The Story of Gloria Glam (Not her real name, but yes a real person)
I met Gloria at an exhibition a few weeks ago. She’s a regular South African marketer working her stand at the local expo. Her business is doing very well.
They are 4 years old and have had great growth in the past but it’s starting to wane.
They don’t know what their next marketing step will be.
At present they are turning to the usual marketing tools like exhibiting at expo’s, customer days and other events. As I talk to her I get the feeling that she’s there because she needs to do something about kicking their marketing up a gear. But the expo is not delivering the impact she needs to get them to that elusive next level.
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A visitor to her stall arrives so I step aside as she talks to them. It’s the usual 3-minute chatabout:
- her company
- the solutions they offer
- their products
They exchange business cards; she hands over a catalogue because the lead would like to meet with a sales person (“Soon please” they ask excitedly). Gloria is chuffed because after all, the company is there to get more leads.
Problem of busyness
We resume our conversation and she notes how epically busy she is, taking work home and struggling to keep up. Gloria loves her job but it’s starting to get very big and very tiring. We will pause the story here.
Over 5 hours, at an exhibition, Gloria can theoretically talk to a max of 100 people if each conversation is 3min long and there are no quiet patches. For her day’s work Gloria can possibly get 100 leads.
If Gloria wants another 100 leads, she will need to spend another day at a show and so on. Which is exactly why she is getting so busy. The direct relationship between her work and her results means that the more leads that are required, the more time that is required.
Solution to busyness
Her solution lies in finding a way to leverage her time better. An example of this would be to spend her day writing an awesome article and publishing it on her website. Gloria might argue: “But reading an article is not the same as talking to a marketer at their stand.”
Let’s look at the parallels between a 3-minute chat at an expo and an online article:
- Time: Expo conversation – 3min VS a person reading an article online for 5min… more time to engage the reader
- Number of people served: At Expo – only one at a time VS online: hundreds at the same time… (and 24/7/365)
- Time to influence: At Expo – only the 3 minutes, the queue is backing up to talk to Gloria VS online if the reader likes the first article they can click and read more and more or come back another day
- Exchange contact details: easy in both instances
- Give catalogue: easy in both instances
- Producing a quality lead: both instances have their positives and negatives. At the expo: she can probe better with her questions and change them on-the-fly VS online: one can ask more personal questions.
An online article is worth a thousand days
Gloria can scale her time better by spending her 5 hours writing an article online than by talking to people at an expo. However, writing an article online is just a fraction of what is done when doing content marketing online. (Also known as Inbound Marketing). Content marketing uses content and automation tools like HubSpot software to get more sales leads for a company.
In many ways content marketing is like having a thousand Gloria’s waiting in your “online stall”, always ready to have a short conversation with a visitor and then exchange details and hand over a copy of the catalogue. Producing quality leads with HubSpot in South Africa is a clever way for Gloria to gain the scalability that her marketing so badly needs to free up her time.
What’s your next step? How will you get to that next level?
Resuming the Gloria story: We discussed content marketing at a follow up meeting but alas she is too busy to push the button that starts her content marketing solution… She has an expo next week in Cape Town and needs to prepare for the customer day they are organizing the following week… and she needs to somehow find time to see her doctor about her stress…. But she agrees that inbound marketing is her solution… and we will be meeting soon.
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