Inbound Marketing is Like Fishing

Humans have been fishing for thousands of years—and making analogies about fishing for nearly as long! Forgive us for making another one, but it’s so obvious and so perfect.

Inbound marketing has many components: content creation, lead nurturing, social media, email automation, SEO, and more. You begin the process by researching your target persona (your fish), use content as bait, hook leads through things such as call-to-actions, landing pages, and premium content, and then gradually reel them in through lead nurturing. 

Setting the Scene

If you've ever attempted to go fishing, you know that to begin, you hook a worm onto the end of a line and cast it out into the water. Then, you wait—and you keep waiting. If you enjoy the outdoors, the fresh breeze, the solitude, the time to contemplate the world’s problems and possibilities, then all that waiting is no problem. You’re happy with the plan—hook, line, sinker, and worm.

But if you came to catch fish, feed your hungry family, or supply restaurants that are depending on you, the waiting is excruciating and expensive. You’re starting to see the analogy, aren’t you?

How Inbound Marketing is Like Fishing

Salespeople used to wait for the bass to bite...or wait for the phone to ring. They would wait for the marketing department to pass along a precious lead or wait to go out and try to find leads of their own—probably using dried worms. The wait was excruciating. And anytime a salesperson isn’t selling, that’s expensive.

Serious amateur anglers have all sorts of high-tech tools now that enable them to wait less and catch more. Professional fisherpeople have equipment and systems that go far beyond what the amateurs have. Their hourly catch rate certainly makes it seem as though the fish are swimming right toward them. The analogy is working even better now, eh?

Professional sales and business development organizations use new technologies, too. And it’s not merely that technology keeps advancing; that’s old news. It’s that technology has changed how companies find prospects and how prospects find companies. The more prospects find you, the fewer prospects you need to find. Yes, savvy marketers and salespeople have the fish swimming right toward them. With sophisticated content marketing campaigns, lead scoring, automated lead nurturing, and other tools made possible in the 21st Century, you can go after the big fish (and more of them), and let them almost reel themselves in. Compare the power of today’s tools with cold calling, purchased suspect lists, and direct mail. It’s the difference between fancy radar and efficient nets versus hooks and worms.

Enjoy this short video that LeadG2 Managing Partner Matt Sunshine put together about inbound marketing and fishing: