Many new businesses have a plethora of things to worry about when launching their new product or service. They have sales, marketing, operations, finance, and maybe even internal human resources challenges to tackle.
One of the largest mistakes new entrepreneurs make is failing to incorporate a solid inbound marketing plan for their company. This is partly because they don’t know what inbound marketing is or it sounds complicated so they tend to shy away from it.
Additionally startups that house small marketing teams don’t implement inbound marketing tactics because either the in-house marketers are so overwhelmed with getting their digital campaigns up and running while learning about the competitive landscape that other marketing initiatives get put on the back burner.
That’s where we come in.
So what exactly is Inbound Marketing?
It’s a way to attract strangers of your brand to your site by using blogs and social media to provide them with a high quality and relevant piece of content to peak their interest.
Then they become visitors to your site at which time you can convert them with clear calls to action and forms on relevant, interesting landing pages.
Once they submit their contact information via your form, you have a lead that you can follow up with and convert to a prospect that you can contact using your email drip campaign.
Then you can hopefully close your new prospect as you impress them with your sales expertise!
Finally, you can follow up with great customer service to make sure your new customer is happy and hopefully refers you to someone else.
Should I be doing this yet?
Yes! If you don’t start an inbound marketing campaign after reading this blog, then I have failed you as a marketer. More and more businesses are integrating inbound marketing.
It’s not the latest trend that will fizzle out, but rather the start of an integral piece of your ongoing marketing strategy. According to Search Engine Journal, inbound leads cost 60% less than outbound leads! That’s pretty amazing considering the rise in costs of paid search ads.
Additionally, Content Plus published that blogs give websites 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links. Think of the SEO value you can gain from producing some awesome blogs.
Let me reiterate, yes! You need to be doing this, yesterday!
Does it matter that I don’t have a large marketing team on staff to help me implement?
No! You can do it yourself if you’re super ambitious and have some extra time on your hands while you’re running your company and dealing with 9 million other things.
However, I recommend hiring a marketing consultant or agency with strong writing skills and experience in creating and executing email campaigns. That way you are hiring the capabilities to produce solid content and help efficiently deliver it to your target audience through email and social media.
A team with html/design experience is a bonus because they can help design a nice landing page for your website to help convert strangers into leads. An alternative is to pay to outsource a web designer to create a nice landing page template that will live in your inbound campaign.
subscribe to our blog
Recap
Inbound can be intimidating but is definitely achievable for startups of all sizes with varying numbers of marketing employees on staff.
For advice on the tools you need to get started, estimating cost, setting expectations, and measuring success read part 2 of this blog post.
Ready to start your inbound marketing program? Click below to download our FREE Checklist for How To Run an Inbound Marketing Campaign!