Tired of cold calls? Work on your inbound marketing.
Hello? Are you listening? While cold calling has a long history, it's not a very effective method of generating new business leads. When it comes to drawing prospective customers into your business, inbound marketing has many advantages over traditional cold calling methods.
What is Inbound Marketing?
Traditional or outbound marketing is all about the push. It's about getting your message out to the public through advertisements or cold calling. In outbound marketing, you bring your message to those who may be interested and try to convince them to come and buy.
Inbound marketing is different. When you use inbound marketing, your customers come to you. You will be getting Internet leads. Using the Internet, you offer resources to your prospective customers. Those resources aren't advertisements, they're useful bits of information such as blog posts, webinars, or videos. You create this content based on your customers' needs, as expressed through surveys and search engine queries. For instance, if you run a travel agency and seniors are a big part of your audience, you may notice that the newly retired are looking for once-in-a-lifetime adventure travel opportunities. You could create a blog post focused on packing for your safari. This will draw your customers to you naturally, and when it comes time for them to book a future vacation, they'll think of you as a trusted resource. See Cold Calling v Inbound Marketing.
With inbound marketing, your content is a key part of your sales pitch. It establishes you as a trusted resource.
Inbound Leads Are Warm Leads
Generating inbound leads is a great business plan. Instead of trying to sell to someone who may not be interested, you provide information to those who are very interested. When they come into your business, they're warm business leads, not cold calls.
Inbound Marketing Generates Targeted Leads
When you send out advertising to the world, you're never quite sure who will see it. Inbound marketing allows you to create targeted content based on customer preferences and keyword searches. That means that when your prospective clients visit your online travel business, they're ready to book that bird-watching trip, and you have content and a call to action ready for them.
Inbound Marketing Uses Your Existing Resources
Many businesses have a web site, but not all businesses use their web site as a resource to draw in inbound leads. When you create blog content and social media shares and combine these with a call to action, you're using your web resources to their full potential. You don't need to hire a cold calling staff for your inbound marketing, but you do need to cultivate one of your best resources: your authoritative web presence.
Inbound Leads Are Quantifiable
When you write and share content from your web site, it's relatively easy to see what's working and what's failing. What articles get the most shares and visits? Which ones lead to clicks to your sales pages? It may be that certain types of content work very well for your business, or perhaps most of your customers find you through your unique method of social sharing, such as your travel photos on Pinterest. When you watch your web traffic, you can learn from your past and plan for the future.
Do you need help attracting and converting inbound leads? Visit Inbound Marketing Basics to renew your digital marketing strategy.