Posted by Chris Knipper on Wed, Aug 25, 2010 @ 07:48 AM
Inbound marketing has changed not only the way businesses interact with their customers but the way they interact with each other. If you pay attention to your marketing stats, you're likely to discover a dramatic drop in the cost-benefit ratio of the "old reliable" marketing techniques you've used for years. Old school marketing techniques (now called outbound marketing) such as tradeshows, cold-calls, print advertising and direct mail no longer produce the lead generation results they used to. In today's fast-paced business world of instant communication, those old reliables just aren't reliable any more. New inbound marketing techniques that make use of popular social medial marketing tools are where the action's at!
The Internet has changed business-to-business (B2B) communication and interaction. Today, more than 90% of B2B buyers begin the purchasing process online. Business buyers are turning to the Internet first to research companies and products and place their orders. Business sellers are responding by centering their marketing efforts on inbound marketing techniques such as well-designed websites, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and interactive web info and order forms.
Inbound marketing tools have the substantial benefit of speeding up the entire purchasing cycle from lead generation to final sale. And not only is the cycle spinning faster, increasing opportunities to boost sales, but inbound marketing is generating a higher volume of leads from more motivated potential customers. The ease and speed with which potential B2B customers can now request information about a product or service (via Twitter, for example) and receive a response is forcing businesses to embrace inbound marketing techniques.
B2B purchasers no longer rely on sellers for research information about a company or its products; they're doing their research online at their own convenience. Potential business purchasers are no longer content to wait for a catalog to arrive via snail mail; they want you to tweet them a link to the online catalog on your website. They don't want to spend hours on the phone responding to unsolicited cold calls; they want to access your website or Facebook page, request the specific information they want and place their order.
Today, the speed of inbound marketing communications is overwhelming comparatively slow and increasingly passe outbound marketing tools. Who wants to limp along with the snails when they can run with the cheetahs?
Are you ready to get with the B2B program?
Photo credit: paulamarttila
Posted by John McTigue on Mon, Feb 01, 2010 @ 08:24 AM
Every now and then it's a good idea to broaden our focus and look at the big picture. If you're considering inbound marketing and its components, content marketing, social media marketing, lead conversion and analytics, it helps to understand your goals first. For many of us the goal is simple, generate sales leads. We need new business, and we need to be as efficient as possible about finding it. But how to allocate our marketing budgets to achieve our goals?
Last year HubSpot released its State of Inbound Marketing Survey in which 167 marketing professionals were asked how they spent their marketing budgets and how effective each technique was in generating sales leads. The overall budget breakdown was as follows:
In 2008 there was a fairly even distribution in marketing budgets among both inbound and outbound marketing techniques. 2009 was a perfect storm for advertisers and marketers, however. The double whammy of a historic recession and a rapidly changing marketplace conspired to shut down marketing budgets across the board. Faced with declining sales, marketing professionals and decision makers sought the most cost-effective solutions for generating sales leads. In 2010 there can be little doubt that companies of all sizes are turning towards inbound marketing and social media and away from traditional advertising and marketing approaches. The chart below from MarketingSherpa shows increasing budgets for social media marketing across a wide spectrum of industries.
For most decision makers, however, trends don't govern their budgets, reality does. Your brand, your target market, your products and services and your company culture dictate what works and what doesn't work. But there is ground truth in the data. Consumers are rejecting direct mail, e-mail spam and TV advertising. They want relationships, and they are building those relationships in social media. They seek information, but not from producers. They want online referrals and ratings. They demand responsiveness, and to an ever increasing degree, they qualify you before buying from you. Clearly, inbound marketing is a growing trend, but not because it's hip or cool. Inbound marketing works because it addresses the needs of consumers and builds relationships between you and your customers.
Bottom Line: In 2010, if you want to generate more qualified sales leads, you should look into inbound marketing.
Posted by John McTigue on Thu, Oct 01, 2009 @ 02:03 PM
So you had 1000 new visitors to the website last night... How many of them are now fresh, promising leads? None? Not sure? It's time for a lead-capture tune-up.
I think it must be a hangover from the 90's Internet bubble that many business owners still think that getting on Google page #1 is the end of the rainbow. Get your web traffic up and your business will grow. I'm not bashing SEO mind you. Getting on page #1 is definitely a good thing because it can drive visitors to your site, but the question is, then what? What good does it do you to have a gazillion visitors and no new business? We've been over this before, but your Website needs to be tuned to capture leads and convert them to customers.
Step 1 - Strategy
Put yourself in your potential customers' shoes. What do you have to offer them that they really want? When they sign up, who will contact them? When will you contact them? How will you contact them and what will you say? Draw up your game plan and stick to it.
Step 2 - Communicate and Make Calls to Action
Make simple and attractive buttons or graphics that communicate the value of your offer and invite them to click through. Put these calls-to-action in prominent places on your site that can't be missed by the casual visitor.
Step 3 - Ice the Deal With a Landing Page
Each call-to-action should link to an effective landing page. Design the page to be simple and appealing to the eye. State the value of your offer and give them some more detail - what's in it for the visitor. Give them only one option, to click on your sign-up link. Minimize or hide all other options, including navigation menus. Make your sign-up button and headings action-oriented, like "Sign Me Up to Save $100". Don't make them think - tell them what to do.
Step 4 - Monitor New Leads and Respond Quickly
Don't let your new fish off the line. Make sure you have a lead nurturing program set up - i.e. set up a series of e-mails that follow-up on your prospect and contact them personally by e-mail or, ideally, by phone.
Step 5 - Follow Up and Close the Deal
Get a meeting set up, whatever you do. Get some one-on-one time and explain who you are, what you're selling and why they need to buy from you. There is no time to separate sales and marketing these days - they are one and the same, so market and sell in one breath.
Step 6 - Measure and Analyze
No person or strategy is perfect, so measure the leads and conversions to customers relative to your marketing content, calls-to-action, landing pages and follow-ups. What works best? Fine-tune your strategy to increase conversion rates and sales.
Now you've gotten your website up to speed. Now you can actually gain something from all that SEO juice. Go forth and prosper.
We use HubSpot software to capture and nurture leads. Sign up today for a free demonstation of HubSpot and consultation about your business.
Posted by John McTigue on Tue, Sep 15, 2009 @ 07:54 AM
The art of using Twitter to improve PR and customer service is well documented. People are out there right now tweeting about your company, products and services. Engaging with them via Twitter makes perfect sense, but what about adding real customers to your sales funnel? Can it be done without becoming a spammer? Let's discuss using Twitter as an effective part of your sales strategy.
Think of Twitter as the top of your funnel. As you read blogs, add comments and tweet about them, you build your army of followers - hopefully a large army that respects your judgement and appreciates your content. You want your followers to be your target market for sales. Using my company as an example, we are looking to attract CEO's and CMO's who are interested in our inbound marketing services. We actively search for these folks using Twitter search, which searches tweets for keywords like "social media marketing", or Tweepsearch, which searches Twitter profiles for words like "CEO" or "CMO". We scan the results and follow people who tweet fairly frequently, show an active interest and seem predisposed to engage with us. Hopefully, they will follow us back. If not, we can deal with them later via FriendorFollow.
- Create a Steady Stream of Helpful Content. Now you want to convince your followers and potential followers to take an interest in what you have to say. Set up your RSS feeds and social bookmarking sites to deliver daily, interesting content to your door step. Throughout the day, if possible, scan those results, read the articles that will appeal to your target group and tweet about them. Be sure to include a url-shortened link (at the end is best) and keep your tweet under 120 characters, so that your followers can easily retweet without modifying the original content. This step accomplishes two things - it establishes you as a trustworthy source for valuable advice or news and it spreads the word beyond your immediate network. This is how you can grow your audience without doing a lot more searching.
- Tweet your own blogs periodically. A good ratio is 10 public-service tweets to 1 of your own. You don't want to overdo the self-promotion, but some of that is expected. Make sure your blogs are on-target with your network, which further solidifies your status as a trusted expert. Ideally, your blog is integrated with your website, and you have calls-to-action and landing pages associated with your blog content. When visitors have finished reading your blog, they have an easy opportunity to subscribe to your blog and pursue your valuable offers or free content. This is how you convert visitors to leads and move them down your sales funnel.
- Study your leads and follow-up. Hopefully you have some lead-tracking software built into to your blog/website. Check your leads as they come in and respond as personally as you can. This will usually be by e-mail, but if you're lucky enough to get a phone number, don't hesitate to call. Let them know that you appreciate their contacting you (by Twitter or Facebook or Google...) and what can you do for them?
- Close the deal. Now you're down at the spout of the funnel. Be as real and genuine as you have been online, but add your real personality to the mix and build that relationship. Let them know how you got to this point. They will appreciate your knowledge of inbound marketing and that will add to your qualifications. Get to the point. Tell them what's in it for them and don't forget to ask for their business. Good hunting!
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