Integrate Inbound Marketing with Traditional for Better Results

How can you integrate Inbound Marketing tactics with traditional?

We never tell a client to throw out all their traditional marketing to adopt Inbound Marketing.  In fact, it’s smarter to integrate the traditional tactics that are working for you with an inbound program.  We understand that there is a great deal of brand awareness and credibility that can be gained by advertising or getting articles published in respected trade publications.  We know there are some trade shows that are so engrained in a certain industry’s history that it could create image issues for a company that doesn’t exhibit.  We don’t say throw out the old for the sake of what’s new.  However, DO make an honest assessment about what’s working and keep doing it; but start adopting a new way of marketing that is probably going to make your marketing efforts more successful and will undoubtedly become more and more important as we move into the future.

Provide the content needed at each stage of the buying cycle

In a perfect world, a prospective customer would see your ad in a magazine and be compelled to pick up the phone and call you.  However, we know that in the B2B industrial world, the sales cycle can be up to a year or longer for some major purchases.  We also know that before anyone contacts you for a meeting or a quote, they will have already done a great deal of research, and compared your products with your competitors.  This is why quality content on your website is so important. And this is the easiest and smartest way to integrate your traditional marketing with an inbound program.  Start with a world class website that is search engine optimized and contains every bit of information a potential customer would need to make a decision about whether or not to do business with your company

Drive as much traffic as possible to your website

A world class website is the most important marketing asset an industrial company can own today. So – assuming that’s true – the integration of traditional with Inbound Marketing is about driving every interested prospect that sees your ad, who reads your article, who gets a mailer from you, who picks up your business card at a trade show – driving every single one of those people to your world class website. Because THAT is going to be the receptacle of knowledge about all that you do.  THAT is what will contain the information that a buyer needs regardless of what stage he’s at in the buying cycle; THAT is the only way you can measure the response to your offline marketing; and THAT is where you’ll turn prospects into qualified leads.

Promote your online presence

Add your website, your blog, and  SM pages if you have any to your business cards, email signature, brochures – anything that is printed should include the places where people can connect with your company online. If the only SM page you have now is a LinkedIn Company page – that’s OK – include it.  This not only makes your company seem more accessible, it creates a perception that you are a company that is up with the latest technology, which can be extremely important if you want to position your company as a technological leader in your field.

Make traditional marketing tactics measurable

Create dedicated landing pages on your website for all your traditional marketing tactics.  For instance, in a print ad use a dedicated URL that only appears in that ad.  If you do a lot of outbound marketing, this will keep your web developer busy;  but this accomplishes one of our most important goals as marketers: it makes everything measurable.

Do you iknow what a QR code is? QR = quick response.  They’re those small boxes you see on ads and other printed marketing materials with all the black dots and squares in them – which happen to be a code that when read by a QR reader on a smartphone takes the user to a web page.  It’s one more way to bring prospects to your website.

Set up an online call tracking system with a dedicated phone number for every marketing channel.  Again, a way to measure results; but beyond that, you’ll have the ability to listen to the recorded calls, which is helpful in gauging the percentage that are prospects and that are not.

Just remember these three important rules and your marketing will deliver results:

1. Make your website content rich with content for every stage of the buying cycle.

2. Pull every lead to your website.

3. Make everything measurable.

If you want to learn more about Inbound Marketing and ways that it can increase sales opportunities, register now for the free, ½ day seminar, IMRevo – The Industrial Marketing Revolution: 1/31/13 at the new EagleBurgmann training facility, in Houston. Don’t miss out on this free opportunity to improve your understanding of Inbound Marketing and how it can revolutionize your marketing results! Click here to register.