A Successful Shift from an Outbound to an Inbound Marketing Strategy at NAWSP

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There’s a powerful analogy used to describe the difference between an outbound and an inbound marketing strategy: an outbound strategy is like chasing or hunting for leads, while an inbound strategy is like attracting or luring leads to you.

And although both marketing strategies have their merits and their limitations, my guest in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast, found great success for her organization when she shifted from an outbound to an inbound marketing strategy.

Cynthia Barnes, Founder and CEO of National Association Women Sales Professionals (NAWSP) is a repeat guest here on my podcast. Cynthia is a LinkedIn Top Sales Influencer, highly sought-after keynote speaker, and Champion for Women in Sales, known for motivating others to feel confident, empowered, and brave. She founded the National Association of Women Sales Professionals (NAWSP) with one simple mission: to help women in sales reach the Top 1% and end gender inequality in sales.

Women from around the globe have joined together to create a community of 15,000+ women in sales who band together for the support and professional development that only other women can provide. They want to level the playing field. They want to have conversations otherwise considered taboo and who want to hold leaders accountable and ask the hard questions.

Listen to this episode to learn how Cynthia was able to grow NAWSP’s membership to more than 15,000 with a simple but well-thought of inbound marketing strategy.

The story of NAWSP

Cynthia recalls how a Facebook meme inspired her to start NAWSP. The meme said: “The true test of whether you are successful in life is not based on how well you do. It’s based on how many others you helped do well.”

She realized she had been in the top 1% for many years and wondered how many women she could help reach that top 1% in sales. Women in sales have unique challenges that men don’t have, but also have innate strengths that they can tap into to get to that top 1% faster.

Cynthia explains that women are often held back by the imposter syndrome or their inner critic and don’t know how to express themselves in the right way. NAWSP teaches women how to tap into their strengths such as relationship building and time management to overcome those challenges.

And because 89% of sales leaders are male, when a woman wants to reach the top 1%, it benefits her to have a male sponsor. So, NAWSP has men who serve as allies, sponsors and mentors who help women in sales ascend the corporate ladder in their organizations.

NAWSP’s Inbound Marketing Strategy

At launch in 2016, NAWSP didn’t have a defined marketing strategy. In Cynthia’s words, it was a “cluster and haphazard at best,” doing Meet-ups and LinkedIn groups. But when they  started identifying the demographics and psychographics of their ideal member, things began to change. 

There’s a marketing formula that NAWSP began to apply: M x M = R. That is:

Message X Media = Result

• The first M is the message. What do you say to your target market to get them to stop scrolling?
• The second M is the media. Where do you put your message once it’s fine-tuned? Social media, radio, billboards?
• Result. In 2016, NAWSP didn’t have a clearly defined message nor a media platform to place that message, so their results were terrible.

Once they identified how their ideal member thinks, her goals, her values, and her objections to the sale, they were able to create the right marketing message and found she was most likely to engage with them on LinkedIn and their results skyrocketed.

In the early days, the focus was an outbound strategy, chasing potential members. But then they shifted their focus to attract members to what they had to offer.