One of my biggest challenges of working for a very traditional business that has predominantly focused on face-to-face direct marketing and that has generated the majority of their business through customer referrals is convincing them of the power of going online and investing time into social media and having a company blog. Their major concern is whether having a Facebook page or a Twitter Feed or starting up a blog is even worth their time. What kind of return can they expect to see? Do these virtual mediums even fit with their business and clients? I want to convince them that YES is the answer. But it’s difficult. I can’t just ask them to start a Facebook page without knowing that they will commit to updating it on a regular basis with engaging and relevant information that their customers (and potential customers) want to see. There’s nothing worse than a blog or Twitter Feed that hasn’t been updated since March 2, 2011.

Inbound marketing really works when you’ve got timely and relevant information readily available for your viewers to consume. If you’ve got what they’re looking for and you create the trust that you are committed to keeping them updated, they’ll keep coming back to you.

I think I’d like to show my clients this infographic because it really highlights some of the incredible benefits that can be reaped from inbound marketing. First, take a look at how much attention inbound marketing is now getting:

And it’s especially perfect because it shows how appropriate it is for smaller businesses (just like my client!).

Finally, I really like this last part of the infographic because I want to communicate to my client how important it is for them to invest in some serious website architecture and create effective and meaningful landing pages. I knew I needed them to help with SEO and actually making their AdWords campaign useful but what I didn’t know is that businesses with many targeted landing pages generate 10 times more leads!

It’s a pretty good article so I’d invite you to take a look at it here. It might just spark some ideas for you in creating your own marketing campaign!