Is inbound marketing ineffective?

Today all companies have understood that it is necessary to ensure a presence on the internet. Despite this, efforts aren’t always up to par and we hear some entrepreneurs or business leaders/marketers complain about the failure of their social media project. the“inbound marketing.” can help them!

Inbound Marketing, really effective?

Concern about a lack of feedback can stem from several things:

• Lack of investment: social media marketing requires more than two/three clicks, an online video and a couple of likes. It is an investment in a community, which we must already begin to build.
• Lack of strategy: Even if you spend time on it, it’s a good idea to plan a clear strategy. What editorial line, towards which audience, what objectives do we want to achieve, with what means, etc.?
• A posture problem: some companies approach communication on social networks like traditional advertising, like a classic channel. The negative reaction is often painful, and some companies struggle to recover.

We saw that in a previous article, Inbound Marketing: a revolution?inbound marketing it means making those who don’t know you find you and earn interest instead of buying or stealing it. When you want to use a medium, you have to understand its philosophy, what people are looking for there and what above all they don’t want to find there! Inbound marketing corresponds better to social networks than traditional marketing but it is either not taken seriously, considered as an idealistic vision of marketing, or it is scary.

Here are the few reasons that often come up and scare away regular customers traditional marketing :

Risk taking in inbound marketing

As the excellent Olivier Cimelière says on social media “ David is one click away from Goliath »! Consumers have a voice and above all a channel to make it heard. From consumers they become consumers! Yes, it can interact social networksthey sue you and try to bully you. We can take it as a critical state or say we are taking advantage of an incredible opportunity.

In fact, knowing your customers’ dissatisfaction can allow you to improve the average customer experience. Instead of letting the situation get worse, you will be able to listen to this customer, help them and turn their experience into something positive. Naturally, we will not always be able to offer the moon and there will constantly be those who are dissatisfied. However, it’s by listening to their voices that you can take your customer experience to the next level and get engaged consumers who won’t hesitate to recommend you.

Inbound marketing is expensive!

As a matter of fact, it can be expensive, but generally inferior to traditional marketing. It all depends on your commitment, the size of your company, etc. We will have to train, educate and perhaps even recruit. Then there are many free tools.

Furthermore, it is often necessary to start all this with traditional marketing, both in traditional media and via social networks. If you are starting a business or launching a new product, it is very likely that you need immediate visibility, so outbound remains the valid solution in parallel. Unless you can create buzz with one of your contents: a well-made video, a funny image, an online game on social networks, etc.

So yes, there is a somewhat demanding initial investment, but over time inbound costs less and earns more.

Inbound marketing doesn’t make money!

«Many have tried before us, without success!» We hear it often. This or that colleague would try the adventure for a few months and it was a monumental fiasco. On the one hand, as I pointed out above, was this experiment carefully thought out, were the means put in place, etc.?

If you don’t have internal resources or skills, you can turn to professionals for this (me for example) who will carry out the editorial content (Content Marketing), a presence on social networks and will refine your SEO.

The ROI (return on investment) of inbound marketing is calculated in the medium term. The first effect of this work will be felt on your website traffic. If you don’t have a digital and internet strategy, there’s a good chance your site is at a standstill. This is not a judgement, there are many companies. A large number of sites have no more than 1000 visits per month. With this premise we can easily multiply the number of visitors by 4 or 10 in a few months.

There is one thing that is very specific to inbound marketing: Unlike a media advertising campaign, AdWords keyword or social media campaign, the effects do not fade away once stopped. What you have produced as content in the previous months will continue to attract visitors and therefore the more time passes, the more weight you will have in search engines and the more you will be able to share on social networks.

Creating a website is not enough to bring in customers. If all you do is create a showcase site with a few pages, the results will be worth it. Creating content and being present on social networks represents a lot of effort to produce at the beginning but it will pay off. Remember: you are not the one looking for visitors, they are the ones who find you! You don’t need a huge audience. You just need to have the right audience! Generate leads and useful traffic more easily!

You have to be transparent!

And it’s scary. Very scared! In fact, we do not exaggerate, we do not highlight characteristics or values ​​that are not ours. The goal is to gain intimacy and trust. This inevitably leads to a certain reluctance. Are we ready to admit our mistakes? Are we ready to report an error?

There are numerous cases where companies have been slow to intervene in a case that has created a stir. The most recent is that of the SNCF where images of all kinds appeared, false press releases from the SNCF, which aroused national ridicule. In case of difficulty, don’t ignore messages from your community, react quickly, very quickly! The immediacy of social networks leads to crowd movements that we can no longer control if we start too late.

Focus on authenticity! A principle that I often underline on this blog and which seems to me to be one of the keys to effective long-term communication. Companies make mistakes, none can boast of having an impeccable record. Be there for your community. Fix what can be fixed. Don’t try to be right at any cost, especially if you are wrong

Are we talking less about ourselves?

“Are you asking me to write blog posts where people talk less about us and our products?” When we know that many managers would like to see their logo occupy the majority of the flyer, be omnipresent and visible everywhere, it is a real challenge to force a company to produce content relevant to its customers.

However, it is the key to inbound marketing success. If you work well you won’t need to talk about yourself, your customers will do it for you. Learn to retain your readers, to help your customers, to appreciate them too. They will give it back to you.

Nobody wants to listen to someone talk about themselves all the time. It will also annoy us quickly. On the other hand, we appreciate those who show empathy, who listen to others and who try to help them when they can. We definitely get closer to these people more easily.

In this way you will form a loyal community, which will come back to visit you, which will return to your website. Talk less about your product and talk more about how it can change the life of the person who owns it. Few people are interested in the number of gigabytes of their hard drive, the frequency of their processor, the RAM of their mobile phone, etc. What they care about is the user experience and what they can get from this machine. How will it help them express their creativity, simplify their work, etc.? The product is just a channel through which the consumer will seek an experience.