Can Inbound Marketing System Can Increase Revenue? By now everyone knows that the Internet has changed the way business gets done.
As a business owner, whether you are a manufacturer or service provider, the question you might be asking yourself is: how can I use the Internet to make my marketing more effective and boost sales?
Organic search, individual users and companies freely looking for information and solutions online, is also now an established part of the social and economic landscape thanks to Google and other potent search engines. Just by using organic search to learn about digital approaches, you have probably come across a whole array of terms and concepts that weren’t around 10 to 15 years ago. Search engine optimization (SEO), Pay per click (PPC) advertising, “long tail” marketing, blogs, social media, webinars, Internet marketing, content marketing… How can a relative newcomer to the Internet commerce arena make sense of all the buzz and focus on what’s going to benefit you?
Here’s another set of terms to consider: “outbound marketing” versus “inbound marketing.” Prior to the Internet, how did outbound marketing work? On the marketing side, companies would advertise in print or broadcast commercials via the airwaves in the hope of generating warm leads from cold or lukewarm ones. Decision makers seeking solutions would read the industry journals, attend trade shows, and quickly come into to contact with a sales force whose job it was to provide “asymmetric” information about their firms’ products and track record.
Organic search and other Internet-based media have put a new set of tools in the hands of executives and business owners looking for solutions. Information abounds: those seriously looking to fulfill a business need have the capacity to become, if not subject-matter experts, then subject-matter savvy, and therefore effectively know as much as a sale force knows. Inbound marketing is about using search engine optimization and current digital media to make your firm visible to warm, pre-qualified leads who have already been searching online in your industry.
However – if your company does not rank at the top of unpaid, organic searches then you will not be visible to potential customers without a substantial investment in online advertising. Think thousands, not hundreds, of dollars monthly if your trading space is regional or national.
In addition to using inbound marketing methods more effectively, it’s also no secret that in the present economy firms are looking to make their marketing initiatives more efficient and therefore more cost-effective. Once your company has optimized your web presence and develops a process to maintain its ranking in organic search results, your potential customers will be able to find you – for free.
Case Study – Three companies that made the shift to using inbound marketing systems.
Company A is an overseas manufacturer specializing in climate control and solar shading technologies and has roughly 300 employees. Having been one of the first to launch a Website in its industry 15 years ago, they wanted to keep their marketing approach innovative. With inbound marketing software, after three months they used the platform’s blogging tools and marketing analytics to increase website traffic ten times and achieve a landing page conversion rate of 13%.
Company B is a Florida-based maker of sound proofing products with fewer than 50 employees. They were using a number of sales approaches but had no defined marketing strategy, and they knew it. Their website did not have sufficient traffic and they struggled to generate leads. With an integrated inbound marketing system, they honed their search keywords and improved their site’s content. Their landing pages had more effective calls to action and the system allowed them to keep tabs on competitors. After a year and half with the marketing software, they had a 210% website traffic increase, search leads were up 310% and they enjoyed 40% more client transactions.
Company C is a manufacturer of pumps and dredging equipment located in the Plains States. With 50 employees, they service several market segments and sell to clients around the world. Until implementing an inbound marketing program in 2009, the firm had difficulty tracking leads and analyzing the effectiveness of their Web presence. They were also not satisfied with how slowly their Web host changed content on their site. Upon implementing the new system, Company C’s marketing manager used its lead management tool to qualify leads and was able to identify effective keywords to boost their search results. The system’s content management tool allowed the manager to update and change their content quickly. After one year with the inbound system, Company C has seen a 95% increase in website traffic, has ended its PPC ad campaigns and has increased its sales team’s effectiveness thanks to better, more qualified leads.
All three companies are clients of HubSpot, an inbound marketing software firm located inCambridge,Massachusetts. Brian Halligan, an MIT graduate and CEO of HubSpot, says “Business has changed,” due to the Internet, “and there needs to be a new set of tools to help you take advantage of the change.”
Explaining the “hub” concept that helps your firm “get found” via organic search and Web activity, Halligan says “…you need to set up your website like a “hub” for your industry that attracts visitors naturally through search engines, the blogosphere and social media. I believe most marketers today spend 90% of their efforts on outbound marketing and 10% on inbound marketing, and I advocate that those ratios flip.”
Company A is Colt International, located in theNetherlands. “Fifteen years ago, no industrial company like Colt could imagine that everybody has to have a website,” says Gertie Arts, Colt Manager of Marketing. “Now it’s the same thing. I think within 15 years, nobody can imagine that you’re not doing (inbound marketing).”
Regarding HubSpot’s integrated suite of marketing tools, Arts comments “There are a lot of tools in marketing, and you can use Google Analytics… but in HubSpot you have everything in one, and that’s very easy.”
Company B is Acoustiblok, headquartered inTampa, FL. “We knew that we had to get more web traffic,” says CEO Lahnie Johnson, “and that more traffic equates to more leads. We were able to use the HubSpot software to help us with our traffic building initiatives and as expected our leads increased dramatically as our traffic increased.”
“We love (HubSpot’s) competitor tracking tool,” adds Johnson “as it helps us to get a view of the marketplace whenever we want or need to see some of what our competitors are doing.”
Company C is SRS Crisafulli, located in the State ofMontana. “We really needed a system that would enable us to make wiser decisions based on our tracking efforts,” says Marketing Manager Elizabeth Kaiser. Since implementing HubSpot’s “All-in-One” inbound marketing software, “The quality of leads and the number of those leads coming in have increased immensely,” Kaiser adds. “We this last year stopped paying for pay-per-click words, and since we’ve stopped, our organic searches have continued to increase.”
The main tools on HubSpot’s inbound marketing software include:
Search Engine Optimization: keyword analysis, link tacking and page-level SEO
Blogging and Social Media: blogging software and analytics, social media publishing, monitoring and analytics
Lead Generation: landing pages, content management, A/B testing
Lead Management: company tracking, lead intelligence, CRM integration
Email and Marketing Automation: email management, lead nurturing, marketing automation
Marketing Analytics: closed-loop reporting, website analytics, competitor tracking
Would you like to learn more? Click here to learn more about HubSpot’s integrated suite of inbound marketing tools.
