Inbound marketing, content marketing, and inbound lead generation are being bandied about on blogs and in social media as the must use tactic for B2B firms. At VA Partners, we are big believers in the power of inbound marketing. One of our clients experienced a 300% increase in website traffic and leads after a very focused outsourced inbound marketing campaign. As you start to explore its use as a tactic for your organization, here are some things to consider when developing a B2B inbound marketing strategy.

You Need to Define Your Target

The worst thing we hear when talking to growing B2B organizations is that they could sell their solution to anyone. We find that the best marketing and sales initiatives target a vertical or a horizontal market. This makes it easier to understand the nuances in that space and what their business drivers are. Those organizations will also recognize the names of clients as you start to close them. That makes it easier to sell or market to the next target.

You Need to Understand How They Make Decisions

The key to a successful inbound marketing strategy is understanding how your target prospects make decisions and what questions they ask along the way. Your goal is to then create content that helps them with those questions or problems with informative and useful content. This can be used as a way to keep top of mind, reinforce subject matter expertise, support nurturing campaigns and help your organization get found by brand new prospects. This could mean that people are coming into your site from social shares, referring sites, or by your rankings within search engines.

One Size Does Not Fit All

There is no one size fits all for your inbound marketing campaign. There are best practices for inbound marketing campaigns, but not one solution for every B2B organization. The biggest variation would of course be in the content you create, but it can also affect things like your social channels to how often an email newsletter is sent. The great thing about digital is that you can try small tweaks as you evolve your strategy and tactics. You can see what is working and what is working even better. There will also be new tools and changes to how people use the tools. They key is to understand how your prospects like to receive the information they need to make decisions.

Outbound Sales is Still a Viable Option

I am always amazed to see articles and posts on the end of sales by inbound marketing. A great inbound effort is a great way to support your outbound sales efforts as well. A great way to see the importance of sales is to sign-up for a downloadable asset from a marketing automation company. You will be amazed how large a roll their sales team plays to help get you across the finish line. This is especially true for larger ticket items.

Inbound Marketing is Not a Quick Fix

I met with a prospect recently that talked about how they would drive a large amount of inbound leads immediately after starting their plan. Inbound marketing is like growing a garden. You need time and to do all the right things to get a great harvest. That will usually take place several months down the road. You need to be prepared for the long haul.

You Need to Have a Plan and be Consistent

Inbound marketing is not just creating a strategy and a few blogs and then wait and see what happens. It takes consistent effort to have success with inbound marketing. We have found that creating a digital marketing calendar based on expectations around frequencies is the best strategy. The most challenging aspect is usually keeping on schedule for the blog writing. Don’t be afraid to have various people within your organizations writing blogs and creating content.

Do you need help with the strategy and the execution? Creating and even executing consistently on an inbound marketing plan is not an easy task. You may decide that you need some outside help to get started or to make sure that you can keep the effort going. This cost and effort should be considered as you create your plan.

If you are interested to better understand inbound marketing and how it can help your sales and marketing efforts, download our white paper. It is a great free resource with lots of detail. If you do need help with your sales and marketing efforts please reach-out to me, Mark Elliott.