Learn Why and How Well Inbound Marketing Works
Have you ever wondered why a company would not be their own best reference? We have too, and as experts in Inbound Marketing who are also a Hubspot Certified Inbound Marketing Agency, we thought you might want to see the results we have been getting from our own Inbound Marketing efforts.
Learn how following an Inbound Marketing Strategy can help you increase visitors, leads, and customers at much lower cost than traditional marketing methods.
Brochure-Ware Just Wasn't Hacking It
When we embarked on our own Inbound Marketing journey, our website was still at the brochure-ware stage, with almost zero visits per month. We had not really performed much Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on it, but it did, in fact, contain a lot of valuable information about SAP Business Intelligence, SAP Project Management and SAP Consulting.
Small Business Can Be Profitable
Inbound Marketing Strategies Can Be Key to Success
Like many small businesses, we were a small but profitable start-up but definitely with limited funds, we needed to accomplish 4 things with our new Inbound Marketing approach:
- Penetrate existing SAP accounts without a direct sales force using a proven sales process we were already experts with.
- Get customers who needed our services to come to us.
- For customers to educate us about how best to connect with them.
- Generate leads using the Inbound Marketing lead generation techniques we had learned from Hubspot.
Visits Have Steadily Increased
Many Case Studies
We needed to build a business case for Inbound Marketing and the chart above, which is our business case study, shows the number of visitors to our site as we began to use Inbound Marketing. As expected, it took us about 6 months to ramp up our visit rate, and as you can see, we continue to steadily increase the number of visitors and expect to surpass last months visits this month. We did this with zero Pay-Per-Click (PPC). It is probably a good idea to explain what Inbound Marketing is first before proceeding on.
What is Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is a powerful business marketing strategy that can help businesses increase visitors, leads, and customers at a much lower cost than traditional marketing methods. SAP consulting companies like our own SAP BW Consulting understood the value of inbound marketing for generating leads, building relationships, and closing deals. By using a proven sales process and inbound lead generation techniques, we were able to penetrate existing SAP accounts without a direct sales force, get customers who needed our services to come to us, and generate leads. Social media played and continues to play a crucial role in promoting our educational content, which is specific to the SAP consulting market. With continuous improvement of our inbound marketing efforts, SAP BW consulting continues to reap the benefits of this powerful marketing strategy.
Why Did We Choose Inbound Marketing?
We had the good fortune to know a great deal about our market plus we had access to the Hubspot tools to research the keywords that we could rank for.
From a strict measurement standpoint, we need to produce highly marketing qualified (MQL) leads and we have been delighted with our results.
Leads have Steadily Grown to Over 7500
What have we learned from our customers?
We provide a great deal of education, specific to the SAP Consulting market, which we continuously work to both improve and promote.
Key Role of Content Marketing
Creating valuable and informative content is a crucial aspect of an effective Inbound Marketing Strategy. By producing content that resonates with your target audience, you can attract more visitors to your website and increase your chances of converting them into leads and customers. Additionally, search engines reward websites that provide high-quality content by sending free organic traffic to their dedicated landing pages. Therefore, investing in content creation is a must if you want to improve your search engine rankings and drive more traffic to your website.
Creating a High Converting Landing Page
Business Influencers
Transitioning to an Inbound Strategy
Middle of the Funnel Content
Once you have attracted visitors to your website with valuable content, it's time to move them towards becoming leads with middle of the funnel content. For a SAP Professional Services Consulting firm, this could be a whitepaper titled "Maximizing ROI on SAP Projects: Strategies for Success." Research papers, benchmark reports, webinars, comparison sheets, and educational content is often heavily used in this stage. This content would be targeted towards prospects who have already shown interest in SAP consulting services and are looking for more specific information by converting on the aforementioned Top of the Funnel Content. The whitepaper should provide valuable insights and actionable strategies that prospects can implement in their own SAP projects. By providing valuable content at this stage, the SAP Professional Services Consulting firm can establish themselves as experts in the field and build trust with their prospects, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
Bottom of the Funnel
Creating valuable content and a high converting landing page are essential for a successful inbound marketing strategy for SAP Professional Services Consulting firms. To attract potential leads and visitors, crafting blog posts such as "5 Common SAP Project Management Mistakes and How to Avoid Them" for the Top of the Funnel can be effective. Moving prospects towards becoming leads can be achieved by providing middle of the funnel content such as a whitepaper titled "Maximizing ROI on SAP Projects: Strategies for Success." Using social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and search engines are vital components of an inbound marketing strategy. Content at the bottom of the funnel is typically include Free Consultations, Free Software Trial Sign-Ups, and Customer References.
Benefits of Investing in Content Creation
By investing in high-quality content creation and tailoring it to suit the target audience on each platform, SAP Professional Services Consulting firms can attract more visitors to their website, increase chances of converting them into leads and customers, and ultimately grow their business. Partnering with Inbound Marketing service providers such as SAP BW Consulting, Inc., who are experts with Hubspot, Salesforce and SAP can help expand the firm's reach and offer valuable services to clients.
How do we promote it?
Actually, the real question is how do we make sure we get found is the better question. We are heavy users of social media, including LinkedIN, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.
Search Engines are a Key Part of the Inbound Marketing Strategy
One of the key elements of an effective Inbound Marketing Strategy is generating high quality, high converting content. By creating valuable and informative content that resonates with your target audience, you can attract more visitors to your website and increase your chances of converting them into leads and customers. But the benefits of creating great content go beyond just attracting visitors. Search engines love high quality content too, and they reward websites that provide it by sending free organic traffic to their dedicated landing pages. So if you want to improve your search engine rankings and drive more traffic to your website, investing in content creation is a must.
Social Media Marketing
We have to admit we have been heavy social media users for many years, so this was second nature to us anyway, and in fact, my LinkedIN profile is in the top 3000 most visited profiles on their network, something which requires many years of effort.
The feedback from our customers has been great, with many writing to tell us how much they appreciate what we are offering on our website, which is highly appreciated, and helps us learn what to do more of while doing less of what is less effective.
Many Social Media Platforms
Social media platforms have become an integral part of marketing strategies, providing businesses with a variety of options to engage with their target audience. In addition to LinkedIn, which is optimized for professional networking, there are several other popular social media platforms that cater to different markets. For instance, Facebook is ideal for businesses targeting a broad consumer demographic, while Twitter is optimized for real-time news and updates. Instagram, on the other hand, is perfect for businesses that rely on visual content, such as fashion and beauty brands. Pinterest is an excellent platform for businesses that focus on DIY and creative projects, while YouTube is ideal for businesses specializing in video content. Each platform has its unique strengths and weaknesses, and savvy marketers must tailor their content to suit their target audience on each platform.
Combining Outbound Marketing with Inbound Marketing
To achieve even better lead generation and sales results, combining outbound marketing with inbound marketing is the way to go. For example, a SAP Professional Services Consulting firm can leverage outbound marketing efforts, such as participating in trade shows, while also utilizing inbound marketing tactics, like creating valuable content and a high converting landing page. At the trade show, the firm can showcase their expertise and promote their educational content to attract visitors to their website. By offering a free guide or consultation related to SAP Project Management on their landing page, they can convert those visitors into leads. Additionally, by partnering with industry influencers to promote their content and establish themselves as experts in the field, the firm can increase their reach and build relationships with prospects. By combining these strategies, the SAP Professional Services Consulting firm can generate more leads and grow their business.
Marketing Automation Platform
A marketing automation platform like Hubspot can be a game-changer for businesses looking to implement an effective inbound marketing strategy. With Hubspot, businesses can easily create and distribute valuable content to attract visitors to their website, as well as optimize their landing pages for conversion. Additionally, Hubspot offers tools for networking, relationship building, and sales automation, allowing businesses to manage their contacts, track their interactions, and nurture their leads. By leveraging a marketing automation platform like Hubspot, businesses can streamline their inbound marketing efforts, increase their reach, and ultimately achieve better lead generation and sales results.
Critical Inbound Marketing Tools
To conduct a successful inbound marketing campaign, it's essential to have the right tools at your disposal. These tools can help attract visitors to your website, convert them into leads, and ultimately grow your business. From influencer marketing to marketing automation platforms, there are several critical inbound marketing tools that SAP Professional Services Consulting firms should consider. Here's a list of the essential inbound marketing tools that can help your business achieve better lead generation and sales results:
- Middle of the funnel content, such as whitepapers, research papers, benchmark reports, webinars, comparison sheets, and educational content
- High converting landing pages with clear call-to-actions and forms
- Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and search engines to expand your reach
- Bottom of the funnel content, such as free consultations, free software trial sign-ups, and customer references
- Business influencers to promote your educational content and establish yourself as an expert in the field
- Marketing automation platforms like Hubspot to streamline your inbound marketing efforts, manage your contacts, track interactions, and nurture leads
By leveraging these tools, SAP Professional Services Consulting firms can create valuable content, attract visitors to their website, and convert them into leads and customers. By combining outbound marketing efforts with inbound marketing tactics and utilizing marketing automation platforms, businesses can achieve even better results. Investing in content creation, tailoring it to suit the target audience, and utilizing the right inbound marketing tools can help businesses achieve their growth goals.
Inbound Marketing and Sales Agency
We are now stepping up our game by becoming Inbound Marketing service provider partners to Hubspot and Salesforce service partner.
Our first customer came from a pre-sales demo we gave them which was scheduled for 2 hours, but which became a full day teaching seminar (at their request), with the reaction being that this is a fantastic tool.
The Hubspot platform is a fantastically powerful Inbound Marketing platform, however, it requires a HUGE, focused effort to create the content, which is the secret sauce required to Get Found and Convert visitors to prospects.
Experience will tell you how much effort to invest in the content creation process, but the most critical success factor is creativity and profound knowledge of your sales process and what your prospects are looking for.
Continuously Improve Your Inbound Marketing
Analyzing the conversions from your inbound marketing efforts so you can continuously improve them, requires data and an ability to tease out the information you need from the massive data flow created by the system.
If you're looking to get more high quality leads, at a much lower cost, why not ask us how. In the meantime, we have a 5 Step Guide to Multi-Channel Marketing we put together you can get started with.
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