Large companies initially dominated the marketing world.
If you had a big budget, you could buy your prospects’ attention. Either you were one of the big ones, or you didn’t hear.
But this traditional pattern breaks. The Goliaths are losing attention.
New technologies have fundamentally changed buying behavior. Marketing then changed, and inbound marketing was born.
Finally, the little ones can now be heard because inbound marketing is not about your wallet’s size, but about the depth of your creativity.
This creates a unique opportunity for the small, smart Davids of this world. Are you perhaps the new rulers?
David’s power
Whether big or small, the goals remain the same: You want to achieve greater awareness and gain more leads and more customers.
Fortunately, small businesses are not that rigid. You are flexible and agile. There is also less bureaucracy. It can take months for a group to introduce inbound marketing processes.
A small company, on the other hand, can adopt this new form of marketing much faster. Maybe even within a few weeks.
We know that because we are one of the Davids in the world.
There’s still room for the Goliaths and traditional marketing. But it is no longer the only way. There is also the question: How long will this old way continue to work?
So let’s take a look at the seven reasons and explain why now is the best time to start with inbound marketing.
1. The buying behavior has changed, today your customers want to find you.
As already mentioned, new technologies such as computers, the Internet, the search engine, social media, and mobile devices have changed a lot.
Most importantly, they have changed how your customers buy. With the Zero Moment of Truth, Google has shown that, first of all, your customers conduct online research.
Fittingly some statistics that prove the whole thing:
- 88% of all US consumers research online before making a purchase decision.
- On average, these consumers use 10.4 content before making a decision.
- Half of the consumers spend 75% of their total shopping time researching.
- 67% of the customer journey is carried out online today.
- At least 70% of the customer journey has already started before the provider is contacted.
- 77% of B2B customers do not want to speak to sales as long as they do not research themselves.
- 90% of B2B customers say they’ll find your business when they’re ready to buy.
- By 2020, 80% of the buying process will be done without direct human contact.
Therefore, you should be smart and make sure that your company is already found in this phase.
If you do not adapt to the new buying behavior here, you will be left behind in the long term.
2. Traditional marketing is becoming increasingly ineffective and expensive.
Due to new buying behavior, outbound marketing is becoming less and less effective. It just doesn’t work that well anymore.
Your customers have gotten pretty good at hiding your ads today.
Here are some statistics that show that traditional marketing is getting weaker and weaker:
- 87% of people switch to television advertising.
- 45% of people leave direct mail unopened.
- 84% of 25 to 34-year-olds tend to leave a website for excessive advertising.
- One hundred ninety-eight million people use an ad blocker.
- Over 2 million Germans are on the Robinson list.
- Cold calling does not work in 90% of the cases.
All significant developments that should motivate you to rethink. For these reasons, content is becoming increasingly important as a marketing tool.
We humans have always shared content via campfires, print, radio, and TV, but today the material finds its place on the web, especially in blogs and content hubs.
Today your customer has more power. Today decides which ads they consume.
That is why modern marketing is not about interrupting and annoying, but about helping and being useful.
3. The advantages of inbound marketing outweigh the disadvantages.
We talked about the advantages in detail. But let’s look at a small summary of the essential points:
- More sales – You get a better awareness, more leads, and more customers because scalable elements work for you. Day and night.
- Building Confidence – You Give Before You Take. Therefore, you build trust according to the law of reciprocity, which supports your sales process enormously.
- More visibility – The more content you create, the more reach you get, as more channels lead to your content hub via social media, the search engine, and Word of Mouth.
- Filter function – Your inbound marketing process filters out the wrong prospects so that only the right customers end up with you.
- Expert position – By regularly publishing free content, you build up a thought leadership position over time and are perceived as an expert in your industry.
- ROI provable – Since inbound marketing is mostly digital, you can track everything. You know what works and what doesn’t.
- Cost-effective – Inbound marketing is also very profitable. Soz. B. Inbound leads are 61% cheaper than outbound leads.
- Asset – Unlike outbound marketing, you build a real asset. Inbound marketing is an investment in the future. Not just a marketing expense.
- You get better – as the icing on the cake, incoming marketing forces you to deal very intensively with your topic. This makes you better and better because you look at your problem from many different perspectives.
Now let’s look at the disadvantages. With the substantial advantages, they are no longer so important:
- It takes time – inbound marketing takes time. You can’t just turn the tap on and get attention. You gotta you work out. It usually takes 6-12 months to see the first results. After that, you must continue to invest regularly in your inbound activities.
- It is a bit complex – inbound marketing consists of many individual parts that you have to focus on. Therefore, it is a bit time-consuming and complicated when you set up the process for the first time.
- It looks effortless – putting the individual elements on for the first time is quick and easy. But using these tools effectively to gain leads and customers is a bit more complicated.
- You need to learn new skills – content marketing, social media marketing, SEO, email marketing, landing pages, and conversion optimization are all topics that you probably still need to learn. You have to jump over this hurdle.
There are always disadvantages in life. But the advantages and the change in purchasing behavior and the lack of acceptance of traditional advertising justify that inbound marketing is the right choice.
4. A redesign is a perfect time to start inbound marketing
I am currently noticing that many of our prospects and customers are planning a redesign.
Many make a mistake here and first create their redesign and then take care of their inbound marketing strategy.
But you should do it the other way around. Therefore, first, create your strategy and then take care of your redesign!
The thing is, an excellent inbound marketing strategy is always reflected in the design. When designing, you should make sure that your marketing goals are achieved. Therefore, you should, B. Also plan the correct placement of your CTAs and do not squeeze them in any way afterward:
If you are currently at the beginning of the year, you usually take time and rest for your annual planning anyway. Wouldn’t that be the perfect time to start thinking about your inbound strategy?
5. Inbound marketing is perfect for small businesses with small budgets.
The beautiful thing about inbound marketing is that it is inexpensive.
If you e.g., For example, if you want to place a television advertisement, you need at least € 60,000 to be able to play with private customers.
With inbound marketing, on the other hand, you only need a small budget for software and eventual content promotion via social ads. You also need a bit of time and a good dose of creativity.
All resources that small and smart companies have at their disposal.
I recently heard from my lawyer that he has a friend who spends $ 250,000 a month on Google AdWords. If you invested this amount in inbound marketing, you would have had the same attention in 12 months and created a real asset. And how far would it grow in the next few years?
So you should be as brave as David, just start and focus on creating high-quality content that your target audience wants to consume.
6. Inbound marketing takes time; you can never start early.
Unfortunately, inbound marketing is a long-term game. It takes time for your content to spread on social networks and be found in the search engine.
With outbound marketing, you can generate a lot of hype quickly, but it is short-lived. On the other hand, with inbound marketing, everything is more complicated and takes longer, but sometimes becomes more active.
I recently read about bamboo growers in China. These sow their seeds and wait four years for the bamboo to start growing. You just trust that everything will work. In the meantime, they maintain and water their fields regularly. But waiting pays off. After the fourth year, the bamboo goes off and grows to over 20 meters within a few weeks.
While there are many different factors that matter, you need an average of 6-12 months to see the first results.
So you can never start early enough because the best time to start inbound marketing was yesterday. The second best time is today.
7. Inbound marketing is not yet carried out in many industries.
If you look at American Express, L’Oreal, Adobe, Microsoft, DHL, and GE, you can see that the Goliaths are already preparing for it.
However, inbound marketing is still reasonably fresh in many industries. It is still relatively new or not at all, although it has existed for over ten years.
Especially when you think of small businesses and the German-speaking area, many branches are still lying idle here. Even small businesses in the United States are a bit further, but there is still a lot to get there.
It’s good. Because that means: less competition, that is why you can shine here as a first mover and secure critical competitive advantages.
But the popularity of inbound marketing and content marketing is steadily increasing. This is demonstrated by e.g., B. also these and these reports.
Wait a few more years, and the story looks very different.
Conclusion
Even though Goliaths initially dominated the marketing world, things are now very different.
The new technologies have fundamentally changed buying behavior. As a result, traditional marketing is becoming less and less critical.
This creates a unique opportunity for the Davids of this world. You have the potential to become the new rulers.
Generally, inbound marketing is perfect for small businesses with small budgets. It only makes the most of your resources in the long run.
It is a perfect fit that many industries are still idle. Inbound marketing also takes time. So you can never start early.
For these reasons, there will never be a better time for you—David’s power.
