Yes, that includes everything from TV ads and billboards, to radio ads and digital ads on the internet and social media. That's certainly a LOT of competition for your prospects' attention.
It's enough to make you ask yourself, " How can I reach the people I need to talk to? " and " What could I say to get them to buy from me? "
This is where it becomes relevant to find new, more effective strategies to attract, engage and delight your customers. And this is exactly why brands are increasingly adopting Inbound marketing.
Find in this guide everything you need to know about inbound marketing and why you need it in your B2B business.
Table of Contents
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound Marketing vs. Marketing Tradicional
Stages of Inbound Methodology
Attract
convert
Close
Delight
Importance of B2B Inbound Marketing
Inbound Techniques
Content Marketing
Email Marketing
Automated Marketing for B2B Companies
What is Inbound Marketing?
Since HubSpot first coined the term in 2006, inbound marketing has only grown in popularity—and results.
Inbound marketing is a marketing methodology based on attracting customers with useful, relevant content and adding value at each stage that the prospect goes through towards the final purchase.
Instead of wasting valuable time and money on traditional techniques (billboards, interruptive advertising, cold calling), the goal of inbound marketing is to attract potential customers at the right time by providing content aimed at solving the problems they face at that particular moment. This includes: how-to guides, advice blogs, case studies… among others.
What is Inbound Marketing?
This way, when it comes time to make a purchase, they already have a relationship with you so they are more likely to complete the purchase.
With this methodology, you not only save costs and improve long-term return on investment (ROI), but you also help build trust, credibility and loyal relationships with your customers.
Buyer personas, also known as marketing profiles, are the answer to finding your customers, as they allow you to get to know them in depth and thus offer them content based on their interests and needs at each stage of the journey until they make a purchase.
There is no doubt that this new marketing approach is generating greater results than traditional marketing . Here are just a few statistics on the advantages that Inbound marketing provides:
Increase marketing qualified leads (MQLs): multiply them by 7.3 in one year and by 9.8 in two years.
Increases leads : multiplies them by 3.8 in one year and by 14.7 in two years.
Increases the number of visits to the website: it multiplies them by 4.7 in the first year and by 24.3 in two years.
Inbound Marketing vs. Marketing Tradicional
Gone are the days of commercials popping up in the middle of your favorite TV show or cold calling in the middle of your dinner. Customers now decide for themselves what to buy, who to buy from, and whether they want to be advertised to or not.
Inbound recognizes this shift. It recognizes that to earn hospitals email list your buyer’s trust and the right to engage in a conversation about what you offer, you’ll have to play by their rules.
Playing by their rules means letting them do their own online research, not interrupting them with ads or calls. And it means helping them make good decisions, adding value to their research, and not selling to them at every opportunity.
It is about offering value in a non-intrusive way, unlike traditional advertising, so consumers do not feel that the goal is to get sales. With inbound techniques, your customers come to you and with traditional ones, you are the one who must find them.
The statistics prove it:
Inbound marketing has three times the return on investment of outbound marketing.
Inbound marketing is actually 61% less expensive per lead than outbound marketing.
Organic leads you receive from content searches are 8 times more likely to close than those from traditional sources.
Stages of Inbound Methodology
As your buyer navigates their purchasing journey, they need information to help them along their journey. The type and content of information they seek changes as they move toward making a purchase, as does their willingness to share contact details and interact with potential suppliers.
The Inbound methodology , developed by HubSpot, maps your digital marketing to the stages of the purchasing process in a way that helps you:
2. Inbound Methodology Stages
Attract
B2B Inbound Marketing strategies begin by attracting the target audience to generate website traffic with relevant and specific content.
The idea is not to attract just any user to your website, but to focus on attracting those who are most likely to become sales leads and, ultimately, satisfied customers. You can use content in the form of blogs, ebooks, videos, social media, keywords, and more.
convert
What do you do with visitors who are interested in your brand or content?
You encourage them to find out more.
To do this, you need to start a conversation in a way that works best for them, such as through messages, forms, or meetings. This means getting your hands on their contact information so you can engage with them and show them why they should do business with you.
Close
To close the right kind of clients, it is essential that your marketing and sales teams are aligned. Once you have your database, marketing will focus on creating an automated content flow adapted to the Inbound Marketing purchase cycle ; related to lead scoring, which determines the right moment to convert a client.
Delight
Once you have acquired clients, it is necessary to retain them, since this way you will turn your clients into your greatest promoters.
We recommend personalizing content to your customers’ specific interests and engaging them through social media and email campaigns. This keeps them informed, interested, and engaged.
This was just a brief look at the Inbound methodology. If you want to learn more, check out this video where Hubspot co-founders Brian Halligan & Dharmesh Shah explain the topic in depth.
