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February 19, 2012
‘A’ Player Marketing Leaders – Transitioning to Inbound Marketing
By: SBI
Outbound Marketing is defined as traditional marketing such as advertising, tradeshows, online banner ads, etc. — essentially purchased exposure. Inbound Marketing by contrast is ‘earned exposure’ where prospects value content and find you. Examples of Inbound Marketing include; content marketing, search engines (SEO and PPC), social media, and blogs.
Top benefits of Inbound Marketing:
Success with Inbound Marketing – Shifting Dollars
B2B and B2C success with Inbound Marketing has resulted in shifting marketing spend. This Infographic provides powerful insight into the transition:
Shift to Inbound Marketing – Increased Efficiency & Effectiveness
Not only is Inbound Marketing more effective in generating leads, it’s also a more efficient. According to eMarketer, the acquisition cost is significantly lower.
Making the Transition
Enhanced Writing Capabilities – Marketing teams can write brochure content in their sleep. But ask them to write a blog or white paper and they act like you asked them to launch a rocket to Mars. Why? Partly because legal obstacles have neutered them. Mainly because their habitual writing style is entrenched in a distant 3rd person manner. Strong points of view are not common among feature/benefit company information. Thought leadership on a topic is not considered. Marketing teams strain to write white papers, blogs and awareness-level content because they’ve largely never done it.
Solutions:
Team Augmentation – Marketing teams may not have key roles and experience to execute inbound marketing. Consultants fill the gap. Select a consultant with a proven track record of success implementing Inbound Marketing and Lead Generation.
Solutions:
Marketing Org Structure – Marketing objectives have evolved significantly from soft to hard metrics in the past five years. But has your structure evolved to support your new objectives? The answer is almost always NO. Don’t burden yourself with out of date structures that struggle to perform. Structure your team to perform.
Solutions:
In summary – The key take-away for ‘A’ Player marketing leaders is that Inbound Marketing requires considerable re-invention. It’s an exciting transition that requires new capability acquisition, structural changes and embracing experts who have been there before.
This article skims the surface of Inbound Marketing. Ready to be world class in Inbound Marketing?
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