Does Inbound Marketing Overwhelm You?
Posted by Andy Xhignesse on Mon, Oct 03, 2011 @ 07:36 AM
Yes, Your Company Can Avoid Inbound Marketing...At What Cost?
What have I heard out there? Among the usual pain of spending money and getting no real measurable results either in traffic growth or more online lead generation, we've heard a little anxiety about what's actually going on as far as inbound marketing and how it relates to business growth. I've used the term inbound marketing as an inclusive term, one that describes a methodology that combines six key inbound elements, to generate business growth (seven when you include repetition) for your company online. They're the elements we always talk about here in ways that we hope are useful to you with the goal of helping you transform your website into a real business asset not just another expense.
So where's the anxiety? If someone told me that they had a way for me to:
- Contribute to the budgeted revenue growth of my compnay;
- Change what had previously been an expense into an investment (that suggests there is an ROI);
- That the ultimate extension of the process would be the development of a powerful and valuable business asset (that suggests it adds to the value of my company)
...well, I'd be all over an idea like that. Again the question, where's the anxiety come from? The answers vary but for the most part they fall into two categories.
First, "I don't really know and understand what this is all about. Sure I know what SEO and social media are, and yes of course I'd like to get leads from my website, but I'm focused on the core activities of my business and I haven't learned about all this technology." Fair comment. Staying abreast of the component elements of inbound marketing, content development, SEO, social media, landing page lead generation, lead nurturing campaigns and analytics is too much to ask of a business leader. What to do? You either have to delegate within your organization or outsource the work to others who are in the business full time and able to assist you as needed, it may be a combination of both. The danger is to let your lack of understanding impede your company's use of the internet as a business development tool because if you look around, some of your competitors are very engaged.
The second big category is sort of related and is along the line of "I just don't have time for all this stuff. I know I should probably be doing something, but where is the time supposed to come from?" Again, there's nothing unreasonable about this perspective, time is valuable, and focusing in on an area that you may have little to no experience in may well not be the best use of your time. But what happens if you don't engage in a project to not just promote your business on the internet but to use the internet for growth? Look around you...the internet is becoming a preferred source of information for both business and consumers, if you're not actively engaged in a plan for your company online, you're most likely being left behind. It's a fact so...make time! At a minimum, get a little direction and read this post on how to use inbound marketing effectively with 5 hours a week investment. Either find it internally or outsource the work, but don't be left behind...it just costs too much!
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