For many small business owners, making an invest in inbound marketing can be a little scary. Most of the hesitation comes from numerous attempts to market themselves that had very little return on investment, if any at all. Because of the lack of ROI in past experiences it makes it hard to take action now. But money isn’t the only thing that holds small businesses back from investing in Inbound Marketing
Maybe you feel like your business is to niche?
Maybe you think you’re just to small, so you want to wait before you ramp up your marketing?
While I realize that Inbound marketing isn’t a perfect fit for all businesses, some small businesses that are a perfect fit haven’t yet embraced this method. So, like any good inbound marketer would do, I want to explore 3 reasons why its not to early for your small business to start an inbound marketing campaign
Table of Contents
1. There are people looking for your product right now
I’ve spoken with a number of business owners who like the idea of inbound, but believe that their market is too small. The truth is, Inbound works best in niche industries. With a narrower focus, you can target your audience much faster and create even more personalized content than industry’s that have hundreds of different buyer personas.
The internet is the number one resource people use when looking for a product or service. According to Google there are 6 billion searches a day. But here is the stat that will really blow your mind. About one in five Google searches have never before been searched for in the history of Google. What we can infer from this is that each day there may be an estimated 1 billion new searches. SEO and content marketing are essential to Inbound and key to helping make sure you are found by people searching for the products and services you provide.
See more reasons inbound is perfect for your niche business in this great post from Hubspot.
2. Marketing is essential to growing
If you are waiting to grow before investing in marketing, you may never go at all. Marketing is essential to getting exposure for your business and nurturing your leads into customers. Inbound is all about growing your business, your way. From targeting the right buyers, creating personalized content and positioning you as an expert in your field, you can systematically grow your business smarter.
Instead of guessing what will work, or copying someone else, inbound is based on data from your users. By tracking all of your actions and their reactions in each stage of the marketing funnel, you learn what is working and what isn’t. This helps deliver a better ROI by showing you what to focus on and what to stop doing!
3. The Cost of Inaction is just to high
Not taking action is costly. While you may not be putting money into your marketing, you’re also not growing. When times get tough one of the first things businesses do is cut marketing. I’ve experienced this first hard. For a few years I trimmed back marketing my own agency, because money was tight, and focused solely on my clients. The result? I didn’t grow. The beginning of this year I took a different approach and focused on marketing my business, just like I do for my clients. The result. Massive growth. We broke our previous year’s revenue in 6 months, we generated more traffic and leads than ever before and we are on pace to post 100% increase in total revenue this year.
Not taking action is the costliest thing you can do as a small business owner. The conditions will never be perfect. Instead of taking shots in the dark, I want to encourage you to do something different.
Try This:
Look back this year at all the things you did to try to grow your business. Everything. Social media posts, fliers, local directories, Phone Book (If you did this, stop now!), Ad words, SEO and anything else you spent your time or money on to promote your business.
Then add up the cost. Not just the actually cost of services, but also the cost of you time. Give your time a monetary value. (Ex. My rate is about $100 an hour. So if I spent 4 hours on Social, that cost me $400). Then look at the impact it’s had on your business.
Did you grow? Did you plateau? Did you lose money?
While there are a number of excuses not to choose inbound, there are more than 3 reasons why inbound is the best marketing solution today. Check out these mind blowing stats that further prove my point. It’s time to take your business seriously. It’s time you create the business and life you deserve. It’s time you invest in you.
