Take a look around.
Everyone's talking about what you need to invest to "do" inbound marketing (I discuss the topic in this post: Can You Really Afford an In-House Inbound Marketing Team?).
But what's the cost of failing to act?
In this post I explain the three hidden costs associated with failing to invest in an inbound marketing strategy.
They're probably bigger than you think.
1) Wasted Sales Resources
Inbound marketing is all about creating exceptional content to attract your target market to your website, convert those website visitors into leads, and nurture leads until they're ready to engage with sales.
All that content you create as part of your inbound marketing strategy therefore supplements your sales process. Your leads consume your content throughout the buying process, and educate themselves in their own time before ever engaging with your sales team.
This means that companies that fail to implement inbound marketing strategies are wasting sales resources. If you don't have an inbound marketing strategy in place, your sales team has to do all that education themselves. This considerably increases customer acquisition costs, having a negative impact on your margins.
2) Reduced Brand Value
Without an inbound marketing strategy, your company is going to struggle to get the brand exposure it needs to grow:
- Most of your website visitors will leave your website early in their visit, because they won't be able to find the information they're looking for early in the buying process.
- Without regularly publishing blog and other content, you'll have virtually no visibility in search engine results.
- Without inbound marketing content to share via social media, you'll struggle to ever build much of a social following or social awareness.
- Many website visitors will deem your company out of touch, and old fashioned.
These things all result in a less valuable brand. Great brands do inbound, and they do it well.
3) Increased Competition
Failing to invest in an inbound marketing strategy results in more pressure from your competitors. Why? There's a number of factors at play:
- Your competitors will engage buyers earlier in the buying process with their own inbound marketing. This gives them a huge advantage when it comes to making the sale. Who is a buyer more likely to trust: 1) the company that's provided them with all the educational material they needed to make a purchase decision, or 2) the company they found at the last minute?
- Your competitors' blog content will appear in search results for all the various searches your target audience is making throughout the buying process, reducing any attention they give you.
- Your competitors will be discussed on social media, further increasing awareness.
- Your potential buyers will by influenced by the spin placed on content they have read from your competitors.
Does your company want to experience more competition? Or take control of the buying process itself?
