Inbound Marketing Blog

Non-profit marketing strategies don't always hit the headlines. 

We've all been there - you slave away writing compelling, insightful, witty blog posts that are sure to delight, engage and entertain. You publish them on your website, optimise them with keywords and internal links and distribute them all over your social media. Then you wait for all the views. Where are they?

One of the most commonly asked questions by buyers is "can we just do Inbound Marketing without Hubspot?" What’s happened, more often than not, is they've researched around and found a multitude of tools that do almost all the tasks Hubspot do, but individually. And the bonus? Most of them are free. But, the old phrase "you get what you pay for" rings true here.

They used to say the customer is always right, now the customer is not only right they are also in control. All B2B marketers need to understand this fact otherwise they will not be able to engage with their customers with the right message, at the right time, in the right format.

Effective B2B marketing is based on a dialogue between buyers and sellers where exchanges of trust and permission occur sequentially, get it wrong by betraying the trust and it all comes tumbling down

Technology has levelled the playing the field between the small to medium sized companies (SME) and the top dogs. You no longer need expensive outbound advertising campaigns to win over clients. In fact 75% of buyers want you to curb the sales pitch and 78% of buyers are hungry for more information about their business problems.

Enter Inbound Marketing.

For me, one of the defining experiences over the last couple of years has been working directly with Private Equity firms and their portfolio companies. In fact, you’ll see Private Equity investment increasingly in mid-market companies.

So why the defining experience I mentioned?

And the award for the most infuriating ad distribution channel goes to: The pop up ad.

The Internet has created a whole flurry of new opportunities for traditional outbound marketing to interrupt and annoy us. But, the internet didn't rest on its laurels and allow companies to overwhelm and over share. It took back control and added a new dimension to modern marketing.

It empowered buyers. 

Instead of a sales message we want useful, engaging content.

The Internet facilitated a new form of marketing: Inbound.  

It was a real privilege to be at Inbound15 in Boston – Hubspot’s sponsored mega bash celebrating all things inbound marketing related. One of the great opportunities was to hear about some incredible case studies from businesses around the world – showing some amazing transformational results.

The education and consideration stage, known in the Inbound Marketing world as the Middle of the Funnel (MoFU) is where the lead is looking to find solutions to their business problems. Often marketers neglect the importance of this stage and skip straight to trying to convert people into customers.

I am passionate about Inbound Marketing and once you see how it works and the results this isn’t difficult to understand. The combination of compelling content, optimised for search so it can be found and amplified across social media is perfect for today's empowered buyer.

I don't think the British are overly enthusiastic. The only thing that we get really passionate about is when a big sports game is on and we're playing. And the Great British Bake Off. Which is why it was surprising when Inbound first burst on the scenes that everyone jumped on the high speed content rail line and started churning out blogs faster than our exit out of the world cup. 

Social Media has taken the world by storm and can no longer be ignored by businesses with a phobia of all things social. The opportunities for attracting and engaging with potential customers on a worldwide scale are undeniable, therefore businesses need to learn which platforms are the most appropriate. We've created a useful (jargon free) guide to help you pick the best platforms for your business needs.

Always full of good intentions

Marketers have always wanted to do one thing, the right thing, deliver a targeted and personalised message to the right recipient, at the right time. Such that they were persuaded, without any feelings of resistance, to visit something, buys something, or engage in services that met their needs. Until recently this has been difficult to do cost effectively, however a new world has arrived and for those who put their minds to it it’s time to do the right thing.

There is no doubt about it, Inbound Marketing is set to become the 'go to' marketing approach of the future and savvy marketers are on the look out for tools to help make this process pain free. However, cutting through the clutter of apps and websites that supposedly do this, and finding the ones worth using, can take time. To save you the hassle, we've compiled WoO's Top 5 tools that we think everyone in the Inbound Marketing industry should be using. 

For those of you who don't know, Inbound Marketing is all about creating compelling content that attracts people to your business, optimising it’s visibility and converting leads into to customers. This is different to the intrusive and interruptive traditional Outbound methods, such as email marketing and Ads. We believe Inbound is the future of marketing.

A true story......

A few years ago I was part of a team growing a UK software business at over 40% per annum, most importantly for this story, through sales primarily in the U.S. I learned a lot about the difference in approach to B2B marketing in the U.S. compared to Europe. It was evident that the U.S. was developing a much more efficient model, allowing businesses to grow faster. Since then I have often considered how Europe can catch up with the U.S. and reform its B2B marketing and sales alignment to accelerate the growth.

Many decisions in business are based on the intense analysis of research, projections and expert opinion. They are often calculated on a risk/reward basis and only taken after lengthy debate and consensus agreement. Founding woO marketing, as a specialist inbound marketing agency, couldn't really have been more different. And here’s why…