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The Inbound Growth Blog covers all topics relating to an integrated marketing strategy. We write about inbound marketing, social media, integrated marketing strategies and the sales process.

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Posted by John Beveridge on Aug 13, 2012 3:35:00 PM

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration - Thomas Alva Edison

inbound-marketing-persistenceThis blog post is not a how-to or an examination of the latest trends in marketing.  Rather, it is an exploration of something that we all know is true - persistence begets success.  Edison's quote can be translated to success in business by saying ninety-nine percent of the battle is showing up.  Well, maybe not just showing up; but showing up and doing the little things every day that add up to success in the long run.  Like growing tomatoes, business success is a result of planting ideas, nurturing them slowly over time and voila - one day you go out to the garden and see a fat red tomato.  It didn’t just appear overnight, it developed as a result of months of daily care and feeding.

Take the case of inbound marketing – the process of selling by means of a coordinated series of processes that draws visitors to your website, converts them to leads by means of useful content and nurtures them to customers by feeding them the content nutrients they need until they are ready to buy.  It’s a proven fact that business that blog get more website visitors.  Marketing automation software provider HubSpot has found that business that blog get 55% more website visitors than those that don’t.  I know that anyone who has ran a business blog will agree with me – coming up with 2 blog posts every week that are interesting to your audience is difficult!  Particularly when you consider the case of a small business executive where there’s really not much of anything that you don’t do.  It takes dedication – you just need to put your head down and get it done week after week.  There is light at the end of the tunnel – a joint MIT/Babson study of Hubspot users found that after twelve months of blogging and social media promotion, inbound marketers using HubSpot software had an average 13% monthly increase in web traffic and a 30% monthly increase in leads.  That’s not for the twelve-month period, that’s for every month during the twelve-month period.  Like growing a tomato, those results are the consequence of constant nurturing over the twelve-month period.

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Another example of the importance of persistence in revenue generation is illustrated in a 2008 Harvard Business School study.  The study found that in order to close the average sale, the salesperson needs to make 12 contacts with the buyer of which 7 are quality contacts like a face-to-face meeting, phone discussion or active e-mail exchange.  The study also found that the average salesperson gave up after 3 contacts.  In today's challenging economy, corporate buyers are even more reluctant to pull the trigger on a purchase decision.  Top executives look for a broad base of support amongst their teams before committing to a major purchase.  This makes persistence even more important.  This is not to say that you should continually chase after prospects that aren't a good fit for your company.  However, if the prospect closely matches your ideal customer profile, you should work hard to identify the pain points, decision-making process and people involved in the purchasing decision.  Don't give up on a good prospect until you're sure that they will not buy from you.

One good technique to keep you focused as you go through the ups and downs of the sales process is visualization.  Borrowed from sports psychology, visualization is the practice of "seeing" a positive outcome as a result of your hard work.  For the athlete, the visualization could be being awarded the gold medal at the Olympics.  For the salesperson, it could be getting the big deal you're pursuing and enjoying the rewards it will bring - whether that be a new house, a vacation in Hawaii or that Ferrari Enzo you've had you're eye on.

So my friends, keep fighting the good fight, keep your head down and visualize success!! 

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Topics: Business Management

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