About The Firefish Software
The Firefish Software is a very recently started recruitment software company and it is based in UK. Immediately after it was launched in 2010, the company had to face tough competition from other powerful companies. Wendy McDougall, the CEO of the company, relied heavily on traditional marketing channels to win the competition but had a great setback in terms of huge capital expenditure and poor result. Later, McDaugall’s decision to adopt Inbound Marketing has turned around the company’s fortune.
Business Objectives of The Firefish Software
The company ventured into the software business with the following objectives.
(i) To grow through a steady cash flow and
(ii) To explore better cost-effective and alternative marketing strategies to sustain competition and grow further.
Approach/Strategy Adopted by The Firefish Software
After conducting a research analysis on different available alternatives, the company adopted the following strategies. The Company –
(i) Decided to go with ‘inbound strategy’ and so the company appointed an Online Marketing Executive to carry out the project.
(ii) Leveraging Inbound Marketing as a business model and so, it started focusing on multiple inbound channels, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, own website etc., and concentrated more on content development through whitepapers, webinars, blogs, video presentation etc.
(iii) Engaging with both, the internal online community and external online communities.
(iv) To reduce marketing expenditure by avoiding physical participation in industrial trade shows. Instead, the company decided to participate virtually in such events and interact with its audience.
(v) Providing maximum emphasis on creative and powerful inbound marketing for lead generation, lead nurturing and lead conversion than spending more time, energy and resources on sales.
Results Achieved by The Firefish Software
Ailsa Patridge, the Online Marketing Executive of the company and her team achieved the following commendable results over a period of just one year.
(i) More than 300% increase in website traffic.
(ii) 190% increase in number of leads, including higher number of leads potential for conversion.
(iii) Achieved more than 200% sales over the years.
Learning
(i) Allocation of hefty funds for out bound marketing is no more an intelligent decision in business because it does not guarantee better sales.
(ii) Outbound marketing platforms may not be cost effective for start-up companies as it involves huge cost commitments.
(iii) A well planned integrated inbound marketing can give birth to a new business model.
(iv) An effective lead conversion and sales are the outcome of any brilliant inbound strategy. Hence, it is understood that inbound marketing is potential to ease our sales’ burden.
(v) Compared to outbound marketing, inbound strategy is always cost effective and environment friendly.
Source:
1. Google images
2. The official website of The Firefish Software.
Dr Goswami,
I am new to inbound marketing. Hence wanted to know the difference between outbound and inbound marketing. Also how does one use twitter, linkedin and facebook in inbound marketing?
Thank you Ritu for sharing your views. Outbound marketing includes efforts you put offline to reach your customers. It includes advertisements in TV, magazines, newspapers etc. Hope you have accounts in Twitter, FB and LN. I’m using FB for running my Institute’s page. You can view it at <www.facebook.com/infoMBA)