Leigh Simpson
I'm a dyed in the wool marketer with a love of numbers, tech, and sales!! After recently exiting my start-up, I have been immersing myself in the latest marketing phenomena – Inbound Marketing, and for the first time, I feel like I belong.
To a community that loves data, creativity and results. Here are my initial thoughts on Inbound and why and how the UK B2B SME community needs to get on board.
So, What Is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound Marketing is a change in the way that you engage with customers. Rather than interrupting them when you want to, with cold calls, advertising, exhibitions and the like, set out to attract or pull customers towards you by providing them with information and advice to help them solve their problems.
That is why your sales team keeps telling you that it is getting harder to book appointments, and cold calling conversion rates are falling. The old way of selling is becoming less and less effective.
There is a seismic shift in the way people buy.
You must adapt to your customers and prospects becoming more educated and having better technologies and information at their disposal to buy with less seller interaction. The seismic shift we can see is that power has moved from the manufacturer and the distributor and now rests firmly with the customer. The adage, "The Customer is King", has never been more accurate.
Online research puts the customer in control.
Finding creative ways of getting people to buy what you make; is now vital that you deliver what the customer wants, given when and how they want it – 24/7.
The buyer's journey has revolutionised in the last few years, and we need to change the way we engage with the customer to complement this.
Marketing in the Driver's Seat
I love the fact that Inbound Marketing is starting to gain traction in the UK. Not only does it elevate the marketing role to a new level within the organisation, but it also provides an opportunity to start to re-align organisations properly around the customer.
For the first time, everyone can appreciate how people use the internet to diagnose and research problems, building trust in brands and eventually purchasing from them. That is why Inbound resonates so widely and universally, and people get it!
There has never been a better opportunity to make sweeping cultural changes to your business around the customer's needs.
Wide-Reaching Change
Inbound impacts the whole business, and aligning the entire organisation around the customer's needs is key to successful implementation. This customer-centric philosophy takes time and money and will probably involve an awful amount of blood, sweat, and tears, especially if you don't get your people on board.
Think of some of the areas that will need to be looked at; Sales, Marketing, Product Development, Technical Support, Customer Service, HR, IT and Operations will all come under the microscope and need to adapt.
Developing New Skills
Inbound will also demand new skills from all your customer-facing teams. They will need to be curious and listen – really listen. Metaphorically, they will need to walk a mile in their customer's shoes, understand their pain, and dive deep with them to appreciate how they can help solve their challenges truly.
Walk a mile in your customers' shoes to fully understand their pain.
You will also need to become real experts in your sector. To build trust and respect, you need to care about the challenges your buyer will face in making sound decisions and support them with the correct technical product and sector knowledge.
I guess you will need to consult, like a Doctor. Listen to the symptoms, establish the likely cause and prescribe the solution. This way, you will become the "go-to" people for advice and solutions, resulting in long-term trusted relationships.
So What Next
Well, I'm setting out to give back and help those in the West Midlands looking to grow their business and drive lead generation in a far more cost-effective and sustainable manner.
By utilising Inbound Marketing techniques in a holistic manner that includes content marketing, social media, search engine optimisation, CRM, and website design to engage with your potential customers fully, we can increase high-quality qualified leads for your sales team. In my own business, we grew the sales pipeline from £7m to £15m in 1 year using Inbound techniques.
If you are interested in finding out more, don't hesitate to contact us to arrange a free, no-obligation marketing consultation to explore how your business could grow more quickly.
About Insynth
At Insynth, we deliver a predictable flow of leads, customers, and specifications for building product brands through our inbound marketing approach, proven to reach a technically demanding audience.
We use the latest marketing techniques, such as construction inbound marketing, to equip building product companies to grow sustainability in this era of digital transformation.
As the only HubSpot certified agency to major in construction marketing. We have a proven formula of bringing a variety of functionalities together including CRM Implementation, Web Design, Sales Automation, SEO, and Email Marketing to achieve your ultimate aim: Growing your business and gaining new specifiers and customers.