Inbound Marketing Blog

How Sales and Marketing Must Change Tactics To Succeed Online

 

The impact of the internet and social media has changed the role of marketing and sales, with many strugglying to know how to effectively leverage this new online world to acheive their lead and revenue goals.

This article shares insights learned from Inbound13 on how marketing and sales must change tactics if they want to succeed in this new online world.

At Inbound13 – just last week in Boston, the keynote presentation from Hubspot co-founders @bhalligan and @dharmesh spoke about treating prospects, leads and customers like people – we’re calling this the Inbound Experience.

An inbound experience is a personalised experience that a person has with your company online. An inbound experience starts with your website, and continues with your interactions with people throughout the entire buying process, and beyond.

Let’s look how the online world has changed people's buying behaviour and what this means for marketing and sales.

• People’s buying behaviour has changed - they now do a lot more research online before they speak to a sales person. Tactic: understand their buyer personas and the buyer journey.

• People search online – 5.1 billion searches per day on Google - are they finding your content - or the competition? Tactic: Publish lots of helpful content online, using words they use.

• People use mobile devices – more and more, people are using their smart phones or tablets to search online, and this is only going to increase. Tactic: make sure you have a mobile friendly, responsive website.

• People’s perception of your company isn’t based on your positioning statement or marketing message - it's based on their experience with you online:
• • Can they find what they’re looking for? 
  • Can they easily find it on your website?
  • Is your website responsive, mobile friendly?
  • Tactic: Publish valuable, helpful and educational content - consistently.

• People want answers on their timeline – they want it now. Marketers need to have the technology and intelligence to be able respond in real-time to people’s demands. Tactic: invest the technology. We use and recommend Hubspot.

• A person’s experience with your company is just beginning when they become a customer – value them and they’ll become your best sales person – we call this the inbound service. Tactic: Learn what is important to your customers and start “doing” whatever it is to turn them into happy people that love your company and talk about your company to their friends. 

 

@dharmesh says ...“the most valuable customes are not the people that buy the most, but the ones that sell the most”

Effective online content must:

• Educate people.
• Provide solutions to problems. 
• Help people succeed at their job. 
• Guide people through the right buying process. 
• Answer questions. 

The flip side to this is traditional marketing tactics that are interruptive messages that are annoying which can damage brands and lose leads.

Examples of this are:

• Emails that you didn’t opt-in to receive. 
• Emails that are not relevant to you. 
• Online articles that are salesy. 
• Advertising messages that interrupt what you’re doing – and are annoying. 

Understanding the Inbound Experience

The Inbound Experience can’t start and end with marketing – it must continue along the entire journey someone has with your company; marketing, sales and as a customer. The Inbound Experience means that as a company you have people at the center of everything you do. Inbound marketing, inbound sales, inbound service.

It's great to know what you to do and why you're doing it - but often the challenge is knowing how to do it. Thankfully, Hubspot have just launched their new website system that has people at the core of the technology. It’s known as the Customer Optimisation System (COS.) This new technology gives marketers, sales and customer support team the tools they need to give people an inbound experience with their company.

• Website
• Social 
• Email 
• Sales

Additional Resources

Buyer Persona Inbound Marketing Success Learn Why and How Here

1 Very Important Tip To Help Small Business Succeed with Content Marketing 

How Marketers Can Adapt To Digital Marketing Successfully

 

Watch the entire keynote from Inbound13 here: