As 2016 revs up everyone is talking about resolutions and focusing on improving in the new year. Gym memberships aside, the best way to improve your revenue growth in 2016 is inbound marketing.
Why inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing helps you to build a deeper and broader lead funnel that allows you to build a more predictable and sustainable pipeline for revenue growth.
Think about the following:
The Content Marketing Institute reports that 80% of decision-makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles rather than in an advertisement (and by extension a cold sales call).
It Costs Less
Inbound marketing can seem like a lot of work. Content creation, SEO research and implementation, lead nurturing, social all of it adds up. And, we’ve all be guilty of this mindset, the old adage that time equals money is often hard to shake.
But when it comes to the cost of inbound it really isn’t as punishing as it can at first feel. In fact:
Inbound generated leads cost 60% less than outbound leads. (source: State of Inbound Marketing Report)
That’s right, 60% less!
Sure, creating quality content, lead nurturing, all the details that make inbound really work do require time and effort and (yes) money, but the investment really is worth it.
The Importance of Lead Nurturing and SEO
Lead nurturing is an important step in the inbound process. To understand why it’s so key it’s important to recognize that most of your leads, even your qualified leads, aren’t ready to buy the first time they interact with you. And that’s ok, it just means that you have an opportunity to educate and move leads further into the sales funnel.
And lead nurturing pays off.
Companies that do well with lead nurturing (a key part of the inbound marketing methodology) generate 50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower costs (source: Forrester Research).
Further:
Leads that are nurtured well make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads (source: The Annuitas Group)
Hand in hand with the importance of lead nurturing is the necessity of SEO. And, again, putting time into SEO pays off.
SEO driven leads have a have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound marketing created leads have a 1.7% closing rate. (source: Search Engine World)
I won’t get into detail about lead nurturing or SEO specifics because they are huge and nuanced topics. It is, however, important to recognize how vital lead nurturing and SEO are and that they are worth your time and effort to do right. If you really want to grow your revenue in 2016, lead nurturing and SEO need to be a priority.
Bottom line: Inbound marketing pays dividends and if you want to grow your revenue in the new year it needs to be a priority.
If you’re still not convinced inbound marketing is right for you, or you need an inbound refresher, you can download the ABC’s of Inbound Marketing. A free resource, the "ABCs of Inbound Marketing" is a collaborative eBook from our partner HubSpot., designed to teach you the fundamentals of Inbound.
Each of the 26 topics is written from the unique perspective a different Marketing Professional (We covered Inbound Marketing!) From "Keywords" to "Workflow", you'll learn what each term is and why it's an indispensable piece of Inbound Marketing.
Click here to download the ABC’s of Inbound Marketing!
