3 Ways to Evaluate Whether Inbound Marketing Will Work for You

Inbound marketing is a very effective lead generation method, but won’t work for every business. Here’s how to know if it will it work for you.

What is the best way to market and promote your business products or services online? To generate lots of new online leads, prospects, customers, and clients?

For many businesses, it is called “Inbound Marketing”

Google Gives You Preferential Treatment

Google itself has blessed this methodology called inbound marketing over traditional methods like search engine optimization. It is also fast replacing the old “outbound” model of cold calling, radio/TV/newspaper ads… and is a heck of a lot less expensive.

Here is the good news: Inbound marketing is incredibly effective.

The Rest Of The Story…

But, here’s the problem: it won’t work for some companies.

In fact, I would go further. For some companies, it is a colossal waste of money and manpower (just like other methods in other situations).

If you don’t understand that inbound marketing doesn’t work well for all companies, you may find yourself seduced into believing this method will be your ticket to incredible online lead generation results.

A year down the road you would learn the hard way… it won’t work for you.

Will Inbound Marketing Work For My Business?

There are 3 specific criteria you can use to evaluate whether or not your business is a good candidate for inbound marketing.

1. An extended sales/buying cycle. Typically, if it takes 60-90 days or more for people to decide to buy your product or service, you may be a good candidate.

The reason this is important is that inbound marketing is built upon the methodology of developing relationships with your prospects… over time.

Let me explain.

When someone comes to your website to look into your product or service, they are often in option finding mode. In fact, the vast majority of the searchers are in this mode.

What do people say in this state? “Thanks… I’m just looking” They are not ready to buy… and they certainly don’t want a salesperson to bother them.

During this season, inbound marketing will provide helpful information that will make it easier for assist for the web visitor to gather the information they need to understand their options. This is done via blog articles (for traffic generation), and no-cost special materials offered in exchange for an email address.

If the searcher chooses a valuable, free report (e.g. “Fiberglass v. Concrete Pools: 7 factors to consider”), they are now eligible to receive periodic emails from the company with more helpful information, ideas and tips for decision making purposes.

It is during the season the prospect is receiving the emails that a company has an opportunity to build a “trusted advisor” relationship with the prospect. Why? Because they aren’t being sold, they are being helped. Who doesn’t want that?

During this “lead nurture” phase, there needs to be enough time to interact via email (and later phone) to build that trust.

An example of where it won’t work is a company with a short or non-existent sales cycle. They will be wasting their time trying to get inbound marketing working for them. For example, if you are an emergency plumber, people are looking for solutions RIGHT NOW. They aren’t going to download a free report on anything.

So, one criteria for a company to be a good candidate for inbound marketing is that its product or service has an extended sales cycle.

Continue reading here–> to learn the other two essential criteria to insuring inbound marketing success. The combination of these three elements will insure inbound marketing success… if you do it well.

Inbound marketing works powerfully to generate traffic, leads, and customers… if your product or service meets three important criteria.

Do you have questions or comments about this first criteria? Leave your comments below… or contact 2nd Mile Marketing. We will be happy to answer any questions you have.

Read more:

• Using Inbound Marketing To Evaluate Market Expansion Opportunities