3 Things Every Business Development Pro Should Know About Inbound Marketing

The number of brands committed to inbound marketing has grown significantly over the past few years, as marketers adapt to the changing reality of how people buy, but many business development professionals still have questions about how it can help them generate more leads and convert more customers. A few months ago, we provided a resource to help sales-people and business executives identify the various ways inbound marketing can enhance their efforts. In this blog, we’ll unpack three key takeaways from the resource that every business development professional should know. 3 Things Every Business Development Pro Should Know About Inbound Marketing Here are three things you should know if you’re considering how inbound marketing can help you grow your business.
  1. Small businesses who are willing to invest in inbound marketing have a significant opportunity to stand out from their competitors.
Although inbound marketing is more effective for small and mid-sized businesses, many are still relying on traditional outbound methods. In fact, the number of small businesses primarily focusing on outbound marketing is double the amount of those focusing on inbound. For brands who are willing to adopt this strategy, this provides a significant opportunity to stand out from amongst their competition.
  1. Inbound marketing helps you educate prospective clients on the unique benefits your company can offer.
Over 50% of brands that use inbound marketing as their primary lead source say prospects are at least somewhat knowledgeable about their company prior to speaking with sales. Less than half of outbound marketing-focused brands can say the same. The takeaway? Inbound marketing helps you educate prospective clients on the unique benefits your company can offer, effectively shortening the sales-cycle of outbound marketing tactics.
  1. Inbound marketing provides twice as many leads than almost any other source.
At least 40% of all referrals for B2B, B2C, and nonprofit brands come through inbound marketing channels, such as SEO, social media, or lead generation efforts. Outbound marketing tactics such as cold calling, advertising, and tradeshows only equate for 20% of referrals. Are you ready to grow your business with inbound marketing? To learn more about how inbound marketing can help you generate more leads and convert more customers, download our free resource “Is Inbound Marketing Worth It?” It will help you answer almost everything you need to know about using inbound marketing to effectively grow your business.

4 Ways to Measure Inbound Marketing Beyond Leads

measure inbound marketing
Measuring your results is important in every area of marketing. However, it can be difficult to know how to calculate the ROI of tactics such as inbound marketing when you’re used to managing traditional marketing campaigns.   The good news is that you can measure your effectiveness at any given point throughout the campaign or at its conclusion by tracking various metrics along the way. You also have the ability to monitor, measure, and manage almost every aspect of your campaign, including landing pages, emails, blog posts, social messages, keywords, pay-per-click advertising, and other sources that are contributing traffic to your campaign. Ultimately, the success of an inbound marketing campaign is based on the number of leads that were generated, but it’s good to know what metrics influence that final number. 4 Ways to Measure Inbound Marketing Beyond Leads When evaluating your inbound marketing campaign, here are just a few questions that should be asked to see how your promotion channels did overall in the campaign:
  • Which emails did the best at bringing people into the campaign? 

  • What blog topics led to the greatest number of conversions? 

  • How did PPC compare to Social? 

  • Overall, what channels are most effective in this campaign? 

Inbound campaigns are an impressive feat once you have all channels firing toward the same end goal. The trick is to keep your campaigns focused and powerful. At the conclusion of your campaign, you can measure your efforts and evaluate everything from your offer to your promotional channels. This will give you an opportunity to analyze and optimize your marketing efforts like never before. A Free Guide to Inbound Marketing If you want to learn more about inbound marketing and how it can help you increase your overall effectiveness for generating leads and closing deals, don’t miss our free resource How to Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing. It will walk you through everything you need to know from setting goals to measuring ROI and everything in between.