The Pain of Marketing Explained (and how Inbound can relieve it)

Despite the obvious glamour associated with promoting a new brand of mildew-resistant paint (available in any colour, so long as it’s battleship grey), the world of marketing isn’t one endless champagne reception. There’s a lot of hard graft involved, along with the occasional, well aimed kick to the Google analytics.

Read on, for five issues guaranteed to ruin the day of anybody marketing a business:

Communication

Or lack thereof. Good communication between an organisation and a marketing team, whether in-house or outsourced, is essential.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case and if both sides aren’t singing from the same hymn sheet, it’ll undoubtedly result in a marketing campaign devoid of focus.

With inbound marketing, a clear vision is established from the start and applied to a content strategy, ensuring all relevant parties are tuned to the business’ message, allowing it to be communicated to maximum effect.

Technologies

Technology is moving at a furious pace and just keeping up with the latest developments is a day job in itself. Choosing the right one that best suits your business and its requirements is a veritable minefield for the uninitiated. There are that many platforms out there, purporting to achieve all manner of objectives, that it takes a certain level of knowledge and experience – as well as a cool nerve – to be able to apply, effectively manage and keep updated a technology that benefits the business it is intended for.

Through social media and various other outlets, inbound marketing harnesses the power of a number of cutting edge technologies, which, when ably implemented, provide an optimum level of targeted exposure.

Budgetary constraints

While marketing budgets disappear the expectation doesn’t. Greater pressures are placed upon marketers to achieve results and thus ride out the storm, while the purse strings remain firmly tied shut. With investment being a more comfortable bedfellow of growth, the old adage “speculate to accumulate” is a particularly pertinent one for our times.

Inbound Marketing offers an cost effective solution at a time when the tighter belt remains in vogue. With an average ROI of 200% it’s this season’s must-have antidote to endless budget cuts.

Measurability

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

John Wanamaker’s famous quote highlights the problem many businesses face, particularly during times of financial uncertainty, when every penny spent is expected to offer a visible return.

With a digital based inbound marketing campaign, modern technology allows for measurable results through the use of advanced analytical software. Both real-time and analysed data are used to show how and where leads are generated, along with the associated costs.

Continual improvement

A marketer’s work is never done. So far as savvy techniques go, resting on one’s laurels is up there with hiring Gerald Ratner to do the PR. That is why perseverance and the drive to continually increase your advantage, through the effective management of the issues above, are vital qualities for any campaign.

Inbound marketing plays the long game, providing a strategy that keeps the ball in play at each stage of the buying cycle. It is a surefire way to ensure that success is not only achieved, but also maintained.

An alternative to all this pain

If it’s not clear yet, there is of course, an alternative to these (and other) annoyances. To the hard work and sheer amount of time that marketing a business consumes. It’s simple really:

GET SOMEBODY ELSE TO DO IT FOR YOU!

Tomorrow People has just the team for the job. We are an inbound marketing agency, providing an cost effective and measureable solution that’s guaranteed to maximise your qualified leads and increase sales.

The Author
	Alistair Norman | Marketing Director Alistair is responsible for the strategy, design and implementation of our Inbound and Content Marketing, with a focus on developing B2B and B2C markets.