B2B Marketing is undergoing a transformation that includes many shiny new ideas and approaches. One of those is called Inbound Marketing. Inbound marketing is about helping your potential customers find your company and engage with you via content that’s relevant to them. It’s about reaching beyond the boundaries of your company-owned web properties with the intention of catching the attention of your prospects and enticing them to engage with relevant content back on your Web properties.
Inbound marketing definitely has merit for expanding your company’s reach and creating a holistic process for engaging prospects based on their desire to interact with you. It certainly beats buying a list and sending cold, intrusive emails hoping to engage them. This said, inbound cannot carry the load alone. That’s where marketing automation comes into play—to take up where inbound leaves off.
Smart marketers are combining inbound approaches with outbound methods to build long-term relationships with prospects to help them transition into buyers. It’s up to our content and messaging to attract prospects and persuade them to opt in for more of our great content. After that happens, marketing automation supports the process that enables marketers to continue to engage prospects based on their expressed interests.
With lead scoring and behavioral insights, it’s up to marketers to employ outbound communications in response to what we learn about our prospects. During a long, complex buying process, marketers must help their prospects take the next steps based on where they are in the buying cycle and what they need to know next.
Relying solely on inbound marketing leaves a lot to chance.
Instead of a hoping your prospects will continue to return on their own, help them do so by harnessing the capabilities provided by marketing automation.
Marketing Automation software puts four key capabilities within easy reach:
Lead Scoring Models: The ability to score based on fit and interest helps marketers respond appropriately at the right time. The ability to prioritize leads for follow-up helps to ensure that only the most highly qualified leads are passed to sales.
Response Triggers: Certain behaviors can be indicative of transitions during the buying process. With marketing automation, salespeople can be alerted to step in or automated emails activated to provide more of the information prospects have indicated they want to receive.
Progressive Profiling: The ability to customize your landing pages to collect additional information marketers can use to increase the relevance of content and interactions with prospects can help you build better relationships. Richer profiles help your sales team take next steps to move prospects closer to buying.
Lead Nurturing: Different information is required during each stage of the buying process. Providing that information across the buying cycle helps companies become trusted advisors and relied-upon resources their prospects come to depend upon.
Just remember that the tools and techniques marketers employ require compelling content to drive the desired results—whether inbound or outbound. The point is that the shiny new approaches have a place in the marketing mix, but not at the expense of eliminating invited communications to help facilitate the buying process. Being helpful and relevant are required regardless of the approach. Marketing automation can help you with both.
Tags: Demand Generation, inbound marketing, Lead Nurturing, Lead Scoring, Marketing Funnel
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I agree Eric. As marketers we fancy we can influence the buyer's concept (Miller Heiman term) and move them along the Buyer's Journey (MathMarketing term). But for many products and services, the best we can do is position as one of the people you should talk to if and when you have [this] problem. The problem may not be something we can cause awareness about, because it is triggered externally.
As an example, let's say you are a law firm specialising in family law. You can position in this category, and you can allude to some of the typical tell-tale signs of an impending 'situation', and for some buyers, the message will resonate and they'll either want to talk (inbound) or welcome a call (outbound). Automation and scoring are key for both. But many buyers simply won't believe those signs are present in their own relationship right now.
Then, boom! He / she sees or does something (or fails to do or say the right something) and the whole world has changed. Receptivity is high. They call you.
But if all of our marketing is aimed at progressing willing buyers, and none of it at nurturing those who leaked (failed to progress) from our funnel, then we may fail to remain positioned. The call goes to the law firm with the biggest Yellow Pages ad and all our clever marketing has been for naught.
A great post with much relevant and valuable information.
Inbound Marketing and Marketing Automation, what I call Inbound Marketing Automation, does offer some significant benefits over more traditional ways to market. But it's important to understand, that without an understanding of the Process involved in using these techniques, they do not live up to their potential.
The process of implementing an Inbound Marketing Automation system must begin with a marketing strategy. May seem “old fashioned” when thinking about Inbound, but unless you know what you are selling, to who, and how and when and where, and something about your competitors and a fair amount about your ideal prospects, your chances of success are not high.
Why? Well, just for starters: Choosing the right keywords, the ones which you hope your prospects type into Google, begins as a marketing exercise. These keyword phrases are in essence your online brand identity and must be based on the answers to the questions posed above. Armed with the strategy, it may be easier for you to design the Process of using your Inbound Marketing Automation into 4 sub-processes. In each one you focus on a specific task:
1) Attract more visitors to your website through SEO, Social Media Marketing, and, if needed, PPC
2) Engage their attention with industry leading content (website copy, white papers, videos, podcasts). Make sure you design this content so suit your prospect's buying cycles!
3) Convert them by getting their names and email addresses in return for valued content. Grade their profiles (each time they visit ask them a few more questions) and score their digital footprints (their activities on the site), to rack up points. Keep them in your funnel by automatically nurturing them around their buying cycle, educating them automatically with multi-touch drip email campaigns cultivating them from cold lead to hot prospect.
4) And when their Grade and Score reach your target levels, automatically feed these prospects directly into your CRM and notify the assigned sales rep (based on product or territory or whatever…). Your sales reps will love this part – no more cold calls as they person they call knows them from the emails, and the sales person knows the prospect from the Profile and activity on site.