5 B2B Inbound Marketing Strategies Proven to ROI Again and Again

The Inbound methodology is so effective in B2B marketing because:

• Marketing teams produce content for ideal customer profiles that answers specific questions and problems.
• Inbound marketing draws prospective customers to personalized content with clear, consistent messaging.
• Content aimed at a targeted audience is scalable and shared across various channels to bring qualified leads to your website.

In essence, outbound marketing involves finding your audience; Inbound marketing brings your audience to you.

You can drive action by defining the buyer journey and creating content that attracts, engages, and delights buyers.

I know Inbound works in B2B, because at Lean Labs we work with B2B companies to create buyer’s journey websites and helpful content that attracts and converts qualified leads.

We use a full-funnel approach to drive massive growth for our clients.

These five inbound marketing strategies are proven to attract, engage, and convert leads into delighted customers. Ready to grow?  

1. Optimize Your Website

Think of your website as your first date with your customer. If you want a second date, you better get their attention and show them why you’re worthy of a second date.

We often describe your website as your best salesperson. Can you say that yours is?

High-converting website design is essential. It needs to be visually appealing. But the user experience is more critical.

To convert visitors into leads and drive revenue, you need a website that’s easy to navigate with clearly defined next steps. If you want customers to engage, show them how.

Instead of being emotional buyers like most B2C customers, B2B buyers are logical. They want to know how you can help their business grow and drive ROI.

And they want to know as soon as they hit your homepage.

Related: 11 Creative Website Menu Design Examples You Need to Copy

Website optimization involves:

• Defining a unique value proposition (UVP) that conveys what you have to offer. How will your customers succeed with your product? What’s the result they’ll get?
• An excellent headline and UVP combined with a compelling call to action (CTA) can convert some customers before they even navigate the rest of your website.
• Selling the call, not the product. Your customer doesn’t care about the features of your product; they care about moving their business forward. How can you make the call valuable to them, even if they ultimately don’t choose to work with you?

A better user experience and intuitive flow reinforce positive perceptions of your brand and builds trust.

Your customers will thank you for making their journey easy. Also, if visitors to your site find what they need, they’ll keep coming back.

You build authority and credibility, so your customers will spend more time on your site and take in your message.

Example 

2. Leverage SEO

In essence, SEO involves three aspects:

1. Optimizing your website.
2. Creating content based on common phrases your ICP uses (keywords and longtail keywords).
3. Acquiring backlinks from other reputable websites.

These aspects make up your SEO strategy and lead to higher domain authority, a better search engine results page (SERPS) ranking and more customers to your website.

Done correctly, when users type in their questions or keywords, Google shows your website instead of your competitors.

You must know what your ICP is searching for and their intent. For example, we know our customers are searching for go-to-market strategies for their startup companies.

Using the keyword “go-to-market strategy for startups,” we can create articles that speak to our customers. Simply using “go-to-market strategy” isn’t focused enough.

Now, you have to be careful not to ‘stuff’ your articles with keywords to try and get to the top of SERPs. It’s frowned upon and isn’t actually helpful to your customers.

Google recently released its ‘helpful content update’ to ensure people see more original and valuable content written by real people and for real users.

Example

3. Create and Promote Evergreen Content

A content marketing strategy involves:

• Finding your target audience that will value your product or service and use the buyer journey and SEO to produce content for them.
• Set clear conversion goals and select the right channels to distribute your content.
• Distribute and promote your content, and continually evaluate, analyze, and optimize to ensure your content is attracting the right audience and driving conversions.

Evergreen content is content that’s continually relevant to your audience and ranks consistently high on SERPS because people search for similar problems over and over again.

Generally, if your content is helpful and valuable, it will remain beneficial and practical for years.

Which is why you should promote evergreen content. Distribute on the right channels, but if you know you have a handy piece of content, find ways to redistribute or repurpose it.

Don’t just post a link on your social platforms! For example, a blog post can be turned into a video, a podcast episode, or a social media series.

Pro tip: Use our handy guide, The Repurposing Toolkit, to turn one piece of content into a bunch of pieces of content.

Example

This brand strategy article still performs well for us and will always be helpful to brands looking to create or update their brand strategy.

4. Get Social

If you’re wondering if social media should be part of your B2B Inbound strategy, wonder no more: 75% of B2B buyers and 84% of C-Suite executives use social media when purchasing.

That’s a lot of people you need to get in front of. Social media is an excellent way to build brand awareness and humanize your business.

When you post on social media, you give people an insight into your daily life. 

You might post a video update of your website design process. You could record a tour of your office and get your employees on camera.

You can also experiment with video to entertain and educate your audience. Social media platforms are a great place to capture attention.

Platforms like Facebook appreciate helpful and entertaining content because it keeps people engaged and on Facebook. 

Pro tip: You can also add short videos covering the main points of blog posts for people who don’t like to read long passages of text.

It’s a great way to show your authority as a thought leader in your space. Users like brands with solid opinions that align with their own worldview. Twitter is great for getting thoughts out in the open.

And, of course, Linkedin is an excellent platform for B2B businesses to post tips, ask questions that engage other business leaders, and post professional stories relevant to your target audience.

Example

Lean Labs CEO Chris Dubois regularly posts on Linkedin to share inspiration, nuggets of information, and ways B2B teams can level up.

5. Create Case Studies

B2B buyers are logical. They need to know that you can help them. If you can show them how you’ve helped people in a similar situation, do you think that would help your cause?

Put it this way, no one believes you when you say you’re awesome, but when other people (who look like them) say that you’re awesome, they’ll pay attention.

B2B buyers need to know that your product says what it says it does. If you ask clients the right questions, you can knock down any objections potential customers have with a case study.

Related: 7-Step vs. 5-Step Sales Process: A Look at the Pros and Cons

You need to ensure that your case study comes across as authentic. It should tell a story, not be stuffed with statistics or showing off.

Tell your customer’s story, starting with a problem and solving that problem using your product or service.

Case studies are another form of content that you can repurpose. You can turn a written case study into a video, pull quotes for Twitter, and share snippets on social media platforms.

I think I’ve made my case. Sorry, I’m a dad.

Don’t forget to gently nudge your prospective customers to the next step in your sales funnel. They’ve just seen someone like them having success with your product.

Include a large, clear, and compelling CTA to direct them to the next step.

Example

Lean Labs is proud to work with many SaaS and Tech brands, and the proof is in the pudding!

B2B Inbound Marketing is an Investment Worth Making

The strategies in this article are proven to ROI. Evergreen content continually drives traffic. Social media platforms can generate demand for your services.

Case studies remove friction in the buyer journey. And your website is your best salesperson.

Are these strategies part of the long game? Yes. But most B2B sales cycles are long. And you never know when a customer will come across your content or at which stage in the buyer journey they’re on.

Paid ads only drive conversions when they’re switched on.

You don’t have to do this alone. If these strategies seem daunting and you don’t know where to start, we can help.

We use the Inbound methodology to create stunning websites that convert, create full-funnel buyer journeys, and deliver massive success for our clients.

If you want to see exactly how we work, check out our free resource, The Growth Playbook.