Are You About to Give Up on Your Inbound Marketing Plan?

Throughout the years of working with multiple industries, we've identified four phases of inbound marketing where B2B companies could use some help. Theses four phases are:

• Companies That Haven’t Started (Learning Phase)

• Companies Just Starting Out (Planning Phase)

• Remodeling (Refining Current Activities)

• Overwhelmed (Giving Up)

In this post we're focusing on the fourth phase of companies needing help with their inbound marketing program, Overwhelmed (Giving Up). As Inbound Marketing Consultants, we don’t get too many prospective clients that are ready to give up on their inbound marketing plan. They're not interested in hiring us and spending more money on a seemingly failed inbound marketing program. Most of the companies at this stage are too far gone and need to dedicate significant resources to revive their programs and turn them around.

That being said, that doesn’t mean we don’t have some great recommendations that can help jumpstart companies that are overwhelmed and ready to give up. Here are a few tips for companies in this situation.

3 Ways to Deal With Being Overwhelmed by Inbound Marketing

1. Review your processes

2. Look for supplemental resources 

3. Get some outside help

1. Review Your Processes

If anyone has ever told you that inbound marketing doesn’t take much time or “it does it itself,” they're lying to you.

Someone has to create the content, upload blogs and promote your blog (and more). It doesn’t happen miraculously or by itself. That being said, sometimes the amount of effort you're putting into your inbound marketing strategy doesn’t reflect the output due to various bottlenecks.

One of the bottlenecks we often see, and could be an area of process improvement, is your process for sourcing, creating, or approving content. If you can streamline your content creation (like outsourcing to a third party) or approval process (don’t have too many cooks in the kitchen) you can possibly get back several hours per week.

2. Look for Supplemental Resources

When you're struggling, it’s best to not go at it alone. Try to get others within the company to help with posting blog posts or publishing social media. Another supplemental resource you can look for is content that was created for other purposes that you can repurpose for your inbound efforts and lead generation. This can save you time as you won’t have to create the content from scratch.

3. Don’t Go it Alone

If you don’t have the time, expertise (you're not a digital or social marketer by trade), or staff to really accomplish what you intended to, and management has asked for with inbound marketing, enlist the help of an inbound marketing company. An inbound marketing agency can either take over your inbound program and run the entire program or carve out pieces for other companies to take on. The main areas where companies can outsource their inbound include: content creation and overall campaign management.

During this phase of inbound marketing, we've identified two issues:

• Being overwhelmed

• Impulse to want to give up

If you're thinking of giving up, or abandoning your lead generation program, where are a few recommendations on ways to keep from giving up.

3 Ways to Keep From Giving Up Inbound Marketing

1. Strategy Review

2. Staffing Changes

3. Get Outside Help

1. Strategy Review

46% of companies say that the lack of an effective strategy and the creation of content are the most challenging obstacles to reaching the next level of inbound marketing performance.

Not having a clear inbound marketing strategy is something that we often see companies struggling with. It’s at this stage, or preferably before it, that we would recommended an in-depth strategy review similar to what we recommend clients do before getting started.

2. Staffing Changes

Sometimes the person that you “recruited” to manage your blog and lead your inbound efforts isn’t doing what you need or doesn’t have the expertise for the inbound effort to be successful.

They might be “too busy” or “have other priorities,” which are really just different ways of saying that inbound doesn’t have a priority in the company’s or person’s daily agenda. Sometimes moving around staff members can help with recharging the inbound program and help it to get back on track.

3. Get Outside Help

When you get to the point that you're considering pulling the plug on your inbound efforts, it’s a great time to ask for a few recommendations from an inbound marketing agency that has helped clients in similar situations. Regardless of whether the issue is a lack of resources or a lack of commitment there are certain things that can be done that help to revive an inbound effort in trouble.

Editor's Note: This blog was originally written in 2014 and has since been updated.