5 Questions With... Piper Walker, The Weather Channel

Learning from your peers is one of the best ways to see if you should get started with inbound marketing, or whether you're on the right path in your inbound marketing adventure.

That's why we started the "5 Questions With..." series. On today's episode, we asked Piper Walker, Vice President of Sales at The Weather Channel, for her unique perspective on getting started from scratch.

1. You recently started an inbound marketing program at your company. What problem or challenge did you have that implementing an inbound solution will be the best solution for?

I talked to a sales leader of a major Fortune 50 company about their organic traffic and how they simply "answered the phone" to reach their first million sales. I immediately thought to myself, I want that! HubSpot happened to be presenting at the same conference, and I set up a call to learn more. It's so much easier to convert inbound inquiries to revenue than cold calling hopeful prospects. It seemed like a natural move to utilize technology and trends of today to capture interest and close more deals.

2. How are you measuring your ROI with inbound marketing?

We're in the process of integrating HubSpot with Salesforce. This is very exciting as we will benefit from the reporting and greater visibility into the data, leads, opportunities, and conversion to sales! This will also provide valuable insights to improve our content as we see what works best.

3. What was your content strategy before starting inbound marketing?

We had an email program we used to reach current clients with value added content. HubSpot has enabled us to put that program on steroids and reach beyond our existing client base -- to gain attention of new prospects. Our content lives on-line now and is available through organic search. This allows us to reach far and wide to prospects that are interested in what we have to offer.

4. What would you recommend to companies that haven’t started using inbound marketing and online lead generation? What’s a good way for companies to get started?

Pick up the phone! Check it out. It is a significant investment, but it doesn't take much to realize an ROI. The risk is far less than the potential reward. For us, it was a no brainer!

5. What’s the most challenging aspect of inbound marketing?

Content! Developing outlines, providing direction and reviewing content that will appeal to our target persona. We're salespeople, not writers! Good thing LeadG2 has a team of experts!