In today’s marketplace things are getting more and more competitive everyday. Now with inbound marketing allowing small businesses to compete on a global scale and leveling the playing field against the big dogs in business, how are they able to compete with all the clutter?
I talked to someone yesterday who was frustrated with Hubspot. They were looking to do inbound marketing (blogging, social media, landing pages, analytics) on their own through multiple pieces of software instead of using Hubspot which is basically a one-stop-shop for all these things and marketing automation. Some people can do this, but it usually is a waste of time and money, believe me I tried it for small clients. The problem many people have is they get caught up on the wrong things. In this case the business owner was hung up on the expense of Hubspot and not figuring out how to get new business.
It’s easy to talk improved traffic, generating more leads, getting more followers, but my banker really can’t do anything with my 1500 twitter followers or my 3000 plus traffic each month. My banker can however do something with the money a client deposits into my account. This is the key- focus on what is important and look at the big picture!
So let’s say you get inbound working properly and generating leads for your organization, then what? Well you need to get those leads to someone who knows how to work them and wants to work them. One thing I am finding after doing inbound marketing for my clients for 3 years is the fact that many of them have no idea how to work a lead. Worse many of them like the idea of lead generation, but have no real interest in figuring out a way to work their leads or train their sales team to work these leads. Often the CEO will keep the sales team out of the mix from inbound. Who is this helping?
So in my honest opinion inbound marketing is not enough to create a successful business or growth. What would happen if your sales team were part of the marketing mix? What if they actually told stories through videos or blog posts about their interactions with prospects and clients. Then what would happen if marketing reviewed things before they went live on the site and both teams developed an eBook or webinar to educate the prospects and helped to over come the issues or problems the sales team was talking about in their blogs and videos?
Can you see how a sales and marketing team working together like this could really improve most companies sales process? Now what if the sales team got on board with writing a blog weekly and you had a competition between sales people for getting the most readers, comments, but most importantly qualified leads that turn into new business? Using inbound marketing to track this data would be useful to the company, but also tap into the competitive nature of your sales team. Plus all sales people could learn from the top results getting sales person and start applying these techniques to the lower performing sales people. Soon everyone is performing better.
The goal of everyone, both sales and marketing should be to create Life Long Evangelists!
Interesting blog !
Firstly I think there are a ( large ) number of people who are looking into creating a ” HubSpot lookalike ” particularly one based on WordPress. This will not be an easy task but given the increased minimum cost of a HubSpot license and their now publicised move ” up market ” there appears to be a ” gap ” opening up where HubSpot used to operate. ( I heard the other day that 60% of their business was SMB ).
SMB’s are very cost conscious so that is one factor in HubSpot’s ” value ” being questioned but another issue is where SMB’s are with their understanding of ” Internet Marketing ” – to use a broader description than ” Inbound Marketing “.
There is definately a problem ( or challenge ) with converting visitors and traffic to leads and orders and revenue and cash ( as you so correctly say ).
I also agree that companies don’t know how to manage the many communications channels that might exist and manage the leads through those channels ( nurture ).
The conversion of traffic and visits to solid leads ( via Calls to Action, Landing pages, email sign-ups etc etc ) is one of the hardest parts of ” Inbound Marketing “.
It is also the case that there is a need for better CRM options and integration. I have been speaking with some CRM execs recently about this.
HubSpot is a fantastic company and ” Inbound Marketing ” is an amazing ” meme ” BUT I actually don’t think that CRM integration ( or the use of CRM integration ) is that brilliant within HubSpot. They are probably working on it as we speak ( write ) but whilst they have pioneered many areas of Internet Marketing their own communication and awareness internally still has some way to go.
I think they will probably crack this first in the mid – upper end of the market which, once again, leaves the SMB to find a solution.
Interesting blog !
Firstly I think there are a ( large ) number of people who are looking into creating a ” HubSpot lookalike ” particularly one based on WordPress. This will not be an easy task but given the increased minimum cost of a HubSpot license and their now publicised move ” up market ” there appears to be a ” gap ” opening up where HubSpot used to operate. ( I heard the other day that 60% of their business was SMB ).
SMB’s are very cost conscious so that is one factor in HubSpot’s ” value ” being questioned but another issue is where SMB’s are with their understanding of ” Internet Marketing ” – to use a broader description than ” Inbound Marketing “.
There is definately a problem ( or challenge ) with converting visitors and traffic to leads and orders and revenue and cash ( as you so correctly say ).
I also agree that companies don’t know how to manage the many communications channels that might exist and manage the leads through those channels ( nurture ).
The conversion of traffic and visits to solid leads ( via Calls to Action, Landing pages, email sign-ups etc etc ) is one of the hardest parts of ” Inbound Marketing “.
It is also the case that there is a need for better CRM options and integration. I have been speaking with some CRM execs recently about this.
HubSpot is a fantastic company and ” Inbound Marketing ” is an amazing ” meme ” BUT I actually don’t think that CRM integration ( or the use of CRM integration ) is that brilliant within HubSpot. They are probably working on it as we speak ( write ) but whilst they have pioneered many areas of Internet Marketing their own communication and awareness internally still has some way to go.
I think they will probably crack this first in the mid – upper end of the market which, once again, leaves the SMB to find a solution.
One of my clients ( a former HubSpot customer ) also reminded me that it became clear that an in house creative was required ( to produce Calls to Action, Landing Pages etc etc ) which also added to the cost of HubSpot and that whilst they understood that ” Platform sites ” like HubSpot ( and WordPress ) were ” templated ” it was not easy to get away from ” The HubSpot Look ” – without a creative or maybe even with one !!
One of my clients ( a former HubSpot customer ) also reminded me that it became clear that an in house creative was required ( to produce Calls to Action, Landing Pages etc etc ) which also added to the cost of HubSpot and that whilst they understood that ” Platform sites ” like HubSpot ( and WordPress ) were ” templated ” it was not easy to get away from ” The HubSpot Look ” – without a creative or maybe even with one !!