Businesses looking to make changes usually have a single challenge in mind — they may claim they need to improve their Facebook presence or their search engine rankings, but the truth is that the core problem they’re trying to solve lies much deeper than these one-off tactics. They don’t need a bigger Twitter following; they need more traffic. They don’t need a website redesign to attract more customers; they need compelling content behind landing pages to generate leads. They need analysis to know how to react to changes and maintain flexibility.
Not every business has the time or energy to fully commit to a process that will get them where they want to be with their sales funnel. Every business looking to modernize, whether they realize it or not, has one or more of the following problems, each of which requires an ongoing solution:
- They need to attract more visitors to their website (top of the funnel);
- They need to convert more visitors into leads (middle of the funnel); or
- They need to convert more leads into customers (bottom of the funnel).
A proper marketing assessment includes an audit of your current marketing efforts and a conversation that allows you to be educated on the benefits of doing things differently…or in a better way. According to Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing methodology, the 4 stages of gaining new customers with a modern approach is as follows:
Attract strangers and turn them into visitors – Start with a proper SEO strategy and a blog with useful content. Use social media and create content connected to what your customers are already looking for. Remember, the customer is in charge now more than ever, and many come well-armed with information long before they make physical or actual contact with your business.
Convert these strangers and visitors into leads – Make it easy for visitors to connect with you. Start by not hiding your “contact” page out of fear of getting too much spam. Have a call to action that guides them into leads. Create simple forms that can be filled out quickly when their interest is highest. If you can, give them the chance to act and buy on impulse.
Close the leads by turning them into customers – Score the lead to make sure it’s who you want to do business with and create the workflow necessary to complete the transaction. Communicate with them through a proper integration with your CRM.
But wait…you’re not done.
Delight your customers and turn them into promoters – Use social media that maintains their loyalty and gives them a chance to be advocates on your behalf.
Any business or executive who sees marketing as a way of achieving growth needs to understand that it is an ongoing process that requires incessant experimentation, testing, and optimization. Some experiments will be home runs…some won’t. Most traditional and stale businesses tend to only think of the top of the sales funnel: attracting more customers. These old-school businesses think that if they just attract more people, their job is done and the rest will take care of itself. Business owners who follow a more modern approach understand they won’t reach their goals overnight, but that regular reporting and analysis from expert sources (internally or externally with an agency who “gets it”) is imperative for knowing where to focus in order to get there.
Contact us to learn how inbound marketing can work for you.
