Inbound marketing alone won’t deliver high-level meetings.
Author; Caryn Kopp, Chief Door Opener at Kopp Consulting
It’s no secret that buyer behavior has changed with the ease of information access we all enjoy through the Internet. With a click of the mouse, we can get what we need to evaluate new products and services. There’s no doubt that shifting some dollars to digital marketing that attracts key prospects is important. However, those who expect an inbound strategy alone to bring the right prospects to their doorsteps, ready to buy, too often miss their sales goals.
I’ve seen too many business owners not only disappointed, but frankly perplexed when their inbound strategies fail to deliver the initial meetings and opportunities with senior level decision makers that they dreamed possible. Let’s take a closer look at why this might be happening and what you can do about it.
One business owner I know created a robust inbound marketing campaign. You name it, he did it: wrote thought provoking blogs and white papers, hosted webinars, launched social media and SEO campaigns. He even commissioned research studies for additional content to support his efforts. He became a recognized thought leader in his industry. He spent a lot of time and money to make this happen.
Everyone in his company thought they had achieved success because of the large number of people who were interested in their content. At one point, 800 people were registered for one of his webinars. Yet, even with this swirl of activity, they didn’t close more sales and, worse, the sales they did close weren’t the kind of sales they wanted. His excitement quickly fizzled when he realized his sales numbers were not going to reflect the amount of time, money and effort he poured into the campaign.
What went wrong?
What went wrong was the business owner’s expectation of what an inbound program could achieve on its own. If the goal of his program was only to generate awareness and interest, he succeeded. However, awareness was not his ultimate goal. It was just one step to it.
His real goal was to leverage the awareness he generated to attract certain high level decision makers at Fortune 500 companies, engage them in one-on-one discussions and have them agree to initial meetings. He had the path to go from no awareness to awareness. There just wasn’t a path to take him from awareness to a secured meeting. Therefore, a critical piece of the process was missing.
Picture a bridge that successfully goes three-quarters of the way across the river. Without the missing one-quarter of the bridge, it’s impossible to get to the other side.
Learn about turning awareness into opportunity; services to secure high level meetings…
