The Ins and Outs of B2B Inbound Marketing Strategies 

A lot is going on in the world creating obstacles for marketers in 2023. Between an uncertain market, the recession, and the implosion of the tech space, one area that is becoming increasingly important for the health of the marketing industry is B2B inbound marketing. More than 90% of clicks online are due to inbound marketing, and in today's digital age where everyone is vying for a spot in consumers' top-of-mind awareness, companies must create content that is valuable, relevant, and engaging to their target audience. 

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What is B2B Inbound Marketing?

B2B inbound marketing is the strategy of attracting and engaging potential businesses through relevant and helpful content that ultimately (and hopefully) converts them into paying clients. When a business makes relevant and helpful content, it helps build its web presence, leading to an increased relevance in organic search and a higher likelihood that potential clients will stumble upon their business.

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Traditionally, outbound marketing was the predominant way businesses found new clients. This came in the form of emails, ad campaigns, cold calling, and even direct mail. Most businesses learned, however, that going out to find their potential clients was not an efficient way to spend their time. That’s where inbound marketing comes in. Inbound marketing works because it highlights the services businesses offer organically through tactics such as social media, SEO, content marketing, and lead nurturing.

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What marketers saw is that when they increased their web presence, their business grew too. However, it may be more helpful to see inbound marketing in action rather than just have it described.

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Examples of B2B Inbound Marketing

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Marketwake

The key to B2B inbound marketing is that it must attract businesses. Icon Source approached Marketwake to help grow its market share in the NIL game. For Marketwake, they knew that for brands to discover Icon Source they would have to revitalize their web presence, shooting them into the stratosphere of organic search. Marketwake ran in head first, building Icon Source’s content, SEO, and social media strategy, while also redesigning its entire website. With these changes implemented, Icon Source saw an 865% increase in organic users, a 380% increase in traffic, and a 579% increase in overall users to the website. That’s B2B inbound marketing done right.

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Hubspot

HubSpot is a leading marketing software company that uses a variety of B2B inbound marketing strategies to generate new client leads. They use a combination of SEO, content marketing, and lead nurturing to attract visitors to their website, and they also have a great blog with a lot of helpful information on B2B inbound marketing that provides valuable educational resources to their target audience. While Hubspot sells software-as-a-service (SaaS), they live by the strategies they sell too, making their website a behemoth of organic and inbound marketing.

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Salesforce

Like Hubspot, Salesforce is a SaaS company that uses B2B inbound marketing strategies to attract potential clients to their software naturally. For example, if you were to search for how do I enhance my account-based marketing strategy on Google, one of the first links to pop up would be Salesforce’s account-based marketing 101 guide. What they do particularly well in their content is show how their service can be used to solve the problem that they are addressing, like the one shown in their inbound marketing guide. The takeaway: Salesforce makes it a point to reiterate in their B2B inbound marketing content that their service is the best and easiest option to solve whatever customer relationship management problems a business is facing.

Now that you’ve seen some examples, here are some ways to implement B2B inbound marketing efforts into your marketing strategy in the future.

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Strategies for B2B Inbound Marketing

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Know Your Audience

A key factor in setting a successful B2B inbound marketing strategy is understanding your audience. Here’s what Marketwake Account Manager Veronica Burton had to say about the importance of audience knowledge:

The best way to know your audience? Develop a buyer persona or a representation of your audience based on demographic and psychographic data and research. Building this persona not only helps you understand what tactics to use when targeting this audience, but it should also help you specify your messaging and tone of voice too.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Another integral strategy for B2B inbound marketing is search engine optimization or SEO. Always wonder how things appear higher up on a Google search than others? That’s SEO. The way you optimize your website to achieve a high ranking is by giving it strength with internal links, external links, and keywords that Google deems as important. According to Bright Edge, 52.7% of B2B marketing revenue comes from organic search. 53% of that is solely from SEO. Although it is a lot to learn, it is not an insurmountable task. For more help, check out our guide on SEO for dummies.

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Content Marketing

Content marketing is the strategy of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content (such as blog posts, ebooks, whitepapers, videos, webinars, case studies, etc.) to attract and engage a clearly defined audience. This strategy is important not only because it bolsters your web presence, but also helps your potential clients learn more about your business and what you stand for. Some things to ask yourself before you begin developing a content marketing strategy: what’s your story, what do you want to be known for, and what does the data show about how your previous content is performing? For more info, here is our guide on how to create killer content.

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Lead Nurturing

One other strategy for B2B inbound marketing is lead nurturing. This involves building relationships with potential clients through personalized communication such as email campaigns and retargeting ads. This also helps to keep your business top-of-mind as the potential client moves through the buying journey, and increases the likelihood of converting them to your business.

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Final Remarks on B2B Inbound Marketing

Of course, every strategy you implement will slowly build your web presence, as long as you’re not putting all of your eggs into one digital marketing basket. Marketwake Senior Digital Strategist Sammy Akoubian says:

B2B inbound marketing is a complex and ever-evolving field that requires constant attention and adaptation to stay ahead of the competition. Need help? Let the team at Marketwake be your guide! We have the expertise and experience to help you navigate this landscape and achieve your business's seemingly unreachable marketing goals.

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FAQs

What are examples of inbound marketing?

Some examples of inbound marketing include social media, content marketing, SEO, and lead nurturing.

What is the difference between outbound and inbound marketing for B2B?

Outbound marketing is the practice of actively reaching out to potential clients through advertising, cold-calling, email blasts, and other forms of promotion. Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is the practice of creating content, optimizing it for search engines, and making it easily shareable to attract clients to your business naturally.

What is a B2B marketing strategy?

A B2B marketing strategy is a business plan of action that intends to market to other businesses rather than consumers.

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