By Pete Winter

6 Critical Steps to Build Revenue From Inbound Marketing – Part 4

Inbound Marketing – what’s in it for you

Generating an inbound lead costs a massive 62% less than generating an outbound lead according to the 2011 HubSpot survey: The State of Inbound Marketing. Furthermore the survey shows that blogging is taking effect with 57% of the 644 professionals surveyed reporting they acquired customers directly from leads generated by their blog. Given the tougher economic times when you generally expect a reduction in budgets 89% of those surveyed were maintaining or increasing their inbound marketing budgets for 2011. This is a clear signal that not only does Inbound Marketing work, it is more cost effective than Outbound Marketing. Generating new business, with higher conversion rates to a lower cost not only waters marketers mouths it makes absolute business sense.

The benefits that accrue through effective Inbound Marketing strategy do not stop there as you improve brand awareness and reach, populating your site with interested consumers or potential customers. If you keep them then you can expect to reap these not inconsiderable benefits in a very short time:

Improved reach
Heightened awareness
More visitors to your website
Higher-quality leads
Wider sales pipeline
Increased revenue
Lower costs

Reaching and capturing all these benefits requires the implementation of a thought through Inbound Marketing strategy and quality process that is supported internally and externally. The 5 steps that follow are designed to outline how you should go about this and familiarise you with the lucrative journey ahead.

STEP 4 – TAP INTO YOUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

The richest source of content for your Inbound Marketing lies in the intellectual property within your business and people. These are the nuggets that help to differentiate, and position you against competition whilst adding stature to your brand. It is the people in your business that are the guardians or creators of your intellectual property and gaining access to them and their knowledge will be key to your inbound success. They possess the information, stories and expertise that will engage and hold the interest of customers and digitally spread your reputation.

Extracting the content and encouraging contribution from your people means you need to establish a quality assured process that is both cost and time effective. At the end of the day you want a smooth and continuous input into your Inbound Marketing along with effective tracking, monitoring and analysis to qualify, and verify the results. Reinventing the wheel will not do so you need to use a repeatable, scalable, continuous improvement process with defined steps and targets.

Review and feedback is also very important in letting your people know what works best and in keeping their motivation levels and commitment high. Success breeds success so letting your people share in your Inbound Marketing success will also fuel your future success.

Stay tuned for Part 5…