Optimizing the Research Phase of your Inbound Marketing Journey

Inbound marketing is about creating memorable and valuable experiences for your customers and prospects that leave lasting impressions. Inbound marketing is about attracting customers and prospects to your digital channels. This includes your website, social media pages, emails, text messages (SMS), videos, and podcasts. Because you offer valuable, trustworthy content that inspires and educates, this approach to attracting people encourages them to interact with your business. Inbound marketing helps companies do business more effectively and efficiently. Instead of selling to prospects, they educate them about the process leading to a purchase decision. Companies can significantly increase brand loyalty, revenue, customer happiness, and customer satisfaction.

Begin by considering how your company makes a purchase decision. Most people don’t immediately call sales representatives to ask for a 30-minute pitch on their product. You won’t be able to engage with a sales rep until you’ve narrowed your search down to two or three products or services you are considering. You always need to go through a research phase, whether you are looking for a product or service that you want to evaluate personally or for your company. These are the steps of the research phase:

1. Ask your friends and family for recommendations. Then, do a Google search to find the best companies that can solve your problem. You can narrow down your list of potential companies from which to begin your search.
2. Look online for additional information on company websites. The FAQ or blog section on the company website will likely help answer some of your questions.
3. To learn more, book a call with a representative. The evaluation process ensures that buyers only connect with companies most relevant to the problem they are trying to solve.

Practical Application:

Are you a person who has ever had to evaluate software that your company is looking at purchasing? Consider a purchase as a Customer Relationship Management platform (CRM). A CRM is essential for managing the sales process of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses. As individuals evaluate and make recommendations, there are many steps to the buying process. This is how a professional service firm evaluates tools for its CRM system.

1. They identified a need first. Companies that evaluated CRMs found that Excel spreadsheets were insufficient for managing sales and pipelines. It was a waste of time and resources.
2. The professional services team then researched CRM platforms. The team sought recommendations from their peers and colleagues and then researched. They also consulted their third-party partner in marketing to get advice. They discovered both large and small CRM platforms with pros and cons. They looked at blogs, websites, and third-party review websites for a comprehensive overview of each platform’s capabilities. To get a deeper understanding of the CRM products, they also reviewed case studies and viewed short videos made by the companies.
3. After finding 2 to 3 platforms that provided most of their tools, they scheduled a meeting with a sales representative. Although sales are an integral part of the buying process, it’s only a step further when the prospect narrows their search. The prospect spoke to the sales representative, who provided references and sent them more targeted content to help with their buying decision.