When you invest in a marketing strategy, you’re planning for it to pay off in your bottom line. While paid advertising can introduce you to new prospects who eventually become customers, it isn’t as cost-effective long term as inbound marketing.
Relying too heavily on paid ads can lead to hefty customer acquisition costs, which lower your profit margins on every sale from that marketing tactic. That’s not to say that paid ads have no place in marketing plans, but it does make the argument for investing in inbound marketing strategies.
Inbound marketing offers a solution for not only attracting new customers but retaining them and taking advantage of word-of-mouth advertising by turning existing customers into promoters.
So why do brands generally turn to paid advertising over an inbound marketing strategy? Inbound marketing is a long game, requires expertise and is more challenging to prove without the right analytics plans in place. If that sounds like your situation, here’s how to calculate the benefits of inbound marketing and where to turn for the necessary expertise.