Inbound Marketing and History Lessons Can Work Together. A favorite saying in business is “those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it”. In today’s economy, this lesson can often be disputed. It is easy for a business owner to develop a rear window perspective and allow their business development to be determined by tactics based in the past- it’s human nature to want to stay within our comfort zones and rely on past successes because new or misunderstood opportunities are intimidating or represent risk. There is nowhere this behavior is more prevalent than in the adoption of technology. It is viewed as costly, difficult to master, ever changing, and often confusing while at the same time it is possibly advancing the business of our competition,
But even though technology is advancing at a faster rate than ever before, there are still many proven best practices and techniques everyone should be advantaging if they want to be successful. When applied through technology, the business owner can gain access to a greater number or prospective customers and create measurable reports of their business at a more efficient rate. Service professionals from architects to accountants have shown success when that taking advantage of these tactics, plus the many new marketing techniques, but not in a way that makes you lose the personal touch with the people who keep your business standing.
Making Marketing with Technology Personal
Most marketing tools today revolve around using technology to reach their customers. We are a technology-based marketing company and our people are always on the go- does this sound familiar? Our client companies are now using web pages, mobile media, and social networking to keep their message fresh and engaging in this fast-paced world. But these are just the tools that will help you reach more customers. In order to be successful, your company must combine this technology with quality marketing techniques along with good content creation. You want to reach more people, but only the kind of people that will be interested in your business, product, or service.
Making marketing (and especially advertising) feel personal is one of a series of immutable laws in marketing. You want your customers to feel like you know them and are listening to their needs, not sending them spam and constantly pitching them to make a purchase. Businesses can leverage message boards, online polls, and dozens of other technologically-based marketing techniques in tandem with direct mail to get firsthand information about what their customers are thinking. This allows for the design of effective promotions and adjustments to business offerings that maximize sales… and profits. With so much information available right at your fingertips, why should a business ever be out of touch with its users?
Improving Support for Small Businesses
People used to avoid small businesses because they felt they could get lower prices and comparable service at the large national chains. This is no longer the case. Online marketing tools do just as much to improve the sales of small businesses as they do the large corporations. Best of all, you do not have to be an expert on marketing or technology to succeed in the online world. There are companies (like Zen Marketing) that can set up a great marketing campaign for your company and provide the support necessary to keep your web pages running.
The best part about online marketing for the small or private business is that it is highly efficient. Instead of worrying about a middleman managing your affairs, marketing companies put you right in contact with your viewers and prospects. You can discover where they are coming from, what they are specifically looking at, and what parts of your web page are driving the sales process. This allows you to streamline all of your efforts in to one solid inbound marketing process that keeps customers coming back for more instead of wasting time and effort putting together campaigns that never get you anywhere.
Combining Quality Marketing with Technology
Technological advances do not change how you advertise, just where you advertise. If you want to create a quality inbound marketing process, you need to focus on creating quality information about your business, product or service. Create and share links to pages that tell people why your offering would benefit them. Fill your web pages with information on why your expertise and service is the best choice for them. The use of keywords in content is important to search engine optimization (SEO) but remember a lot of keywords without the proper context will impede your inbound marketing results- people will not want to stay on your page or follow through with your offer.
It is incredibly important to embrace new technology if you want to sustain the growth in your business, but you need to combine these tools with solid marketing techniques as well. In the past, the focus of an advertising campaign was to explain why your product or service was a good choice. This approach is still effective with internet marketing. You do not want to get so caught up in using the marketing techniques that you forget to embrace the basics of good marketing strategy. Use a marketing provider that will blend these two business practices, and you will find your company growing at an unprecedented rate.
