Every business is looking for their next sign. That sign that makes the lightbulb go off in their head, which ultimately pushes them over the top to become the leader in their industry. Well as Bill Engvall would say “Here’s your sign.” Is your cost per lead too high? Do you want to stay connected with your customers better? Is your sales cycles really long? Are your competitors using inbound marketing?
These are all questions you want to ask yourself. If you happen to answer yes to any of these questions, you may want to assess why you haven’t implement inbound marketing yesterday. Implementing inbound marketing can help you in all of these areas, so why haven’t you started this yet?
Cost Per Lead
What is your current strategy for collecting leads for your business? Have you calculated how much each lead costs? In the 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report by Hubspot, there were a few compelling data points I would like to share with you:
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Twice the amount of marketers say inbound marketing achieves below average cost per lead compared to outbound strategies
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The survey also stated that 34% of company leads come from inbound marketing tactics
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In 2013, inbound marketing delivered 54% more leads compared to outbound marketing tactics
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U.S inbound marketers save on average 13% per lead when their company spends in a surplus of $25,000 per.
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U.S. inbound marketers also save more that $14 for every new customers acquired compared to other companies relying on outbound strategies.
These stats just go to show that inbound marketing (on average) will lower your cost per lead. Outbound marketing tactics can be very expensive and difficult, if not impossible, to measure their results. So why is inbound marketing so much more efficient? Their conversion ratio.
Inbound marketing results in much higher conversion ratios because these leads are looking for you! When you use the tactics of outbound marketing, you are just placing your advertisement in front of potential consumers and half of them may not even be qualified for your product or service. So right away this creates a poor conversion ratio. You may be reaching thousands of people with one advertisement, but if only one person converts, the cost for that one lead will be much higher than one collected from inbound marketing. With inbound marketing these potential customers are looking for your service which improves your conversion ratio. These people already know they want your product/service; now they just need to be convinced by your online presence to buy from you. You can do this by establishing yourself as the industry leader.
Building Customer Relationships
Inbound marketing is a great way enhance your current customer relationships through email campaigns. Using email campaigns, you can keep a closer connection with your current and past customers to inform them about new products or offers. Many companies lose potential up-selling opportunities because their customers don’t know about new products. So make sure they know! It is also a good idea to stay top of mind with these customers through emails. You don’t always have to offer them something or inform them of a new product. Maybe you just drop a line to make sure everything is going well with them. This connection may encourage them to buy more from you in the future or it may trigger them to buy from you at that moment.
Sales Cycle
In the past, a long sales cycle could only be completed by using a sales representative. Now with the internet, consumers can be well informed about any product or service. They can spend countless hours researching your product so make sure that information is out their. Let your website do the selling. Make sure you create blogs that establish the pain points of your customers and how your product could solve that problem. Offer unique pieces of content that does the same or gives more information on your product/service. All this information will become helpful to potential leads when they are researching your company. So now your website is acting as the sale representative, saving you time and money because now you can place your sales reps on accounts that could possibly close sooner than later. The sooner your sales rep closes, the sooner he can be on the next lead doing the same.
If you can’t beat’em, join’em
Don’t let your competitors gain the competitive edge on you. If your competitors have implemented an inbound strategy, then obviously they see the value within your industry, so don’t fall behind. Inbound marketing takes time to build. It’s not a strategy you can put into place and expect results by tomorrow. It is a process. Creating premium content takes a lot of time and effort to coordinate your strategy. Building your SEO with blog posts takes time as well. Inbound marketing is a long term strategy and if you are not in it for the long run, you may want to look elsewhere.
Why didn’t you start yesterday?
So did any of these questions make a lightbulb go off in your head? If you were looking for a sign, here it is: Inbound marketing can help you reduce your cost per lead, shorten your sales cycle, enhance customer relationships and give you a competitive edge over your industry. Was that enough of a sign?
