Marketing has changed drastically in the last few years: ad blockers, zapping and streaming, spam filters - potential customers are increasingly more guarded about which content reaches them, and more savvy about keeping advertising at bay.
How can you reach a potential customer who doesn’t want to be sold to?
You don’t. You make them come to you.
The future of lead generation lies in content creation and inbound marketing: offering content so attractive and relevant that your prospects can’t help but come back for more.
These are some of the many reasons why inbound marketing lead generation is the way to go.
A cold call is a cold call is a cold call. But content marketing endures: every article, blog and piece of content you publish will remain published, building trust and establishing you as an authority on your topic. It can be searched, and a prospect with an interest in what you’re selling can find you weeks or months later because your content answered a question they had at the moment.
"Stop interrupting what people are interested in... Become what people are interested in." - Nick Davidge
Also, the content itself increases in value, since as it accumulates it becomes a knowledge database or resource where prospects can find information on several topics they care about. Various articles complement and refer to one another, creating a valuable interconnected network of knowledge that will attract prospects.
By consistently publishing intelligent, valuable content, you will slowly establish yourself as an authority in your field, and prospects will find it much easier to trust you and your recommendations when they truly believe you are an expert.
"Trust, but verify." - Ronald Reagan
In fact, leads who discover you through content marketing may even approach you with their own questions and inquiries - a dream situation for a marketer!
When you reach out blindly you are playing a numbers game, hoping that some of the people who see your message will be interested in it. Inbound marketing generates warm leads from the start: a prospect who reads your content does so because they are interested in it.
Lead generation through inbound marketing is more effective by design, since customers must already have some sort of interest in order to reach out to you or your content.
How many people do you need to run a cold call campaign? How much equipment and space? Think of the sales agents, office space, internet, phones… and then think of the actual effectiveness of these surges of unwanted calls on the unsuspecting public.
"If you have more money than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing. If you have more brains than money, you should focus on inbound marketing." - Guy Kawasaki
Inbound marketing lead generation is highly efficient in terms of the manpower and initial investment you need, as well as in terms of results. A well-planned inbound marketing strategy will yield far better results than the standard outbound, in less time and with a much lower investment.
Are you ready to find out more about how inbound marketing can help you reach new customers? Let us give you a call to tell you all about it.