Do you view your website as a vital piece of your marketing strategy? Have you made investing in your online presence a priority? If yes, great! If not, just keep reading.
No matter how you choose to market your business, there will always be some cost involved. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to determine which marketing methods will provide the best return on your investment. The problem with most traditional forms of marketing; radio, television, newspaper, etc. is that once the ad has run its course, the chances for continued revenue generation are greatly diminished since your ad is basically erased. There is however one advertising platform where the effort you put in has a long lasting effect, the internet.
Google is by far the most commonly used search engine in the United States with about 2/3 of all searches. Every day there are nearly 6 billion... Yes, BILLION searches on Google. Whether you are internet savvy or not, the numbers should be eye opening. Google searches have become part of our daily lives and it's very likely your website is the very first thing a new potential customer will see.
There are many aspects to inbound marketing but at the center of it all is your website. The entire inbound philosophy is based on attracting potential customers to your business and converting these visitors into customers. It's a shift from searching for leads to creating a situation where those leads actually come to you. While it sounds like a business owners pipe dream, it's actual a reality. This is how smart companies are marketing their businesses today and it works.
So let's get to the point here which is cost justification of inbound marketing services. Think about where your business is currently spending money in order to generate new business. Perhaps you are buying television or radio ads? Maybe you are doing direct mail or simply hiring people to bang out cold calls or canvas all day. Or maybe you are really into throwing money away and you have a big ad in the Yellow Pages, (I so hope you aren't wasting money on Yellow Pages). All of these obviuosly have costs and each one has varying levels of success in generating sales. But there is one thing that none of those offer that inbound marketing does, long lasting return on investment. Radio and television ads are run for a period of time and then simply disappear. Direct mail may get a passive glance but even if used, its life span is very short. Even a sales person or telemarketer carries a recurring cost and once they are gone, their value disappears with them.
With inbound marketing, a large part of the investment is in your website and your content. Two things that can provide value for practically an indefinite period of time. Your website is one of the only pieces of your marketing that doesn't expire. The ongoing costs associated with inbound marketing are in updating and maintaining an outstanding online presence that your customers are drawn to. Through the use of SEO best practices, outstanding content creation, active social media management, calls to action, landing pages and lead nurturing you can turn your website into the most powerful sales tool you've ever had.
If you aren't looking at an inbound marketing strategy, it's time you do. The internet is the future of your marketing whether you realize it yet or not and the time to get a jump on your competition is now. If you want to know more check out our inbound marketing page or our inbound marketing infographic.