Has You Marketing Effectiveness Peaked?

June 9, 2019June 9, 2019 Robert Craven brand, Business, inbound marketing, Marketing, message, outboung marketing

This is not for everyone. I apologise. This won’t suit every business model but is still worthy of some reflection.

The old way of selling (interrupting, pitching and closing) delivers ever-decreasing returns.

OUTbound marketing, the top of the funnel, is filled with lists of people who are alive according to some random specification. In the hope of a hit rate in the range of ½ to 1%, you blast them with whatever you think might work. If in doubt, you add more volume. But it doesn’t work so well these days.

There is clearly a new way of doing things, in effect turning this equation on its head.

INbound marketing works on only attracting and responding to people who experience the problem, hurt, itch, scratch or want that your company solves. You only talk to people who have chosen to download your ebook, replied to your blog, found you on a Google search and so on. You wait for them to come to you. You set up the highly focused ‘bait’; only then do you engage in a way that helps them.

If our proposition here at the Directors’ Centre is “Trusted Advisor with Attitude” then we can choose to:

Either use the “spray and pray” method to spread our message, which is pretty random and lost among the noise (standard outbound technique)

Or Clarify and focus the message and engage with laser vision to a small but interested party (inbound approach).

And the stats speak for themselves.

Agency ABC Case Study, 2014

Mass Message Campaign to 20,000 MDs and CIOs: 157 opens, 10 calls, 2 proposals,
Result: 1 client @ £25,000 Agency ABC Case Study, 2015 Laser Message Campaign to 50 niche, personally-known MDs: 17 opens, 6 calls, 3 proposals
Result: 3 clients @ 30,000 each (Clearly this example is full of sweeping generalisations)

Thought for the Day Deep and narrow or wide and shallow (or a bit of each)? I ask you to think about how you buy and how you personally respond to blatantly list-driven, unsolicited, email campaigns starting “Hi There!” as opposed to the more personal touch. How should you be trying to sell your wares?