11 ESSENTIAL B2B INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGY TACTICS

It’s important to understand, however, that results won’t come overnight. At a rate of one blog article per week (it’s what we generally recommend), it can take anywhere from 6–12 months before companies see major traffic growth. Google rewards consistency, so with a dedicated publishing schedule of at least one article per week, you can expect to see exponential website traffic growth after around 25-55 articles, followed by steady growth as you continue to publish with consistency.

Keep in mind, we’ve seen some companies experience amazing growth faster than this while others have taken a bit longer. It’s important to be realistic with expectations and understand that there are numerous factors at play like industry type, keyword competition, and shifting algorithms.

2. Advanced Content Creation

Advanced content offers not only generate new contacts but can also guide existing contacts and draw them deeper into your sales funnel. Advanced content comes in many forms, but some of the most common types include eBooks, tip sheets, whitepapers, infographics, how-to guides, and interactive calculators. 

These content marketing offers typically take a deeper dive into topics than blog articles, or provide the next logical step for the visitor to take in their buyer’s journey. They’re ideal for promotion at the end of blog articles as a call-to-action (CTA).

We strongly recommend that our clients produce one landing page with a new advanced content piece each month, especially in the early stages of an inbound program, as it is an outstanding tool for capturing leads (turning unknown visitors into known contacts) and demonstrating expertise on topics you know your prospects are interested in.

3. Video Content

4. Content Distribution and Promotion

So, you set your strategy and developed all this great content — now what do you do with it? For starters, following a few best practices can help ensure that your hard work on content creation is rewarded:

• Understand who your audience is
• Discover where they’re finding and sharing content
• Learn what types of content they find valuable and shareable
• Explore creative topic discovery and capture attention with eye-catching content
• Build and maintain relationships over the long term
• Participate in conversations and be part of your industry community
• Remember to write like a human, for humans

Distribution: Obviously, you want to foster a dedicated following of subscribers to your own blog, but if readers find their valuable content elsewhere, consider guest blogging on other sites to gain exposure and authority in your industry.

Your sales team is another great distribution channel for your content. If you maintain a content portfolio for each stage of the buyer’s journey, your sales reps can easily choose and distribute helpful, relevant content directly to their prospects in the context of their conversations.

Promotion: This requires a full team approach. It’s not just sharing content offers via social media posts with easy click-throughs on your company page. All of your team members should be sharing your content on the platforms your prospects use most often. 

What good are high-quality blog articles if they’re never seen? While quality content will certainly be rewarded over time by Google in organic search, it’s important for companies and their employees to promote blog articles on social media immediately. 

With automation in place, companies often find their sales teams become more successful and satisfied, as they can connect from the outset with warmer leads who have already been nurtured with relevant content.

Use of marketing automation is expected to increase, and businesses can emulate tactics deployed by the most successful market leaders to achieve similar success. Automation essentially replaces the cold call with contextual marketing, serving as a win-win for prospects and your sales team.

7. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

For example, if you’re an original equipment manufacturer that understands prospects are struggling with the cost of your equipment versus alternatives, writing an article on “5 Reasons Why The Cost of X is So High” will provide honest answers and explain the value of your product to prospects while also targeting keywords (cost of X) that are likely to attract volume in your industry.

While there are many other factors that influence SEO, including website user experience (e.g., mobile-first design and website security), it all starts with finding the best keywords based on your potential buyers and creating highly targeted content around them.

8. Growth Driven Design (GDD) Approach for Your Website

One significant benefit our clients experience when they implement a GDD approach to their website is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). By analyzing user behavior and data on forms pages and making design changes to improve user experience, we’ve achieved lower form abandonment rates and better data collection.

9. Implement a Voice-of-the-Customer (VOC) Program

Now that you’ve leveraged your helpful, contextual content to nurture prospects through the flywheel and convert them into customers, your entire team should focus on delighting those customers — as they can be sources of the most powerful content: testimonials. Implementing a VOC program allows you to gather the stories of how your prospects became customers, learn where you can improve as a business, and leverage that great experience into content.

Either way, the insight you gain through your VOC program is for much more than marketing content — it’s about business growth opportunities. You’ll learn about the areas where you excel and where you can improve. You can identify gaps in your service delivery or potential new product ideas. Just as important, you’ll make it clear to your customers that you value their feedback just as much as they value your expertise. 

A well-defined VOC program helps continue to align your marketing and sales, improve existing processes, and delight both prospects and customers.

10. Sales Enablement

This is yet another reason we love using HubSpot Sales and CRM software. It’s loaded with easy-to-use tools, like the Documents tool, which keeps an up-to-date library of content pieces organized and at your fingertips. Email Templates save vast amounts of time, Sequences help streamline communication with leads, and Snippets simplify response efforts. The Meetings tool syncs with calendars to make it easy for prospects to book face-to-face time. Our favorite HubSpot features help our clients’ sales teams do their best work.

LEARN MORE in our Guide to Inbound Sales Enablement for Industrial Manufacturers 

11. Paid Media

Some might be surprised to see paid media listed as an inbound tactic because it’s often considered an “outbound” marketing approach. While technically not an inbound strategy, we see it as serving an essential supporting role in most marketing plans.

Paid digital ads, like those seen on Google or various social platforms, are a great way to boost your marketing content and see quicker conversions. Ideal applications might include:

• Promotion of new inbound content with intensely competitive keywords
• Expansions into new markets to create brand awareness
• The need to target a niche precision audience
• The launching of a new product, service, or brand
• Recruiting campaigns
• Promotions of your event or an exhibit at industry events
• And more

Deploying paid media ads when it makes sense can help you stand out in highly competitive SERP and augment your inbound marketing efforts considerably. 

So Where do I Start?

By now, you’ve seen the value of each of these inbound marketing tactics and how each component of your inbound program interconnects and depends upon the rest for success. Your inbound program is going to evolve and change over time, so it’s essential to commit to not only your inbound strategy, but also to measuring and evaluating your program’s effectiveness to adapt tactics when needed. 

Ready to leverage the power of inbound marketing? Read our Step-By-Step Guide to Inbound Marketing get started!