A guy emailed me last week asking me if we wanted to pay for sales leads. He emailed me twice, in fact, once after I had already replied with “No thank you.”

The reason I said no is not because I do not want sales leads, but because I’m now actively building my own inbound marketing apparatus. The way I see it is that how we approach sales says something about us. And the truth is we have always done inbound marketing.

Red Toad Media has been in business since 2001 and we have never advertised. We’re usually found by word of mouth, we work with mostly local businesses… though if I go on vacation or even out for coffee in Louisville… I will usually pick up a client wherever I am. (Sad but true, ask my in-laws.) Usually people see our work and the rest is fairly simple. I honestly have to be very careful or we become overloaded. I have had many people look for us after seeing our designs and gotten phone calls from around the country and from competitors inquiring about us, discussing design, after they have visited our sites or seen a printed piece.

That’s the kind of leads we want.

We want people who like our work, we want people who have gotten to know us a bit and are actively looking for what we have to offer. We want to make people say, “Wow.”

The idea of cold calling a random sample of people who filled out an internet form, interrupting their day and barging into their schedule, is anathema to us. This is the difference between traditional outbound marketing and inbound marketing. One invites, the other interrupts. One focuses on quality and excellence and then puts out that message, confident it will be heard and receive response. The other? Tries to persuade.

Which image do you think is more effective? What is your current approach to sales and marketing saying about you?

Social media marketing online is a natural extension of what we have been doing for years in person … meeting people, getting to know them, introducing them to our work, meeting needs they might have. The reason I write about social media marketing so much on this blog when I am in fact a graphic and web designer? is that I know it can actually make a huge difference for a small business with a limited budget. And right now everyone has a limited budget. You might not have the cash flow for an AdWords campaign or for Omniture or a traditional media blitz. But you can learn to use blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to create meaningful and useful content and thus get interest and traffic to your web site. Then it becomes a numbers game, the more traffic and the more their content is optimized for people as well as search engines then the more sales or conversion you will get.

Bottom line, I’m interested in building businesses, not just web sites.

The great thing about social media marketing is that there is so much information out there about it, free. Once you start to look at marketing this way, it will change everything. A great place to start if you’re new to this idea of inbound marketing is Mashable, and then of course we really like Hubspot, and they have some seriously amazing advice and products. We also like Laura Roeder, she puts out some of the best and most practical information for a small business that we have seen.

Anyhow, before you start shelling out dollars for leads, think about using this strategy, read a bit, and feel free to ask us if you have questions. We’re glad to help.

Share

0
Comments