Has your technology company adopted inbound marketing? If you haven't, why not? Advances in technology have dramatically reduced the effectiveness of traditional outbound lead generation techniques that interrupt buyers lives in the hope that they will find the occasional prospect in the midst of buying what they offer. Buyers fast forward through television commercials, screen unwanted telemarketing outreaches and delete the resulting voicemail without listening to it. They delete long-winded email solicitations that they haven't asked for. Simply put, today's buyers want to interact with solution providers when they need to and on their own terms.

Technology is also behind the effectiveness of inbound marketing. Control of the buying process has shifted from the seller to the buyer. Buyers perform search engine queries to learn about solutions to the problems they face and to find potential solution providers. They research companies on social media to learn how satisfied their customers are with their solutions and customer service. Inbound marketing simply sells the way buyers want to buy.

Inbound marketing is a series of processes designed to:

1. Attract potential buyers to your website to get educated on the business problems they face
2. Convert website visitors to leads that you can nurture though email marketing
3. Convert leads into customers by transitioning online relationships into person-to-person relationships with sales professionals that help them solve their problems
4. Support the product/service delivery process so that customers become evangelists who become referral engines for your company

Here is a graphical depiction of the process courtesy of inbound marketing software provider HubSpot:

Here are 5 reasons your technology company should be using inbound marketing:

1. Your competitors are using inbound marketing

According to HubSpot's 2013 State of Inbound Marketing report, 60% of companies will execute inbound marketing strategies in 2013. If you're in the 40% that isn't using inbound marketing, you're probably losing leads to your competitors. It takes time for inbound marketing to gain traction. It takes time for Google to index your website and the content you're creating. It takes time to develop social media reach. While you're ramping up your inbound marketing program, your competitors have hit full stride and are gaining momentum. If you don't start now, you'll just fall farther behind the competition.

2. You need leads, right?

The HubSpot report mentioned above found that inbound marketing delivers 54% more leads into the marketing funnel than traditional outbound lead generation tactics. Inbound marketing not only produces more leads, it also produces cheaper leads. HubSpot found that inbound leads are 13% cheaper than traditional outbound leads. If you're depending on your sales team to generate enough leads to hit your growth goals with cold calling, good luck. With inbound marketing, your sales team is closing leads by helping buyers solve problems, not getting frustrated by an inefficient cold calling approach.

3. It's the way your customers buy

The Corporate Executive Board found that buyers complete 57% of their sales process before ever contacting a sales person. They perform pre-purchase research by looking up information about the problems they face and potential solutions on the internet. If they're not finding you when they do research, it's highly unlikely that you'll ever sell to them. On the other hand, if you're publishing blog articles, videos and eBooks regularly that answer the questions they have, you have a great chance of getting the opportunity to participate in their buying process.

4. Your inbound marketing content gives your sales team ammunition to generate social media leads

One of the best ways for sales professionals to generate leads from social media is to help people who have questions. For example, LinkedIn Groups are a great opportunity to generate B2B leads. When a potential buyers asks a question in a LinkedIn group, responding with a link to a well-written, helpful blog post creates opportunities to interact with the potential buyer. Your inbound marketing content will help your sales people create reputations as trusted advisors in your industry. Beware! Don't try to sell on social media, try to help people. 

5. You can measure every element of your inbound marketing and optimize your tactics

Inbound marketing analytics let you gauge the effectiveness of everything you do. You can measure:

• Which blog articles produce the most pageviews and leads
• Which social media networks produce the most pageviews and leads
• Which calls-to-action and landing pages are the most effective
• Which emails produce the most opens and clickthroughs
• How your leads are interacting with your marketing process

This marketing intelligence lets you optimize your marketing by replicating what's effective and helping sales people craft their outreach by knowing what content your leads are consuming and which website pages they're viewiing.

Summary

In today's business environment, inbound marketing is no longer optional. Unless you're happy with your existing customer base and have a 100% retention rate, you need to use inbound marketing to grow your company. Want to learn more about how you can use inbound marketing in your company? Contact us for a free consultation.