When you look at who's successful in any industry you often question how are they doing that? What are they doing that you’re not?
As HubSpot Platinum partners we get the opportunity to have a sneak peek at what's up and coming.
6 most successful marketing practices you should follow
Leading marketers make their budgets go further
Leading marketers take outbound with a grain of salt
Leading marketers track ROI
Leading marketers let results drive decisions
Leading marketers’ content comes from in-house and out
Leading marketers check their analytics frequently
Marketing budgets are often under scrutiny. What your team achieved with last year’s budget often sets the level for next year’s budget, so careful provisioning of that budget is key to maintaining or increasing it. But research from the State of Inbound report shows that leading marketers are not only careful with how they spend their budget, but are also careful with what they spend it on.
For companies spending under £3m, inbound is their preferred method of marketing. Furthermore companies with marketing budgets of £65k or less were four times more likely to practice inbound than outbound marketing.
The research shows that regardless of spend, marketers practicing inbound were three times as likely to see a higher ROI on inbound marketing campaigns than on outbound.
KEY TAKEAWAY: Inbound efforts achieve higher ROI than outbound regardless of company size or total marketing spend.
We’re long term advocates of inbound as the most effective method of marketing online, but according to the report we’re not alone in this view. 57% of marketers involved in the research cited paid advertising as the most overrated marketing technique
KEY TAKEAWAY: Leading marketers see the limitations of paid advertising
3. Leading marketers track ROI
Leading marketers get increased marketing budgets by proving that their teams are worth the increased level of marketing spend. They do this by tracking the returns their activity generates year-over-year.
Marketers, who tracked ROI, were 20% more likely to receive a higher marketing budget in the following year. If that ROI represented an improvement on the previous years activity, marketers were twice as likely to see an increased marketing budget.
KEY TAKEAWAY: Track ROI, prove your success and reap the rewards
4. Leading marketers let results drive decisions
Being prescriptive over your marketing isn’t the way to find success. While tried and tested formulas are a great place to start, being agile with your marketing and being prepared to shape your strategy based on results is the way to really succeed.
In 2015, no single factor was identified as being more important in driving higher inbound budgets than past successes with inbound marketing.
KEY TAKEAWAY: Let results drive your decision making, if it works do more of it, if it fails, adapt and do it a different way or analyse why it failed and what measures are required to put it right.
As with many things in life diversification is the key. Leading marketers source their content from both staff and guest contributors. Mixing it up with your content authors brings perspective and fresh new approaches to content. Organisations that saw an increase in ROI from 2014 to 2015 were more likely to use multiple content sources than their less successful peers.
KEY TAKEAWAY: bring in Guest authors to supplement staff writers
Marketers who achieved a greater ROI in 2015 were 20% more likely to check their analytics three or more times per week. It stands to reason that if you’re on top of your stats you’ll know what elements of your marketing are working and what elements are not. This agile response to data is what positions the leading marketers.
KEY TAKEAWAY: Check your analytics and be responsive to the data
Attracting New Customers With Inbound
What we love about inbound is that we get to help people by sharing our knowledge and expertise with them. Job satisfaction is high in the inbound marketing industry which is probably why it's such a growing field. Whether we're helping a start up company, a business that's struggling and needing help, or an organisation that's o.k but has the ambition to grow, inbound marketing is the fresh approach that turns these businesses around (for further info' on inbound read our blog "Attracting new customers with Inbound marketing").