How To Create Buy-In For Inbound Marketing

You’ve done it! You should be proud of yourself. You have understood and determined the need for an inbound marketing program. You obviously are intelligent and are thinking strategically on behalf of your company. This is a monumental step, but you’re not out of the woods yet – you have to sell the concept to your higher-ups if you want to see it come to life.

The format for presenting this information will be specific to each company, but overall, you can follow these four tips.

1. Talk About What You’re Doing Now

The most effective way to talk to your superiors about what needs to occur is to talk about what is currently happening. Break out your marketing activities as they pertain to the goals of the organization. Make this as simple as possible. Use visuals to illustrate your current activities. A clear and concise visual of what is currently happening will set up the following steps as a platform to jump off. Also include the expected and/or necessary results.

2. Talk About the Problems with Current Activities

After you have laid out what you are currently doing marketing-wise, you can then open the door to what “could be,” while showing gaps in your company’s current efforts to fuel the fire.

If you are meeting goals:

You need to show how inbound marketing could help increase numbers even more. To do this, present data that shows how potential inbound marketing activities can perform better than what you are doing now. This is where resources and a good knowledge of what motivates your superiors will really make it sing. If your boss is old school and is looking for reach, talk about digital, pay-per-click advertising and the targeting capabilities of Google AdWords, LinkedIn and Facebook. If they are concerned with the company’s image and brand awareness, sell them on the idea of a new website and creating an awareness and lead generating machine. If they are concerned with sales, talk about the funnel and how inbound accommodates for every level of the process while also adding the ability to track everything.

If you aren’t meeting goals:

Creating the case for inbound becomes a bit more simple here. Utilize your work in the first step to create an equation for marketing. Instead of just numbers, use activities with associated projected and historical metrics to show that current activities aren’t adding up. Once you show that there are holes preventing your company from reaching goals, you will be able to show how inbound marketing can fill the gaps.

3. Talk About What You Should Be Doing

Whether you’re on track to meet goals or not, you can win your pitch for inbound by showing the possibility of improved performance. To do that, you will have to break it down – the specific inbound marketing methods are situation-specific. Here are some ways to discuss what your company should be doing.

Methodology:

If your superiors don’t have a good understanding of inbound marketing, or have a flawed perception of what it may mean, a great place to start is by giving a bit of background information to set the stage. One way to gather information on this front is by utilizing free resources such as HubSpot’s inbound marketing materials.

Break Down the Activities:

Just saying the words “inbound marketing” won’t mean much if those involved can’t visualize it in terms of executable marketing activities. This doesn’t have to be drawn out – you can give a high level overview of the activities and their benefits, how to integrate them with your current initiatives and ways they can lead to improved results.

Show What Others Are Doing:

Inbound is a widely practiced methodology. Show your decision makers examples of other companies’ (maybe your competitors’!) inbound marketing activities to highlight its popularity and proven results.

4. Talk About Results

Whether your superiors are concerned about hard ROI numbers or just increased brand awareness, inbound can be the answer! Wrap it all up with a final punch about potential results in whatever language your boss speaks. Inbound is not a tough sell if you understand your decision makers’ end goals.

Don’t want to go through all the steps? We have good news: we can do it for you! If you think your company may benefit from inbound marketing, we would love to share our experience and knowledge with you and those who are making the final call at your company, while ensuring you remain a key player in the process. Contact us today to get the conversation started!

Updated: Apr 13, 2022