What Does B2B Mean?
Investopedia defines B2B, or Business-to-Business, as transactions between companies, such as those between a manufacturer and a wholesaler or a wholesaler and a retailer. To word it differently, B2B transactions take place between corporations instead of between a company and a buyer. This gave birth to B2B inbound marketing. Now that you know what B2B means, you know that in order to carry out transactions between businesses isn’t as simple as transactions between business and customers. Why so? Because businesses have a more complex nature and so a complex purchasing decision. Add to that, there is not one person taking the decision which makes it more difficult for business to convince the different decision makers.
Discover best practices for B2B companies in our guide on B2B Inbound Marketing Best Practices.
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is a highly effective method of marketing. Inbound marketing agencies help their clients gain more exposure and also guide them through the processes of the marketing or sales funnel. The marketing funnel comprises 4 stages, being attract, engage, close, and delight.
Inbound marketing is a strategy of attracting your key demographic by leading them through the entire sales process, beginning with their first interaction with the company and ending with them becoming customers. The most important aspect of the inbound marketing strategy is the adoption of non-invasive approaches.
Inbound marketing entails the client contacting the firm instead of the company interfering with the client’s daily life with intense marketing attempts. Therefore, an inbound strategy involves:
- Content creation* and content marketing
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Social media marketing
- Welcome offers
- Post-purchase follow-up
* Creating specific content that caters for the different phases of the buyer’s journey is an indispensable pillar on which inbound marketing strategies focus. A LinkedIn article says that the percentage of B2B buyers who read blogs throughout the purchasing process is 71%, with the plurality reading each article for 5 minutes or more. This is amazing given the rising number of content formats competing for customers’ attention.
What is an Inbound Marketing Agency?
An inbound marketing agency liaises with clients, whether B2B or B2C (Business-to-Consumer), to harmonize the clients’ goals, audiences, social media platforms, and practices using the inbound marketing methodology. There are many elements that go into an inbound marketing strategy, and this is why working with an inbound marketing agency can be really useful.
An inbound marketing agency delivers digital marketing assistance based on the inbound approach to assist clients in engaging today’s leads and nurturing them enough to convert them to clients — and even retain them, which means that they are likely to become loyal customers.
Inbound marketing agencies’ inbound marketing methodologies emphasize the value of content production in attracting consumers and moving them along the sales funnel. Inbound marketing is essentially the process of developing consumer connections through pertinent social media postings, email marketing, or friendly and engaging adverts accompanied by an attractive call-to-action (CTA).
What is B2B Inbound Marketing?
Business owners, very much like “regular people,” have become very well versed in dismissing advertisements and other businesses that they aren’t particularly interested in. Predictably, the ROI from all of these traditional marketing methods, such as cold calls or intrusive ads, has been rapidly declining when employed as lead drivers.
Here’s where B2B inbound marketing walks in and inbound marketing agencies shine.
B2B inbound marketing is based on advancing your company’s lead-generation approach while also establishing a quantifiable, cost-effective, and competitive marketing campaign. B2B inbound marketing is the practice of unifying your digital marketing endeavors with the buyer’s decision-making system, also known as the buyer’s journey.
The goal is to showcase your company’s knowledge to them at the right time and place to gain their trust instead of driving them away, and to assist the proper B2B leads in becoming your customers.
B2B Inbound Marketing Strategy
Now that we’ve covered the basics of B2B inbound marketing, it’s time to get into the details and show you how we, a B2B inbound marketing agency, deliver a thorough, all-encompassing inbound strategy.
As an inbound marketing agency, we’ve gotten our hands dirty to come up with a clean and effective inbound marketing strategy that would make your brand sparkle like a diamond in the rough. Here is our tried-and-true B2B inbound strategy and how it can help your company increase its influence organically and in a non-disruptive way:
Phase 1: Discover
The first of the 3 phases that our inbound methodology follows is all about finding out who your competitors are, how they work, who your target audience should be, and what SEO strategies to apply.
- Competitor analysis
The first step in the first phase is analyzing how your top competitors are doing. This is accomplished by extensive market research to determine what their strengths and weaknesses are compared to yours. The ultimate goal is figuring out what content to develop for your brand – your website, social media platforms, and emails – to make you stand out and become a better choice for businesses to interact with you.
- Buyer personas
At this point, your company has verified that inbound marketing pays off since it attracts B2B clients. As a B2B inbound marketing agency, we think that the key to winning your targets’ attention is to identify what they’re looking for, when they’re looking for it, and where they’re inclined to go for a solution.
In other words, by classifying them, we create a representation of your perfect client, which would dramatically increase the chances of them reaching your landing pages and interacting with your brand. This is because by knowing what their pain points are and determining what keywords to use, i.e. what they search for to reach their desired result, we will be able to properly target and segment them.
- Keyword analysis
The primary goal of keyword research is to obtain a better understanding of your audience, including their online searching habits, which themes most appeal to them, and which brands they interact with. Keyword research should shape your website structure, URL branding, and landing pages.
By studying and identifying the most suitable target keywords, you establish the likelihood of ranking well in search engines for that given topic. Strong search engine results generate visitors to your website, allowing you to market your products/services digitally.
Phase 2: Design
The second of our 3 inbound marketing strategy phases focuses on strengthening your brand identity and overall vibe you give out. Businesses looking for B2B connections today can get overwhelmed by the sheer number of product or service providers that exist.
However, not all of them have websites that are appealing and not all of them know how to market themselves well. This is why our inbound marketing agency focuses on the following:
- Brand identity
A brand identity is a schematic illustration of your company’s ideals and “personality.” Identity design basically determines your brand’s tone and may be utilized to provoke a variety of emotions in your target audience. A great brand identity conveys the uniqueness of your firm and impacts your clients’ opinions on who you are.
It portrays your clients’ expectations and promises in terms of quality, service, reliability, and trustworthiness, and it creates trust and loyalty from businesses that do business with you. In this stage, our inbound marketing agency creates brand guidelines to help you set the proper tone and achieve the goal of this step.
- Website
The second part of the second phase consists of many aspects; first, we settle on the sitemap, which includes the agreed-upon modifications, a wireframe, and a website planning sheet.
This stage also contains a document on homepage layout and a resources folder, which will be separated into unpublished material, published content, and graphics (pictures, videos, and so on).
You might be thinking, “but our business already has a website.” Our marketing agency works on improving and enhancing what you already have to add pizzazz to your existing website.
- Social media
This also means that we would optimize your social media platforms if you already are on social media. Our inbound marketing agency would work on different platforms’ brand bios, dimensions, and main visuals (headers / profile pictures) that correspond with your brand identity.
Learn about the essential components of B2B inbound marketing in this article Essential Components of B2B Inbound Marketing.
Phase 3: Deploy
The third and final phase of our inbound marketing strategy is all about injecting your website and platform with SEO’ed content – whether in the form of landing pages or blog posts (for your website) and different media formats (social media). It’s also about reaching out to your target audience, which is done through a blog strategy, social media posts, and email campaigns.
- Blog strategy
The blog is an invaluable lead generating tool that brings value to your target audience and presents your business as a thought leader. This phase includes creating a blog planning sheet as well as a folder holding the posts to be / published.
- Social media
Social media is an excellent approach to reach your target audience with customized content that resonates with them on the channels that are most appropriate for your company.
- Email marketing
In this section, we will organize comparable prospects into groupings and target them with similar content. Segmentation is vital to increase click-through rates (CTRs), which are a major driver of lead generation and customer conversion.
Why Should a B2B Business Invest in Inbound Marketing?
B2B inbound marketing is at the vanguard of the global economy. Inbound marketing’s mission is to enable businesses’ growth. Creating content that resonates with your prospects’ triggers can enhance your company’s brand recognition and interest.
When done right, inbound marketing will draw more qualified leads to your business, enhance your conversion rates, raise your sales, and show an exponential gain in ROI. Here are 3 reasons why B2B businesses should invest in inbound marketing:
1. Inbound Marketing Works for Different Niches
The best thing about inbound marketing is that its strategies can help businesses of all sizes, types, and industries. No matter in which industry, who your target audience is, or what you offer, inbound marketing agencies work on learning all about your business and its target audience and craft the inbound marketing strategy accordingly.
Here are the top niches where inbound marketing is used:
B2B Inbound Marketing for eCommerce
The spectacular growth of eCommerce in the past few years has heightened the need for B2B enterprises to shift their focus online. In order to create the experiences that clients today expect, B2B organizations must emphasize digital innovation. B2B eCommerce inbound marketing’s primary goal is to boost online traffic, conversion rates, sales revenue, and ROI.
B2B Inbound Marketing for Law Firms
Every business needs connections with law firms, and each law firm needs a solid marketing strategy. For this reason, our inbound marketing agency offers law firms exactly what they need.
Because online contact for legal enterprises has its own set of regulations and standards, legal firms have been reluctant to utilize digital marketing to market themselves. It is important to note that 60% of clients now hunt for legal assistance online, so having a comprehensive law firm inbound marketing strategy is vital, and more law firms are following suit.
B2B Inbound Marketing for SaaS
SaaS companies, or companies specializing in software-as-a-service offerings, have become omnipresent. And plenty. For this reason, inbound marketing agencies need to think of strategies befitting SaaS companies so that other businesses can find the ideal software for them to use. Our inbound marketing agency would thus be the liaison between the SaaS company and the business client.
Read more about SaaS inbound marketing.
If you’re thinking of investing in inbound marketing but haven’t yet made up your mind, check out this article to discover the top 5 reasons why we think that you should make that decision.
2. Inbound Marketing Focuses on Buyer-Persona Development
Inbound marketing focuses on buyer-persona development in order to attract and engage customers throughout their journey. By aligning content and messaging with the needs and interests of specific buyer personas, businesses can create a more personalized and relevant experience that builds trust and loyalty. Guided by buyer personas, businesses also save a lot of money by using marketing strategies that serve their target audience only and not waste money and effort on marketing for evert single person around the world.
With that being said, inbound marketing helps businesses to better understand their customers, allowing them to create targeted campaigns that are more likely to convert. Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of internet marketing that uses search engines to generate leads and sales. SEM is an effective way to generate leads and sales because it allows businesses to target customers who are actively searching for products or services. By knowing their buyer personas then optimizing website content and building backlinks accordingly, businesses can improve their search engine ranking and appear higher in their intended search results.
3. Inbound Marketing Focuses on Content Creation
Content creation is one of the most important aspects of marketing. It allows you to connect with your audience, build relationships, and drive conversions. It is an effective form of internet marketing that uses content to generate leads and sales. Content marketing strategies include creating blog posts, eBooks, infographics, social media posts, and other forms of organic content.
Marketing using content is an effective way to generate leads and sales because it allows businesses to target customers who are interested in their products or services. By creating blog posts, eBooks, infographics, and other forms of content, businesses can provide customers with valuable information that can be used to make purchasing decisions. For example, by building an email list, businesses can create a database of customers who can be contacted, for free, on a regular basis. No need for paid billboards or ads, email newsletters keep customers updated on new products or services in their own inbox which in turn generates leads and sales.
4. Inbound Marketing Focuses on Nurturing Your Clients
Inbound marketing is a more modern, complex marketing technique that focuses on attracting leads to your website, then nurturing them through the sales process by providing them with relevant, targeted content that solves their problems. In other words, using inbound marketing will not bore or annoy your prospects as outbound marketing does. With inbound marketing, the goal is to foster a relationship with your target audience, so you’ll be able to better appeal to them with your marketing campaigns and efforts. This ultimately means that more prospects will be converted into leads, and more leads will be converted into customers.
Inbound marketing treats your target audience and your current customers as parts of your community in which you’re helping them, guiding their decisions, and improving their lives in general. In turn, inbound marketing results in customers that are more satisfied with your product or service and are more likely to become brand advocates.
Final Thoughts
The digital revolution has marked a seismic shift in the way B2Bs undergo their exchanges. In response to technology advancements, the B2B industry has worked hard to expand and adapt in recent years.
B2B inbound marketing is an amazing method of marketing that spontaneously generates more leads and, ultimately, additional paying customers, paving the way for an increased ROI and greater economic growth. A properly executed B2B inbound marketing strategy promotes your company in a way that is organically aligned with what your buyers truly desire. Inbound marketing is also more efficient and cost-effective than outbound marketing, since it’s less reliant on paid advertising and more focused on creating quality content that will attract organic traffic.
Inbound marketing is a holistic approach that includes all aspects of the customer journey, from awareness to conversion to retention. Therefore, as an inbound marketing agency, we specialize in data-driven, effective B2B approaches that prioritize content development, B2B lead acquisition, and sales nurturing to promote business success.
Let’s schedule a call and discuss your business’s inbound marketing needs!
