I recently started looking at home automation, and I got into it quickly. Bear in mind; this is years after Alec Baldwin began shilling for Amazon Echo. I never really saw the need for home automation, until I saw the need for it.
I have to admit I went a bit crazy on the subject, I am glad we have Prime for all the shipping!
That is how a lot of companies see inbound marketing. You keep hearing it is valuable but nothing has grabbed you about it, or you don’t have buy-in from the boss, or you have other projects that get in the way. Whatever. It has remained a “hmmm that would be nice.”
Here is why you should pull the trigger:
1. Your competition is probably using inbound:
Even if you aren’t using inbound marketing at least some of your competitors are. Why does that matter? Well, for a couple of reasons.
Inbound marketing uses content marketing as one of its key tactics, and most of that content is evergreen. That means that once you create it, it keeps plugging along being a conduit of leads for your competition. If you aren’t creating content of your own within an inbound marketing strategy every day, you are getting further and further behind.
Inbound marketing helps position you, pardon me, them, as a thought leader. In combination with the content marketing, inbound marketing leverages social media to push ideas out to the world at large positioning them as a company with ideas.
2. Your sales staff makes more money when they are selling.
Your sales staff is probably great, but how much greater could they be if they could focus more on sales. When I say sales, I mean actual sales. Not finding leads, or even dare I say…..cold calling.
Inbound marketing gives you a way to get leads. However, instead of just throwing everything over the fence to sales immediately marketing can develop those leads until they are qualified and ready to hand over to the sales team. That way sales isn’t just thrown a lead but a real opportunity. And your salespeople are making more money for the company when they are selling, right?
Inbound marketing can help sales stay on top of opportunities that didn’t pan out the first time. You can add them to a distinct funnel and when marketing creates a piece of content that might appeal to them they automatically get it. Your company and (sales team) are thought leaders when that person is ready to move forward again.
3. Your marketing team can prove ROI and pursue strategies that make money.
Even if you only have a marketing team of one, inbound can help your marketing efforts.
For one It can give you real ROI. Inbound marketing is one of the best strategies to get a real return on investment. Marketing teams can struggle to show KPI’s that move the needle but inbound gives you analytics that prove value.
With the use of automation, you get more time to work on campaigns instead of remembering to send out that email to those leads that downloaded your great new piece of content. You can market smarter, not harder.
If you are interested in inbound marketing, presumably you have tried other tactics. Maybe social media marketing or content marketing, video, storytelling, white papers, etc. The great news is that all of these fit into inbound marketing and the inbound marketing strategy helps them become more powerful.
If you want to learn more about inbound marketing get our Introduction to Inbound Marketing right here for free.