The short answer is - Yes! Digital marketing is ideal for specialised businesses because of the way it can be focused to target very specific buyer groups.
For this reason alone, most niche businesses find better returns from inbound digital marketing, like-for-like, than from an equivalent amount of time and money spent on traditional sales techniques alone.
By focusing your online advertising and lead generation efforts on the precise buyers you want to target, and tailoring your messages to that group, you get more conversions that lead to sales, and spend less time chasing leads who aren’t interested.
Furthermore, as modern marketing is a digital pursuit, there is a clear audit trail that shows where your prospects come from, what activities have the best success at conversion, and those that aren’t doing great – e.g. web pages with a high bounce rate. This lets you make adjustments to your marketing strategy in real-time to improve value for money and increase your win rate.
Almost all businesses that conduct sales carry out marketing by default, whether or not they call it this – because marketing is an integral part of the sales process; promoting your brand to customers and creating interested, ‘qualified’ leads for your sales team (or you) to pursue.
A tailored marketing strategy makes your sales efforts more successful, as it generates better quality website traffic and leads, attracts more visitors to your website and social media pages, and helps nurture these leads through the buyer journey.
Marketing also has the effect of building greater trust and credibility for your business, which in turn makes it easier for you to close deals and improves your win rate – in a virtuous circle that strengthens and supports your sales team as you grow your business.
If you are a niche business selling a specialist technical product or service, the chances are that your market is smaller and more specialised than for more general products.
Your target buyers may be more educated and fussy about what they require and, if your product or service is also a high value item, they may need a lot of convincing before they make purchase, leading to a longer sales cycle.
In a market such as this, reputation matters, and every lead is important.
You can’t afford to let any sales opportunity slip through the net, as although you are likely to have fewer direct competitors than a less specialised business, the level of competition for each prospect is bound to be more intense.
It’s critical, therefore, as a specialist business, for you to maximise your visibility to your target market, and build a convincing online presence to support your sales efforts.
Inbound marketing is your means of cementing your professional reputation in your market, building the credibility you need to attract prospects and close sales, and give yourself a technical edge over your competitors. A marketing strategy helps you define and target your niche market based on their location, aspirations, and concerns, and create compelling online content that directly addresses your customer’s problems.
The big difference between this approach and traditional sales is that the goal of inbound marketing is to encourage prospects to seek you out. Rather than simply broadcasting your sales messages from the rooftop and pursuing your customers tooth and nail, inbound marketing puts the decision to make contact in their hands. By publishing quality online content that second guesses the questions your prospects are asking about your products and services at each stage of the buyer journey, you reach a larger and more engaged audience than you would do otherwise, and encourage a greater number of inbound sales enquiries.
In fact, the reason so many specialist SMEs struggle to make sales is that they fail to stand out properly, and therefore fail to connect with the right target audience. This is because the vast majority of people you speak to during a ‘cold’ sales outreach are not going to be interested in what you’re selling. Not that your sales team are necessarily doing anything wrong, but simply that – without targeted marketing – your product isn’t relevant to the people you’re pursuing, or they’re not ready to make a purchase, or your messages aren’t tailored to the needs of your ideal buyer.
So, marketing helps you not only get in front of the right people, but also to establish authority with your target market by demonstrating your technical knowledge. This will bring you a steady flow of inbound sales leads, even from a restricted market. A marketing strategy doesn’t stop at lead generation, however, but follows this up by progressively building a business case for your product, based on the prospect’s own responses to your marketing material (e.g. website page visits, email clicks). By the time a lead reaches the stage when he or she is ready to make a purchase decision, much of the technical education and brand awareness ground work has been completed, making it easier for you to close the deal.
At JDR, we work closely with business owners in niche businesses helping to build their website visitors, increase conversions, and grow their sales. To do this we take a strategic approach that incorporates SEO, paid online advertising, and social media marketing – backed up by bespoke content that strengthens your brand and provides your prospects with the information they need to make positive sales decisions. If you’d like to discuss your requirements with one of our team, please don’t hesitate to give us a call today.
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