Generating leads automatically and effortlessly is the holy grail of inbound marketing. In an ideal world, qualified prospects, i.e. Internet users in the research phase before purchasing, discover your content, then advance on their own through your sales funnel to become a customer after a few emails sent by an autoresponder. …
Lead generation via inbound marketing takes a long time to set up
Obviously, it works when the content marketing strategy is well conducted. But, the implementation is long, tedious and costs a lot of time, therefore money. Creating educational content that attracts qualified prospects by responding to their issues and problems takes time. It is indisputable, it must be done. If only because it will also serve to retain your existing customers.
But a company can’t wait until it’s written about 20 articles and a white paper, and all that content is indexed by search engines before it can generate revenue. Referencing your content in search engines will take time and the result is not guaranteed. It is impossible to predict how many leads per month an inbound marketing strategy will generate. Whereas with an emailing on a well-targeted prospecting file, we can find out, as long as we have repeated this type of operation a few weeks in a row.
You can’t depend 100% on a system that you don’t fully master.
Your lead machine is ready, you have spent time producing quality articles, possibly invested in SEO to position your content in search engines. You even start to receive interesting contacts. But your system completely depends on the goodwill of Google, which holds more than 90% of the market share.
All it takes is an algorithm change with them or a few better SEO competitors to change the game and ruin your entire business operation. This situation is untenable for a company. A manager must limit the risks, by avoiding being entirely dependent on a search engine over which he does not control the operation or the decisions.
Attracting qualified prospects to its content through search engines and transforming them into leads is good, but it is not enough to build a solid business strategy. It’s more to be seen as a bonus.
Your sales representatives must be fed regularly
Your sales reps work full time and need contacts to stay productive. There are two kinds of contacts: incoming contacts, and contacts that we are going to look for. It is possible to adjust the volume of its outbound marketing actions to generate a sufficient number of leads to feed your team.
In inbound marketing, by definition, it is the Internet user who takes the step of finding you. Even with an effective content strategy, it is inevitable to have low periods. These periods are painful for salespeople. In addition to the demotivation they generate, long periods of inactivity are harmful for a sales team. It can be very difficult for them to get back to work.
Outbound marketing as a complement to inbound marketing
Generating your own leads through inbound marketing is not an alternative to outbound marketing. It is a complement that comes to enrich it.
Renting a B2B prospecting file to send a sales email works for certain activities for which the product or service is simple and of everyday consumption. In this case, price is often the main selling point and direct marketing remains a safe bet, even if conversion rates have eroded in recent years.
For more complex activities, with a longer purchase journey, this is not the best option. But, in this case, sending an email to the right target, with high value-added content (for example, a white paper) pays off. Interested professionals will constitute new contacts for your sales representatives or for your nurturing operations. And, you won’t depend on Google to power your lead generation machine.
With a few precautions when selecting the supplier, buying a database for B2B emailing can generate a steady stream of leads to feed your CRM.
To conclude, it is necessary to multiply the prospecting channels. Content, referencing, emailing, advertising, fairs, professional networks. The content produced for inbound marketing will allow you to position yourself as an expert and will bring added value to your lead acquisition email marketing operations. Sending relevant and useful content to the right target is profitable.
About the Author
Loïc Bresler: Associate Director of Ediware, an email marketing platform optimized for B-to-B prospecting and agencies.