A successful business needs revenue, and therefore needs to maintain and expand its market share. In other words, to retain customers and generate new sales. We can make a distinction in B2B communication between short term and long term communication goals. Short term communication goals are typically focused on gathering new leads; long term communication goals are harder to measure and focus more on brand awareness and reputation.
Long- and short-term goals
A successful inbound content campaign takes a lot of planning: inbound content (social media posts, blogs, white papers, case studies, …) needs to be tailored and linked to each other. We want visitors to your website to be guided by your candy trail of content and ultimately get them to leave their contact details behind. The communication goals of inbound marketing are to gather new leads and generate sales, which is typically short term. However making sure your inbound content is coherent is a long term effort.
If content is the candy, then your website is the trap
For plenty of businesses the website has become a pivotal communication tool. Only normal since it is accessible at any time and from anywhere, all thanks to the popularity and ease of use of smartphones.
Without inbound marketing you already know something about the visitors that are coming to your company’s website:
- They have an interest in your business
- They have read some of your content
- They have seen your logo & branding
Understandably, there is a lot more you would like to know about them: Are they working for a business that could be interested in your products or services? How interested are they? Are they decision makers? Can you get in contact with them?
Until recently, there was no detailed answer to these questions. It’s a long shot to be able to do something with the knowledge that ‘somebody from Germany has visited your website’. But thanks to inbound marketing tools (like Hubspot), it is now possible to transform a website from an online brochure to the first point of contact with a new client. Why is it important to have inbound marketing implemented on your website? Because Inbound marketing efforts produce 54% more leads than traditional outbound efforts. Research has shown that Inbound marketers double the average site conversion rate, from 6% to 12% total.
Tip: We researched how satisfied business professionals are with their organisation’s inbound marketing. Read more about it in our introduction to inbound marketing paper. Download it for free by clicking on the link below!
Inbound and outbound, the yin & yang of communication
There are three different ways visitors will come to you website: either directly by typing the URL, or by using a search engine like Google, or because they’ve been directed to it via a link. The traffic coming to your website either directly or via a search engine is called organic traffic, and it can increase through marketing and communication efforts.
Growing organic traffic to your website means that people searching for a solution will find you. Your brand awareness is the tipping point that allows your SEO content and SEA funnel to effectively guide prospects and leads to you. Communication that reaches short term goals and keeps on being effective in the long term is the result of both inbound and outbound communication efforts being nurtured. duomedia aims to make sure that the yin & yang of B2B communication (short and long term) is in balance.
duomedia is an international B2B communication agency that assists and supports bussinesses with professional communication services.
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