Two Maxims That Are Limiting Your Marketing Success

There is overwhelming evidence that traditional outbound methods of prospecting and marketing are becoming less and less effective.

• 57% of the purchase decision is compete before a customer even calls a supplier (Forrester)
• 67% of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally (Forrester)
• 92% of buyers say they delete emails or voicemail messages from people they don’t know (A Sales Guy Consulting)

There is further evidence that companies that implement inbound marketing initiatives are successfully generating leads; growing their sales pipelines and driving revenue.

• B2B Companies that blog only 1-2 times per month generate up to 70% more leads than those that don’t (Hubspot)
• Companies see a 55% increase in leads when increasing the number of web-based landing pages from 10 to 15. (Hubspot)
• Companies that use marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451% increase in qualified leads (Salesforce)
• Inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than traditional outbound marketing. (Hubspot)

When faced with these facts, it’s difficult to argue against implementing an inbound marketing strategy right away. But it seems many companies continue to drag their feet. They nod their heads in agreement that there’s a better way of doing business, but they continue to market like they did in 1996. Why?

The common excuses are lack of budget and/or buy-in from a phantom executive. However, in my experience its actually one of these two principles that are in play. These principles are paralyzing marketers and keeping them on a treadmill of barren pipelines and missed revenue targets.

The Tyranny of the Urgent

In his book “Tyranny of the Urgent” Charles E. Hummel explains that truly important tasks are often delayed or frequently never started because they don’t need to be completed today or even in the next few weeks. Because these tasks are not as time sensitive it’s easier to justify delaying action. Instead, we focus our energy and our time on urgent tasks – tasks that require instant action.

“The momentary appeal of these tasks seems irresistible and important, and they devour our energy. But in the light of time’s perspective their deceptive prominence fades; with a sense of loss we recall the important task pushed aside. We realize we’ve become slaves to the tyranny of the urgent.” – Charles E. Hummel

Too many of us spend our days putting out fires. We’re reactive instead of proactive. We let overflowing inboxes and blinking lights on our phones dictate how we invest our time. At the end of the day we feel like we’ve been consumed with activity, but we’ve actually accomplished very little.

Developing a comprehensive Inbound Marketing strategy; championing the required funding; allocating the essential resources; building a realistic execution plan; and putting the requisite foundational technology and processes in place is not something that can be accomplished in a 30 minute meeting over lunch.   Inbound Marketing is not just another marketing campaign. It’s a methodology. It’s a new way of doing business. But it’s one that can lead to seismic shifts in a company’s growth path. Inbound marketing may not be urgent, but it is important. Important enough to carve out time today to start exploring and planning. Waiting until the week before your CFO reviews your budget or the night before your strategy session with the CEO is too late.

The Nirvana Fallacy

“I’ll ask my CFO for Inbound Marketing funding the next time the Sales team strings together two good quarters in a row.”

“I’ll start an Inbound Marketing strategy as soon as I hire more people for the Marketing team.”

“I can’t bring up inbound Marketing in my strategy meeting or request funding from the CFO because the stars aren’t aligned; I didn’t go to church on Sunday; and I’m not wearing my lucky tie.”

Often the subject of Inbound Marketing isn’t even broached because “now is simply not the right time.” In many Eastern religions Nirvana refers to a state of perfection and bliss. It seems that many organizations are waiting for just that before they start an Inbound Marketing initiative. They are waiting for unrealistic, idealized situations to present themselves first.

Other organizations get stuck in the planning stages and their Inbound Marketing plan is never actually executed. They plan, review, adjust and then repeat. They are pursuing excellence, but this pursuit has become an obstacle to implementation, execution and results.  

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” - Voltaire

Developing the perfect plan or waiting for perfect business conditions can actually become your enemy when it causes you to never complete the objective or in many cases never start the pursuit.  

The fact that I’ll eventually cheat on my diet doesn’t keep me from trying to eat healthy today. The fact that I forgot to floss my teeth yesterday doesn’t keep me from trying to maintain good dental hygiene tomorrow. If you want shade and apples then you need an apple tree. If you don’t have a tree, then you need to plant one. The best time to plant the tree is today. Waiting for tomorrow or sometime in the future only delays the benefits of shade and fruit. If you want the benefits of Inbound Marketing, then you need to start executing your Inbound Marketing strategy as soon as possible. Continuing to delay will only delay the benefits – more leads, robust sales pipelines and increased revenue.