The Number One Reason People Fail at Inbound Marketing

It doesn’t take much surfing on the web to see the scars of failed marketing initiatives.  

My position with IMPACT gives me exposure to hundreds of companies across the world on a daily basis and you may be surprised at the number that have blogs containing only a handful of old articles, “coming soon” homepages that never change, and barren business Twitter accounts.

While the glass half-full type might say, “they tried,”  the reality of the situation is all of those incomplete efforts weren’t an efficient use of valuable resources.  

The number one reason people fail at inbound marketing is implement it half-heartedly. They only adopt a part of the inbound methodology, not the entire thing.

Why You’re Failing

Not building a complete inbound marketing program is like:

1. putting a down payment on a car but never coming up with the rest of the payment.
2. pouring the foundation for a house but never building the home.
3. hiring a new employee but never onboarding them.

I like to think of building an inbound marketing program as if it’s a car.

A car, just like an inbound marketing program, is made up of a handful of key components that alone won’t get you to your destination.  

A car without a fuel won’t get you across the country, right?

Well, an inbound marketing program without content won’t get you far, either. (or without SEO, landing pages, forms, social media, the list goes on.)

Add a gas to that car, but forget to add wheels and you’re still in the same situation: You can burn through gas all day, but you’re not going anywhere.

How does that relate to marketing? Let’s take a quick look at the inbound methodology.

If you’re unfamiliar with these four stages, you can learn all about them here.  

But If the graphic above looks familiar, consider this:

• What is the value in focusing on setting up your site to convert visitors into leads if you have no site visitors in the first place?
• What is the value in attracting site visitors if you don’t have the systems in place to convert them into leads or close them as customers?
• What is the value in closing customers if you don’t delight and retain them?

Every piece in inbound builds upon the others. In a nutshell, if you don’t embrace all of them in their entirety, you’ll easily put in a ton of effort without ever seeing a ton of return.

What You Can Do

Now, I’m sitting here writing this and I can already hear people screaming, “I don’t have the resources to do all of that!”

Trust me; I get that time, money, and talent aren’t always there. Even if you know inbound marketing will work for your business, it’s not easy to get everyone else to see the value.

The best way to get more resources in marketing is to prove the return on investment, right?  

Well, for those of you getting a strong inbound marketing program rolling, I recommend investing equally in every stage of the inbound methodology.

Once you’ve got the foundations built in every stage, you can start to vary your commitment to every stage.

Let’s run through what that may look like:

• Blog to educate your visitors on something they may be looking for the answer for.
• For every 4 blog articles you create, build a more advanced offer. This offer is something you can exchange for a visitor’s contact information.  End every blog article with a compelling next step.  This is where that advanced offer comes in.  Is there a relevant webinar your company is holding?Do you have an ebook that takes things a step further?
• Keep your new contacts engaged with nurturing emails that keep them coming back.  Offer your expertise to help them better understand their issues. If your solution aligns with their issues and you make your solution clear, prospects will self-identify themselves.
• Once you’ve closed a customer, don’t forget about them.  Build a personal relationship with them and use surveys to audit your performance in the relationship. Marketing doesn’t stop at the sale; Build evangelists.

If you’re considering inbound marketing as a viable marketing strategy for your organization, you need to be considering it in its entirety.  

For those of you who already have an inbound marketing program in place, I’d recommend performing an audit.

Is your program firing on all cylinders in all stages? Taking this a step further, set key performance indicators for each stage to better understand how to alot your resources.

If you’re brave, I’d be happy to give you a complete audit of your inbound marketing program.  You can schedule some time on my calendar here.

Otherwise, scroll down to grab IMPACT’s 10-step crash course in getting started with inbound.