It took me some time to learn but it’s always wise to try to see things from other people’s point of view. Everyone has problems that they need to solve and if you want to help someone solve their problems, you first must understand what the problems are and see it from their perspective.
When I first founded Stargazer I made the mistake of not always listening to what my prospects were telling me, but I learned from these mistakes and it lead to me being a better marketer and Stargazer becoming a better company.
I realised that if I wanted to help businesses, I first had to learn to listen.
How can you help people if you don’t know what it is they need?
I could try to sell my digital marketing packages but solutions need to be built around problems, not tactics.
As a CEO you have your own set of problems, not always the same ones as your sales director or marketing manager.
After listening to a lot of CEOs and understanding their issues and problems, I thought I would write this post to demonstrate how digital marketing can help to solve some of your problems.
You need to generate quality leads
If you are having trouble generating quality leads (let’s face it most businesses do), then digital marketing or to be more exact inbound marketing can help solve this problem.
By creating buyer personas (a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer) and creating content that attracts these people to your website you can begin to generate a steady stream of leads.
As your customers have migrated to online, your business needs to be there to help them to make their buying decisions.
It’s not just the volume of leads, it’s the quality of leads as you need to create content that attracts the right kind of people. This was another mistake Stargazer made when creating our content in the beginning and I would really like you to benefit from the mistakes we made.
The content we created was all about inbound marketing, what it was and how to do it. However this just attracted marketing agencies and students to our website.
You as a CEO have probably never heard of inbound marketing nor do you care much how it works, you want to read content that helps to solve your problems, not instructions on how to do it. Hence the title of this post contains the words digital marketing instead of inbound marketing.
Would you have clicked through to this page if it had inbound marketing in the title?
You want to know the “why” not the “how”. It took the wise words of William Steward from Iconsive to help me to see that mistake.
Thanks William.
You need more customers
Leads are one thing, but customers are what will really grow your business and there is nothing better than happy customers.
If you understand what their problems are, what their pain points are and the reasons they say no, you will be able to create content that helps them in their buying decisions.
Once your leads have read your great content then you need to create call to actions so they become known leads. Think of a call to action like a persuasive message that resonates with your audience to entice them to make contact or download some further helpful information.
They exchange some basic information for your expert advice and these strangers are now known to you.
I spoke to a prospect a few days ago and when I explained why you need to create eBooks, whitepapers and guides that help your prospects and ask them to fill in a short form to receive this content, he was against it.
Why?
He told me he wanted to be helpful to his prospects and not make them fill in a form to receive his content. I loved it that he cared so much about his prospects and wanted to be helpful. After all inbound marketing is all about being helpful to your leads and customers.
The problem was, if you do not know who these people are then how can you help them further?
By identifying them and answering their most common sales question via email, you can nurture them to become happy customers. This is also a good opportunity for you to address the most common reasons why people say no.
I’m not going to patronise you as I know you know all of this, it is the same way your business has been selling for years, it is just adapting it to serve a digital audience.
An important thing to remember is that I am not talking about automating your marketing, I want to make it more personal. Just because you send emails doesn’t mean you can’t pick up the telephone and have a meaningful conversation with your prospects.
I would actively encourage this.
You want to become a thought leader
This is one of the top problems CEOs tell me they have. However, many CEOs have no idea how they are going to achieve this.
This is where inbound marketing can really help. By creating content that your prospects need, you are building up a great database of super helpful content.
This does take a lot of time and hard work but by building up some great helpful content your business will become a thought leader.
The opportunities that come your way can be limitless; speaking opportunities, interviews by major publications in your industry and guest writing.
The advantage of you putting out great content continually is it will be very difficult for your competitors to ever catch you.
You want business growth
I guess that this one goes without saying and goes hand in hand with leads and customers. Just because you get more customers it doesn’t mean your business will grow, you need to attract the right kind of customers and clients that will help you to grow.
Inbound marketing can help you to focus on marketing to the kind of prospects that have the best retainers, buy the high ticketed items or whatever you deem as a great customer.
Again with the right kind of content and messaging, you can attract the clients and customers that will help your business to grow.
You want an increase in referrals
This is another very popular problem that CEOs have, as sometimes it’s referrals that generate most of their business.
Referrals are a great way to get more business but if you aren’t getting any then this could be due to a few reasons:
- Your products or services just aren’t great enough to recommend
- Your customer service is not that great
- You don’t have a lot of clients or customers yet
Inbound marketing can help you to create marketing messages that people love and relationships with customers that will last. By delighting and helping your customers at every stage you will help them to become brand advocates.
By using social media to keep in contact with people you will build up better relationships with them and continue to help them.
If you are already receiving referrals then this is even better as you are already doing something awesome and by using inbound marketing you can turn more of your customers into ones that will refer you.
Better company culture
Great cultures start with you, the CEO, but if you add an inbound mentality to your business and be helpful to your customers then this will rub off on your staff.
This methodology becomes infectious and will spread through every corner of your business. If you look after your staff they will look after your customers.
If they feel the work they do every day has meaning and they believe in your cause then you will develop a culture that you can be proud of.
Takeaways
The companies that have the most success with inbound are the ones that embrace it the most. Inbound can help you to increase leads, sales and referrals. It can even help you to become a thought leader within your industry and help your business to grow.
It can even help you to create a great working culture which will mean your staff will want to not only stay with your company but do a great job!
For more in-depth guidance on how to successfully carry out digital and inbound marketing strategies for your business, click here to learn about our free ebook: “The CEO’s Guide to understanding digital marketing”.
Now it’s your turn
This is one topic I would really like your thoughts on. Do you think I understand the problems you face as a CEO? If not please explain. If you are willing to share, I would love to know what things you are currently doing to solve your problems.