ROI is a difficult measurement, but the one that most businesses view the most important - understandably. This week our series measures how inbound marketing impacts on your business' ROI.
What we really need to do first, is clear up what is right and what is wrong, in the words of Thrive and in conjunction with inbound marketing methodology.
Even if you don't want to integrate inbound marketing into your 2015 strategies, you MUST take on board which marketing methods actually have an impact and how they can impact...
What this blog aims to do is sort out the fact from the fiction and help you understand the true benefits of "going inbound".
ROI (Return on Investment)
"Marketing automation is impossible to master."
Once upon a time, marketing automation used to be impossible - the systems were so complicated and were quite frankly, pretty impossible.
Now, we have much more modern software available, which can create lead nurturing campaigns based around your buyer personas and goals (talk to Thrive, if this interests you - hello@thriveability.co.uk).
"It's impossible to know when a lead is ready to become a customer."
If you have a website which gives insights into what your leads are doing on your site (again talk to us fi you're interested in finding out more) then you can know just when they're considering being a customer.
We can tell you when they first landed on your site, read about your products, looked at your pricing and whether they've wandered since.
"Proving the ROI of inbound marketing is an impossible task."
There are ways of proving the ROI of inbound marketing, although it's spending the time to go through metrics and analytics.
We have seen proof that inbound works ourselves and furthermore, research has proved:
- 41% of marketers have said they could prove inbound ROI
- 34%, however, didn't try or couldn't calculate it
Thrive know that finding that what you invest money, time and resource into matters and knowing that is actually working is vital to continuing that investment. We take care to ensure that our clients know what they're getting on their investment, no matter what the project (inbound or otherwise).
"Events are traditional marketing and they won't help my business."
This is wrong for many reasons.
You must create modern, rounded events, advertised with modern methods and supported by modern content.
Events present a great opportunity for you to bring all of your customers together so they can talk about
your product, exchange knowledge, get to know your company’s employees better and have a great time!
What next?
Each of these elements fall under full inbound campaigns, but they can also be used separately as individual segments of a traditional marketing plan.