When creating an inbound strategy, it's important you do a content audit to help you identify what...
Inbound marketing is quickly becoming the hottest strategy on the market. And for good reason too. However, it can be difficult to sell inbound to your superiors, particularly within enterprise companies, despite its amazing success potential.
With an enterprise company, there are more people who need convincing to invest in inbound marketing. Here are three key ways in which you can do so.
We’ll cover:
1. Show Your Bosses the Key Statistics
If there’s one thing anybody can’t argue with, it’s statistics. Cold hard facts that not even the biggest blagger can talk their way out of. By presenting your bosses with these statistics, you’re justifying why implementing the inbound methodology is a good idea to move forward with.
Inbound Saves Costs
If there’s one thing any business loves, but in particularly enterprise businesses love, it’s saving costs. Cutting down unnecessary costs can prove to save enterprise business potentially millions.
Studies show that inbound leads cost 61 percent less than outbound leads. While inbound efforts like blogging, social and SEO require a higher time commitment, it’s proven that they’ll generate leads at a cheaper cost.
Inbound Has Been Adopted by Most Marketers
Not only will inbound marketing save you money, but if you want to get ahead of the rest and stay ahead, then you must implement it into your strategies.
Nearly 60 percent of marketers have already adopted inbound strategies, therefore if you’re only using traditional methods and your marketing efforts are pretty one-dimensional, you’re going to get left behind before long.
Inbound Generates More Leads
Creating quality blogs and content is just one element of a successful inbound marketing campaign. Your content is what draws your potential customers.
In fact, companies that blog generate 126 percent more leads than those that don’t. Even more so, 43 percent of marketers report that they have generated customers from their blog which further justifies that blogging is a great way to reach out to your customers.
Inbound Helps Businesses See Increases in Revenue
Lead automation is a huge part of inbound marketing and it’s a proven way of growing your business, taking it from strength to strength.
In fact, companies that automate lead management see a 10 percent or greater increase in revenue in 6-9 months. There are plenty of marketing automation software platforms out there, but you need to be sure you choose the right one for your business.
2. Provide Examples of Businesses Who Have Benefitted From Inbound
It’s all well and good providing the statistics, but without any real-life examples, you’re not going to convince anybody, nevermind your superiors. As we mentioned earlier, it’s not just the smaller companies who utilise inbound methodology and implement the savvy strategies, but global companies also make the most of it too.
Obviously, the more successful the results, the more impressive the examples are going to be. But also, just by seeing that global brands like Nike and Starbucks have greatly benefitted from inbound will have some weight behind it. It can help show that inbound marketing is worth investment from global businesses.
Other global companies that use inbound marketing are:
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Under Armour
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Salesforce
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Cisco
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Dell
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GE
3. Show Your Bosses the Positives of Inbound
Just like when you were little trying to persuade your mum to let you play out for a while longer, you need the right argument to get your business to adjust its strategy. One way in particular that is super effective in persuading enterprise companies is to show them the key benefits of inbound marketing.
Businesses aren’t going to willingly invest their time and money into something if they’re not entirely sure of what they’ll be gaining from it.
But what are the key benefits of inbound marketing within enterprise businesses? Well…
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It saves money and improves the overall efficiency of your business.
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It helps build a strong, recognisable brand.
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Retain customers more effectively and turns them into loyal brand advocates.
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Communication is two-way.
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Your marketers provide real value.
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Content is provided to inform or educate, therefore people actively seek it out as opposed to getting annoyed by people persisting and intruding with spam emails.
Find Out More About Inbound Marketing for Enterprise Businesses
So, you now know how to target your superiors when it comes to trying to convince an enterprise company to invest in inbound marketing. But, you need to make sure that you know your stuff for when you pitch your ideas to them.
We’ve put together a comprehensive all-in-one guide to enterprise inbound marketing that’ll make sure you’re completely in the know and have the answers to any questions that they may throw at you.