Without a doubt, the B2B inbound marketing landscape has dramatically changed over the past decade. Heightened digitalization has empowered business buyers to self-educate and team up with industry peers before speaking to a salesperson.
This incredible shift has put pressure on B2B marketers to draw in potential prospects rather than pushing the brand onto them.
With inbound marketing, it is possible. It is focused on expanding the lead pool and generates demand for a company’s product or service.
According to stats, B2B business generates three times higher leads with inbound marketing than old school marketing tactics.
While many inbound marketers watch pay per click (PPC) trends to boost growth, I have come up some fresh inbound marketing hacks for B2B marketers.
Six inbound marketing techniques to include in your B2B marketing plan 2020
Here are six sensational inbound marketing hacks that can change the game for your B2B marketing plan.
1. Build an inbound-ready website
Your website tells a story about you. If your potential clients don’t find your website attractive, chances are they aren’t going to deal with you further.
An inbound-ready website is developed, designed, and crafted in such a manner that it harnesses the advantages of inbound marketing strategy.
What do I need to do to make my website inbound-ready?
a) Easy navigation
Did you know visitors can leave a website within 15 seconds?
If your website is easy to use, then visitors will stay on your site for longer.
b) Make it mobile optimized
An inbound-ready website is the one which isn’t hard to read on a smartphone. People can scroll through the website without disruptions.
Plus, Google gives a good score to mobile-friendly websites.
c) Content
- Can your audience find answers about their questions?
- If you were a buyer, what would you look in a site that would lead you to make a purchase?
The content you put on your site must be helpful and educational. If your site is not addressing the issues of your target audience, then it is not helpful at all.
Finish it by adopting good SEO practices such as optimizing titles, copy, and URL.
2. Using bots for engagement
While every stat claim that 97% of B2B leads came from LinkedIn, a sharp B2B marketer would not hesitate from adding more channels in his lead generation strategy.
The emergence of AI-enabled chatbots presents a handful of new opportunities for B2B industries. Bots are making social media more relevant for B2B marketing. But you might think Facebook isn’t a place for B2B connections.
According to the following image, B2B professionals use Facebook more than other channels.
This totally makes sense because, at the end of the day, the people in the c-suite are just like us. Considering this reality, it is important for B2B marketers to understand that Facebook bots can help build conversations and accelerate the sales process.
There are five ways chatbots can change the B2B marketing game:
- Increased responsiveness: Ensure that expertise is readily available for professionals whenever they need the most so that they can make decisions quicker.
- Cost-saving: 80% of businesses want chatbots because it can save help them save $23 billion in customer support and $15 billion in sales representatives (Business Insider Intelligence).
- High engagement: Human-like interaction increase involvement, buyer journey, and satisfaction.
4. Collaborating with influencers
Influencer marketing is the digital version of word-of-mouth.
Using influencers to promote your brand is the hottest trend in the B2B inbounds marketing strategy that yields guaranteed results.
In the B2B context, influencers are individuals or key leaders that you can trust. They articulate your brand message to a larger mass market and inspire them to take action.
You need to find a thought leader within the B2B community who already speaks to your ideal market. You can also invite an industry expert to write a blog for you, host a joint webinar session, or interview an influencer for your live streaming.
Start off your list with these B2B blogging ideas:
- Most significant industry trends (e.g. car repair, banking, high-tech etc.)
- Five frequently asked questions about ___
- New predictions for your industry
- Tips to improve the business process
- Historical events that changed the industry
5. Deliver value through epic blogs
Do you know that B2B blogging can support you in converting traffic into high-quality leads?
In fact, blog content creation is the top inbound marketing priority of 55% of marketers.
According to HubSpot, companies that blog as part of the content strategy is likely to generate 67% more leads than those who do not. Approximately 59% of B2B marketers consider blogging as the most cherished marketing channel.
A B2B blog matters for the following reasons:
- You give buyers more reasons to visit your site. A study involving 4000 businesses confirm that companies that blog 20 times/month receive five times more website traffic.
- Technical and long-form educational content related helps build industry authority.
- It allows you to share information about products/services and whatever you have to offer. Create contain considering their pain points.
- If you are a new company, blogging will help you build awareness and enhance exposure and visibility among your targeted business audience.
Add social sharing buttons so that readers can share your content within their networks.
6. B2B email marketing
Incorporating an inbound marketing strategy to your email campaign is a good idea.
According to findings, 72% B2B buyers use email to share valuable content with their audience. In fact, it is the top communication tool for B2B sector.
The first and foremost step is to attract subscribers. According to Crowd Writer UK, to increase open email rates you need to create catchy and personalized subject lines (e.g. adding the name of the person), and use fear of missing out (FOMO) technique.
In the above-mentioned email example, the software company Buffer is offering a discount of 15% on the bill and add a call-to-action (CTA) and put the link on it.
Putting it all together
In B2B scenario, inbound marketing is a robust strategy to drive reliable business growth. The key to success is to gain in-depth knowledge about your target audience and understand their intent. When you know your audience and their unmet needs, approaching and influencing them becomes much easier.
Author bio
Amanda Jerelyn is currently working as Blogger at Dissertation Assistance, the best platform to secure dissertation writing services at genuinely low prices. She has built a global audience and is known for assisting start-ups with her valuable business knowledge and opinions. She’s highly responsive over her social media.