How a Solid Inbound Marketing Strategy Expanded a Company’s Reach with Hilary Dillard

In this episode, we’re diving into the many benefits that come with implementing a solid inbound marketing strategy.

Chief among them? How your company is better able to reach and educate your ideal prospects. Here, we ask questions like: What kind of problems and needs does an inbound marketing strategy help solve? Why is it important to be creating new educational content? And what inbound marketing tactics yield the most significant results?

Helping Dani answer those questions and more is the amazing Hilary Dillard, Marketing Director at Questco. Hilary has so many awesome insights, such as:

• How inbound marketing helps nurture leads through the sales process

• Why inbound marketing is perfect for industries where a lot of education is typically needed

• And lastly, how inbound marketing helps establish you and your company as “that thought leader” who people feel comfortable turning to when they have concerns or questions.

From Word of Mouth to an Additional Funnel of Prospects

“I think you guys at Questco are a great example of having really strong sales and marketing alignment,” Dani says, kicking off the conversation. “And, obviously, as the marketing director, you oversee all of the marketing pieces, but there’s a lot of involvement with sales and sales enablement.

“So, can you tell us a little bit about the needs and problems that inbound marketing has helped Questco solve? Why does this continue to be an important part of your marketing place every year?”

“Even before I was at Questco,” Hilary says. “Before I was in the marketing department, most people heard about us through word of mouth.

“So, I think LeadG2 has really helped us expand our reach, made us searchable. [Inbound Marketing] really helped increase traffic to our website and has been such a huge piece when it comes to education as well. It helps us produce materials for our sales team and tools that we all need to help nurture leads through the sales process.”

“Yeah,” Dani says. “What I’m hearing is a way to really build an additional funnel of new prospects.”

“Absolutely,” Hilary says. “It’s a whole new ball game. Tons more opportunities. So, we love that.”

How Helpful Content Can Transform You and Your Company into a Trusted Resource

“You talked about being educational,” Dani says. “With Questco being a PEO company, that requires a decent amount of education with the businesses that you’re talking to. They may not fully understand the services you provide and how it works.

“So why does this matter to you as a company, being educational and providing helpful content?”

“The biggest piece is that we’ve been able to help so many clients navigate the challenges that they face as business owners,” Hilary says. “We have an amazing staff, amazing team, some with over 20 years of experience in their field. So, we want to share that education.

“We want to see if we can potentially help those new businesses in the same way we've helped our current clients.

“But it’s also about being that thought leader, that person they think of when they have questions or concerns. They can come to us for information or even just to see if they want to explore a partnership.

“If they have problems, we want them to turn to Questco.”

Most Successful Content Channels

“Let’s get into some tactics,” Dani says. “With inbound marketing, what have you seen yield the most significant results for your organization?”

Hilary says, “The most significant results have come from our webinars, timely webinars that people want to join.

“It’s a great interactive aspect and it helps nurture those leads through the funnel.

“In addition to that, our blog has been a huge piece. We’ve been consistently posting on our blog for five-plus years now, and it’s been amazing for our searchability.

“And, as we mentioned earlier, it really helps present ourselves as a thought leader. There, we answer questions and talk about relevant topics. It’s been a really helpful tool.”

Biggest Challenge Faced

“Are there any challenges that stand out from your inbound marketing efforts?” Dani asks. “Do you think anything might be helpful for our listeners to know, and how did you overcome them?”

“The biggest challenge for us, or what we’ve focused on quite a bit, is making sure that we’re passing off only quality leads to our salespeople,” Hilary says.

“We want them to have been through the process, to have been nurtured and engaged with our content. We want to make sure that we’re passing off the warmest lead possible.

“We’ve really been strict about what leads we pass along in order to ensure that they’re quality and ready to pass on to our sales team.”

“I love that you said that,” Dani says. “That is probably one of the biggest challenges we see with so many of our clients, which is that leads are being properly qualified and handed off in a timely, efficient manner.

“That makes sense, and you guys have really worked hard to get that down really well.”

ROI and Recent Success Story

“Tell us a little bit about how you know if inbound marketing is working,” Dani asks. “We know there's the direct revenue impact, of course, but what other stuff are you looking at? What are those key performance indicators that matter to you?

“When we evaluate at the end of the year, we’re looking at the whole picture,” Hilary says.

“As you mentioned, of course, it’s ROI, and of course, it’s closed sales. That’s a huge piece of it. But where did our tools fit in the process? How are they improving?

“We’ve seen an increase in website visits, traffic through social, organic, etc. I think that just shows that all the pieces of the puzzle are working. We want to see that constant increase and that constant growth year over year.”

“That makes sense,” Dani says. “So, do you have any memorable success stories or case studies that kind of speak to the success of your inbound marketing approach?”

“Yeah,” Hilary says. “I mentioned our webinars earlier. We actually had a lead that attended a webinar back in December of 2021. We kept that lead and nurtured it. We continued the communication.

“They again interacted with our content by downloading an eBook, and we just recently converted it, which led to a sale about a couple of days ago (of this recording).