey’s Three Horizon Framework of growth, a way to conceptualize what your company wants to accomplish in the short, mid, and long-term.
Breaking down into three parts Horizon 1, or H1 for short, maintains and defends core business, H2 nurtures emerging businesses, while H3 creates genuinely new businesses.
Creating Buyer Personas
If you’ve taken a business class before the concept of a Buyer Persona is very familiar. It’s the creation of a semi-fictional representation of your ideal buyer based on data, interviews, and educational guesses.
This persona is normally created by a marketing team, but it’s recommended to have as much input as possible. It benefits the company because it helps much of the customer-facing teams such as Marketing, Sales as it helps to understand the ideal customer you are aiming for. This Persona can be flexible and change with time, but as a whole, it helps set a roadmap for companies on who they should be targeting.
Developing the Buyer’s Journey for Your Business
In the final chapter of the Inbound course, I learned about the buyer’s journey, the active research process someone goes through leading up to a purchase. It’s set into 3 stages from awareness, consideration, and decision.
Awareness is the problem, what does the customer want to improve? prevent? What are they trying to optimize? Consideration is the solution that you have for them for their problem. The decision is the confirmation from the customer.
Taking this course was very informative for me. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert, and I’m sure there are a few concepts that I left out, but after taking the Inbound course and getting certified I feel like if someone had asked me about Inbound, I at least have an idea or a concept of what to talk about.
