Last week I read an article written by the BT brand chief, Al-Qassab, who claimed that marketing is in an "existential crisis" and "both under-invested and under-prepared."
Doesn't sound good, does it? Al-Qassab did suggest a solution, though.
"The only way out of this marketing crisis is if the digital marketers and traditional marketers were to come together and understand each other."
This is where we had a bright idea. Isn't inbound marketing the perfect mix of these strategies?
The times are changing, outbound is outdated and in some cases, can be potentially dangerous for your brand financially and in a reputational sense. With inbound, you can get the best from your leads. Read our blog 'How to create the ultimate inbound marketing strategy' for more information.
Back in the good old days, a traditional marketer could send collateral in the post, attend packed industry conferences and pay designers to create expensive full-page adverts.
Traditional marketing focuses on building relationships, earning trust and presenting a strong brand image. However, the issue is they may now struggle to reach a big enough audience, as customers increasingly turn to the internet to conduct their own research.
Al-Qassab said that traditional marketers know more about their audience, and understand their needs a lot more, but "don't know how to reach customers." This is where an inbound marketing strategy could fit in nicely.
As an inbound marketing agency, we believe that companies should take the more modern approach to client communications. We live in a 'Google-it' age, where individuals are far more likely to research products and services from behind a screen rather than face to face with a sales consultant.
In light of this, companies need to produce content that engages and educates their target audience, and distribute it in places where their audience will find it. For us, this is on our website and through our social media channels. Outreach is also important, whether it's in the form of guest blogging, press releases or events.
On the other hand, Al-Qassab suggests that modern marketers "understand how to harvest clicks, but have no idea why."
He argues that while digital marketers do collect plenty of data and crunch numbers, they don't always understand why they are actually doing it. While modern marketers are active in the digital sphere, they may be numbers-obsessed to the point that they risk being removed from the consumer.
To me, this means that some digital marketers are just going on autopilot, and getting on with what they are best at within their own silo. But being a SEO specialist or PPC expert is no good to anyone unless your work relates to the bigger picture.
What marketers need to do is really communicate with clients and find new ways to help them reach their audience. Sometimes this can mean educating a client, so they understand the information you're giving them. In almost all cases, it means framing your work within the context of broader business goals. How is this campaign contributing to client success?
This whole argument pretty much sums up why we are an inbound marketing agency. We believe in a middle ground, in between traditional and modern marketing strategies.
In my opinion, inbound marketing picks up the advantages of different marketing trends but drops all the bad parts. We learn from the traditional marketers who have extremely good relationships with their audience, and the modern marketers who base their strategies on heaps of careful data analysis.
By learning about our clients and building out detailed buyer personas, we can develop useful, relevant content which really speaks to their target audience. This content can then be distributed, monitored and analysed across a range of online channels, broadening a client's potential audience and enabling prospective customers to find them on their own terms, while conducting their own research.
We also use lead nurturing to lend a more personal touch. Think of an inbound marketing campaign as a virtual sales consultant - when done correctly, prospective buyers can be served the right information at the right time, intuitively providing the answers they need as certain questions arise.
On top of this, we analyse and alter our campaigns on an ongoing basis, tweaking our content as we learn more about the typical buyer journey. Using marketing automation platform HubSpot, we can track email open rates, landing page click rates, blog views, social media likes... the list continues. We can see what does and doesn't work, and apply this data in a meaningful way to improve our marketing strategy.
If you'd like to learn more from an inbound marketing agency in Manchester, why not drop by for a coffee and a chat? As well as knowing how to crunch the inbound numbers, we also know why are doing it (which is always a nice bonus). Of course, we know how to keep in touch via email and other digital channels, but sometimes a face to face visit is still nice.
The times are changing, outbound is outdated and in some cases, can be potentially dangerous for your brand financially and in a reputational sense. With inbound, you can get the best from your leads. Read our blog 'How to create the ultimate inbound marketing strategy' for more information.