Inbound marketing is a set of marketing techniques that must all be present to properly work. When steps are missed or not performed properly, the final results can be less than expected.
As your sales funnel gets filled with more and more leads, it’s easy to overlook other tasks, make mistakes and miss important subtleties because you’re busy.
This happens with just about every company that handles their own marketing.
Truthfully, your marketing isn't your expertise (unless you are a marketer), it's more of a necessary evil that has to be done, to make sure you keep getting new customers in the door.
No one expects you to be perfect, but the truth is, the better you market yourself- the better your results will be.
We believe that inbound marketing, and using the tactics of inbound marketing help our clients be more successful generating business leads.
While overseeing their campaigns for them, we've learned a lot about what is skipped, missed and overstepped on the way to inbound success. For that reason we've put together this list of common inbound marketing mistakes.
Overlooking the Small Stuff- You’ve heard the term “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”, right? When it comes to inbound marketing, success is in the small stuff.
The small details make the most difference. For instance, the copy you use on every single page, email, and blog post will impact your call to action click-through-rate and your landing page conversion rate. These is very important in generating new Internet leads. See Lead Generation Conversion Analysis.
Ignoring Results- Tracking is there for a reason, to help you figure out how well your plan is working, what needs to be fine-tuned, and what is delivering the results you want.
Successful businesses overlook the numbers when things are going well, but this is a mistake. If numbers begin to fall, and they aren’t caught, it will eventually affect the number of leads coming in, resulting in fewer sales and revenue.
Skipping a Step- With so many moving pieces, skipping a step is common. For instance, not using social media except to promote, skipping lead nurturing with email marketing, not properly designing personas, or having an untrained sales staff all leads to a less effective inbound marketing plan that ultimately provides less than expected results.
Writing Content- Inbound marketing depends on content marketing- creating new content and getting search engine results. One needs to focus on writing truly beneficial content that readers need/want to help them make better sales decisions.
Blogging every day with subpar content that is rehashed on every page of the blog does not help a reader, but long, well-written, informative content will lead to more sales.
Lacking Consistency- Readers who like your information need to see consistently valuable content, in every place they follow you. New blog posts should be written regularly, as readers come to expect new posts.
Social media and email should be on a schedule as well, frequent updates and periodic newsletters. The more times you show up when your prospect is about to making a decision, the more likely they are to go with your solution.
Often times when a company is handling their own marketing they miss or skip certain steps they don't understand or know how to implement correctly. This leads to holes in the entire campaign that directly causes fewer leads and sales results.
It's much easier to find out how where your holes are when you find someone you can trust to take a look. To have us take a look at your marketing campaigns, without obligation, please contact us today.
In the mean time, do your own self-evaluation and read up on the importances of every aspect of inbound marketing, because the more you know, the more successful you'll be. See Information About New Leads.
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