Inbound Marketing has entrenched itself as the leading source of new business for small companies and large corporations.
In fact, companies with 25 to 200 employees use inbound as their core marketing strategy. On the other hand, companies with 200 employees deploy inbound (49%) and outbound (48%) marketing simultaneously.
And though inbound marketing has paved the way to a brand new strategy for marketers, there’s still a percentage of companies who lag behind. Not because they don’t have the right marketing knowledge to begin with, but because of their difficulty in overcoming these 4 inbound marketing challenges.
In their report, “The State of Inbound Marketing", HubSpot has identified these 4 challenges:
- Demonstrating a positive ROI to secure a higher budget
- Finding an executive sponsor to secure buy-in for marketing training
- Prospecting for new businesses
- Manual data entry
Challenge number 1 – Demonstrating a positive ROI to secure a higher budget
A survey conducted by HubSpot reveals that securing an increased budget has been the most pressing challenge for respondents two years in a row.
This may sound simplistic, but showing a positive ROI guarantees an uptick on annual budget.
In fact, respondents who demonstrated a positive ROI are twice as likely to secure a bigger budget. And to make this possible, market leaders have established a strong case around dedicating their time with tracking ROI. As a result, 58% of respondents who track ROI secured a higher budget than last year.
Furthermore, respondents who experienced a higher ROI are 20% more likely to check their analytics 3 or more times a week.
Additionally, market leaders who are enjoying high ROI’s are those who employ the following strategies:
- They focus more on inbound marketing rather than outbound.
- They let past results dictate their decisions.
- They employ a balanced attack through in-house writers and freelancers for content creation.
Challenge number 2 – Finding an executive sponsor to secure buy-in for marketing activities
22% of respondents agree that securing a buy-in to support their marketing activities is becoming a key challenge. Again, this obstacle strengthens the need for a comprehensive, in-depth tracking of ROI. In doing so, marketers will find it easy to justify their need for increased annual budget; especially if they show an uptick in ROI.
Challenge number 3 – Prospecting for new businesses
42% of respondents said that prospecting for new businesses is the most difficult part of sales process
Why?
Because customers who are perfect fit for their business are scarce. Additionally, buying doesn't appeal to prospects as they have more important things in their mind: tasks, projects, deliverables and priorities. As a result, salespeople scamper around, trying to find the perfect medium to effectively drive their message across.
What's more, salespeople go to the field with little to no lead behavior data as support. In effect, they had to rely on their gut instincts and resourcefulness to get the job done.
The solution?
A strong SLA between the Sales and Marketing team.
This is how it works:
The marketing team’s number one priority is to increase the number of contacts and leads. Additionally, they have to provide complete pre-call information to salespeople. Sources for this information are available in contact information, social media information, and website interaction history.
By providing adequate lead information, salespeople have a higher chance of closing the deal – which directly affects the ROI.
In HubSpot’s recent survey, they asked respondents how much information their company has about a lead before a sales rep reaches out.
The result:
83% of unsuccessful teams either said they didn’t know or it’s not applicable. On the other hand, only 17% of successful teams gave the same answer.
The bottom line: successful companies foster a healthy relationship between their Sales and Marketing team through an effective dissemination of customer data. The sales team goes to the field armed with complete customer information – making it easy to close the deal. Marketers can gather the ideal customer profile from closed deals. Thus, strengthening their future marketing campaigns and demand for higher budget next year.
Challenge number 4 – Manual data entry
Manual data entry came out as the number 1 CRM challenge for salespeople; especially among leaders, managers,and sales reps. The main solution should be an adoption of a CRM solution that features streamlined or automatic data entry capability. Additionally, sales teams may simplify the data input process in their present system.
Final Words
Companies are starting to realize the importance of inbound marketing. This is a far cry from the early years of the Internet where Flash-based banners and intrusive pop ups lorded over your browser.
Today, it’s easier for a startup with 25 crew members to compete against an industry giant with 1,000 employees. Just take a look around and notice how many e-books, podcasts, and webinars have sprung over the last 5 years.
But with this opportunity comes new challenges as well.
Fortunately, you can learn from successful marketers and model their blueprint. We showed you how they’re doing it and cited examples.
We hope that you were able to learn from this article.
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