Most outdated business techniques have one thing in common: they rely on the prospect’s solicitation (not consented to).
These approaches, which have become ineffective, as they now seem out of step with consumers’ needs, are giving way to new methods, much less aggressive and more personalized.
Here are the five techniques that will undoubtedly disappear from your promotional and commercial arsenal in 2017.
Contents
1 – Cold calls
Have you ever ignored a hidden phone call? You are not the only one!
Automatic number display makes it easy for potential customers to screen unwanted business calls.
The ” cold calling ” annoys simply making it increasingly ineffective, even if a potential lead answers your calls.
The Inbound Marketing solution: Rather than calling hundreds of numbers at random, why not contact only the leads who are interested in you?
Promote your website, make your brand visible on social media, and feature engaging content on your blog.
In this way, you will establish a positive first point of contact with your prospect, and you will considerably increase your chances of success.
2 – The purchase of email lists
People are (rightly) suspicious of emails from people they don’t know. While you have carefully designed your commercial email, it may be misinterpreted by the recipient, who will put it in their spam.
Even if your email includes an interesting offer (promotion or voucher), the recipients are unlikely to respond to your message simply because they don’t know anything about your business.
The Inbound Marketing Solution: Build and “grow” your own email list of qualified prospects. To achieve this, offer high-quality content in exchange for contact details of your leads.
3 – Advertising on television
Do you know how much 30 seconds of advertising costs on TF1 during the Money Drop program?
Over 40,000 $.
That’s practically the budget of 3 Inbound Marketing campaigns, generating thousands of qualified contacts!
Of course, audiovisual promotion is not without interest, especially when targeting a private market. A recent study conducted by Ekimetrics shows that 1 euro invested in TV brings, on average, $ 1.20 to the brand.
However, viewers now have the ability to “zap” advertising spaces much more easily, especially on digital broadcasting channels where a single click is enough. This Guardian article explains in particular that the days of the TV commercial are numbered !
The Inbound Marketing solution: allocate part of your promotional budgets to content and conversion on your website, based on solid ROI calculations.
By considering the acquisition of leads as a priority as important as the notoriety of your brand, you will quickly see the interest in developing your Inbound Marketing strategy.
4 – Pay-Per-Click
Correctly configured and analyzed, SEA (or Search Engine Advertising) can give good results. One of the strengths of these advertisements is that they appear in a relevant way according to the chosen keyword vis-à-vis a specific target.
Converting through paid traffic remains attractive, but user click-through rates on ads have declined steadily over the past two years.
Another important drawback: when you stop paying for your SEA campaign, your online presence disappears instantly, and your SEO does not benefit from this high exposure.
The Inbound Marketing solution: Today, marketers are looking to develop an organic presence because it is much more qualified. On search engines, Internet users trust a deserved result (earned) more than a paid result (paid). That is, they give more credit to results based on the relevance of the information given. Inbound Marketing campaigns establish your online presence thanks to natural referencing, in a sustainable way. Thus, unlike Paid Search, your Inbound Marketing campaigns will continue to generate leads long after they are launched !
5 – Paper brochures
According to Wikipedia, a brochure is a ” paper document for information purposes, used to present a business, organization, product or service .”
A nice definition for a waste of money (not to mention the cost to the environment!).
As pretty as it is, a brochure will always be seen by your customers for what it is: advertising. How many prospects actually decide to buy your services or products after reading a brochure? Very little indeed.
The Inbound Marketing Solution: If you want to spend money on a quality document, instead produce a high-value white paper that can be downloaded by your prospects. Not only will you gain valuable information, but you will also demonstrate your expertise in a more authentic way.
