B2B Inbound Marketing Checklist to Grow Your Business

Adapting to the Modern Buyer Journey

When it comes to inbound marketing, understanding who your target customers are, who the key decision makers are, and their business goals and challenges relevant to your product or service is the foundation upon which your entire inbound marketing effort is built upon.

With the continuous evolution of technology comes changes. Advertising and promotions are no longer enough. Today’s buyers, including company decision-makers, are expecting more. You must understand the makeup of the modern buyer journey, and map your inbound marketing efforts to the key stages of the buyer journey.

Characteristics of the modern B2B buyer:

• Buyers have become smarter due to technology. As stated earlier, modern buyers tend to expect more. They are more vocal and connected. They are all empowered by technology. People can easily connect no matter where they are in the world. The Internet has also provided access to various sources to help them find relevant information.

• They have a clear picture in mind of what they want. The first step in buyers’ decision-making process is identifying their needs. Their expectations will depend on these needs.

• They can define and compare products and services easily to determine what will best meet their needs.It is easier to compare products, services, and prices. A study by Forrester shows that 68% of B2B clients prefer to conduct research online on their own. (Forrester)

• Purchasers need facts. Companies need to provide valuable and relevant content. B2Bclients need reliable information to help them make purchasing decisions. B2B inbound marketing can help in engaging the target audience at each stage in the sales cycle.

Adapting to the modern buyer will help companies thrive, no matter what industry they are in.

Defining Inbound Marketing

B2B Inbound marketing is a strategy that helps to align your company with how your target customers are searching for products and services today. It’s a marketing methodology and strategy that empowers businesses to attract customers through helpful and problem solving content, mapped to the stages of the buyer journey to help buyers through the decision-making process, and position your company as the trusted ‘go-to’ authority whose solution will help customers achieve their relevant business goals. This enables your business to attract your ideal customers, turn them into warm leads, convert them into paying customers, retain more customers, and create brand advocates.

The ROI of inbound marketing can be very high, but it won’t work unless you’re willing to adapt to the modern buyer journey, build brand authority, and understand the different channels to leverage when executing your inbound marketing program.You can’t just throw some blog posts up on your website, do some social media posts, run a few social or Google ads and call it good. There are many moving pieces in an effective inbound marketing program, including well-defined persona(s), content strategy, content creation, content promotion, social media, SEO optimization, landing pages, marketing automation and email marketing, analytics tracking, conversion rate optimization (CRO)…the list goes on!

B2B Marketing is no longer a linear game of checkers. It’s a game of chess. The pieces to effective inbound marketing must be implemented strategically in concert with each other to effectively addresses the key stages of the modern buyer journey. Without a holistic approach, you can spend a lot of time and money and still have your efforts fall flat.

Understanding the Inbound Methodology

Inbound is a customer-centric approach to marketing, sales, and even customer support. Through inbound, you achieve your business goals by helping prospects and customers achieve their business goals. The famous Zig Ziglar quote comes to mind here, “You will get all you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want.” This philosophy is at the center of the inbound methodology, helping prospects or customers reach their goals at any stage of their journey will help your business grow and scale. It’s a win-win!

The inbound methodology focuses on the following three areas:

• Attract – By providing your target audience with value-based content that aims to help solve their relevant business problems and challenges, you attract your target audience, build trust, and set your brand up as a ‘go-to’ industry authority that they’re far more likely to engage with.

• Engage – By providing insights and solutions to your target audiences’ key business challenges, your audience not only sees you as the ‘go-to’ expert, they are also far more likely to buy from you.
  Knowing your target customers’ problems and challenges they’re trying to solve for, gives you the opportunity to engage them through helpful and problem-solving content that provides solutions to help achieve their goals.
• Delight – By focusing on customer satisfaction, making sure your product and service team actually helps customers achieve their goals, you ensure they will become long-term customers and even brand promoters and advocates. Approximately 96% of customers consider customer service when deciding whether to choose or stay loyal to a brand. (Microsoft)

Source: HubSpot

In summary, the inbound methodology can be used to attract new prospects, engage them during the stages of the buyer journey and convert them into customers, and delight customers, turning them into repeat customers and brand advocates. Like a flywheel, this creates self-sustaining momentum that increases as you grow.

The Flywheel

The idea is to help clients achieve success both during the stages of the buyer journey, and after they become a customer. This builds strong credibility for your business and attracts new customers.

Just with any flywheel, it requires force (work) to get the flywheel spinning, and inbound analytics enable you to identify and address areas of friction that may be slowing down your momentum.

Source: HubSpot

Here is how it works:

• Force: You must apply force to get your inbound flywheel spinning. These forces are the strategies you implement to speed up the flywheel. Assuming you have already created, or are at least in the process of creating personal focused content, some examples of forces include; content amplification tactics (e.g. digital marketing, (paid social and Google ads,) SEO, Email marketing,) frictionless selling, investing in customer services, and even customer referral programs, etc.

• Friction: Things that can slow down the flywheel. Common sources of friction include misalignment of your content and your target persona’s relevant problems and challenges, poor ad conversion rates, poor website user experience, poor landing page conversion rates, poor communication and misalignment between marketing and sales, between sales and potential customers, between support and customers, etc. By reducing friction and providing a great customer experience, your Flywheel increases momentum.

So, the general rule is to increase speed while decreasing friction. Companies that successfully do this are more likely to produce business or brand advocates from customers. These will then turn into forces that will help attain self-sustaining growth.

The ROI and Benefits of B2B Inbound Marketing

B2B businesses that invest in inbound marketing can attest to the benefits that it offers, especially to B2B lead generation. The return on investment (ROI) is higher compared to the results of traditional marketing. This is because inbound is in alignment with the buyer journey. A prospect is aware of a problem or challenge, they are researching and considering options and solutions, they want to do business with a ‘go-to’ industry expert that they trust. When your company is in alignment with the buyer journey, you attract potential customers, convert them into leads, and have a higher sales close rate because they trust you have the solution they need.

Learn more about the benefits of inbound marketing.

If the logic of this methodology alone isn’t enough to convince you, here are 12 inbound and content marketing statistics that should help you see the ROI of inbound marketing:

• 53% of marketers say inbound marketing provides the highest ROI. Only 16% said that outbound marketing gives higher ROI. (Hubspot)
• On average, inbound leads cost around 61% less than the average cost of outbound leads. For outbound-dominated companies, the average expense per lead is $346. Meanwhile, organizations that use inbound marketing as their primary strategy spend an average of $135 per lead. (Hubspot)
• When it comes to high-quality leads, 60% of marketers say the increase is due to inbound practices. Meanwhile, only 18% say it is from outbound practices. (Hubspot)
• 75% of marketers believe that their company’s inbound marketing strategy is effective. (Hubspot)
• More than 70% of buyers say that they prefer to learn about products and services through content than advertising. (Content Marketing Institute)
• Content marketing generates over 3x as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less (DemandMetric)
• B2B customers are 57% of the way through the buying process before they ever engage with a sales person because of digital. (CEB Global / Gartner)
• It takes 6 to 8 touches to generate a viable sales lead. (Salesforce)
• About 74% of marketers all over the world use inbound marketing. Meanwhile, 79% of marketers in North America use it as a primary approach to marketing. (Hubspot)
• According to 32% of outbound marketers, traditional outbound marketing tactics are overrated. In North America, the percentage is higher at 41%. (Hubspot)
• For 61% of companies using inbound marketing, the top priority is to grow SEO and organic presence. Around 55% say it is blog content creation. Completing the top 5 priorities are marketing automation (50%), content distribution and amplification (47%), and interactive content creation (36%). (Hubspot)
• Content marketing rakes in conversion rates six times higher than other methods. (ABGEssentials)

For businesses, marketing ROI is critical to the bottom line and the ability to scale. By following inbound marketing best practices you can ensure a great ROI.

• Focus on improving the company’s blog. There are millions of blogs worldwide. So, aB2B company needs to ensure that its blog will stand out among the rest. It should be a reliable source for potential clients. At the same time, it should provide helpful information that will help the audience solve some relevant pain points.

• Balance content. For B2B companies, gated content is necessary. However, it is important to know when and how to use it. To determine whether content should be gated, you have to consider who it may keep out. The information the content will bring in is also an important consideration. A popular model for gated content is a paywall, wherein site visitors would have to pay to gain access to certain content. Keep in mind that search bots will not be able to access gated content. That is why companies must release ungated or free content as well.

• Boost the company’s email marketing. Email marketing allows companies to communicate with prospective and current clients without hassle. For B2B companies, email marketing is a cost-effective option. Typically, email generates 4,200% ROI or $42for every $1 a company spends. (Hubspot)

• Be careful about the information that the company requests. It is important to not ask for too much during the early stages of the buyer journey. Make sure that you only get enough for the client to move onto the next step. B2B companies that want to streamline the gathering process cab consider using marketing automation software.

• Create buyer personas. It is important to have a sales pitch suitable to the needs of the client. To do this, creating a buyer persona is a must. These are hypothetical representations of the company’s ideal customer. In most cases, it involves demographics.For B2B companies, the characteristics will depend on a person that has the authority to make a purchase on behalf of a business entity. Categories may include:
  • Job title
  • Role and responsibilities
  • The daily needs of the organization or team
  • The long-term needs of the organization or team

• Measure results, optimize, and adjust strategies if necessary. To find out if a B2B inbound marketing strategy is effective or not, the organization must gather data. Determine successful areas and those that require improvement. Then, adapt the company’s efforts accordingly.How and where the company applies its inbound marketing efforts also play a big role in achieving success. Here are some of the best channels to consider:
  • SEO
  • Paid Ads
  • Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising
  • Email Marketing
  • Display Advertising
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Content Marketing
  • Video
  • Messaging Apps

When choosing marketing channels, companies should weigh the pros and cons of eachone. They should also consider their needs and goals.

Building Brand Authority to Attract Target Clients

In SEO and content marketing, authority has become essential. It is one of the pillars of SEO.

Building authority helps a brand turn into a trustworthy source of information. Because of this, prospective and current clients will start counting on your company. That trust is rewarded with sales and revenue growth.

To build brand authority, you need to create and promote content that shows that you 1) understand your audiences problems and challenges. 2) You share tips and valuable information that illustrates your expertise. 3) You’re active in your industry community. 4) Publish new content frequently and consistently

• Content Strategy – Companies need to create helpful and relevant content to attract their target clients. Strategic content creation is one of the most effective SEO techniques. Valueable content can help your website get 434% more search engine-indexed pages, resulting in more traffic and leads (Content Marketing Institute). What content you create should be dictated by helping solve your audiences problems and challenges. This is why clearly defining your who your target customers are, and what their relevant problems and challenge are is critical to the success of your inbound marketing. But make sure that whatever content you share is consistent with your brand identity. Here are some tips on how you can inject personality into your content.

• Share tips and valuable information. Establishing the company’s expertise in the industry is necessary to build authority. How you share that expertise is also important. You should not have any hidden agenda or ulterior motive. The goal, again, is to help your audience. So, how will you do that?
  • Share valuable information that may improve their lives.
  • Provide useful and practical tips to solve some of their problems.
  • Explain the company’s mantra of success and how it may helps your target audience to achieve their goals. While it is a statement, it should be different from the company’s mission statement. A mantra is an affirmation. They are often simple yet powerful.

• Be active in the industry community. Participating in relevant communities in your industry can help increase the visibility of your company. Post on social media channels and social media groups regularly. Make sure your company is active in channels where your target audience is. Engage in online discussions. Share curated content and articles that other trusted industry authorities, influencers, and publications publish. Align with those that you respect in the industry. Consider collaborating with them to reach out to a wider audience.

• Publish new content frequently and consistently. In building an authoritative reputation, it is important to ensure consistency. By publishing and posting helpful content frequently and consistently you will gain the trust of your target audience. This is a big part of what will establish your business as a ‘go-to’ industry authority. Your target customers and current ones will come to rely on your business for it’s ongoing expertise.

Elements and Channels of Inbound Marketing for B2B

So, your B2B company has finally decided to invest in inbound marketing to improve B2B lead generation and sales. What should you do next?

For many businesses, inbound marketing can seem overwhelming. There are a lot of elements and channels involved. It is important to have team members that have a deep understanding of these concepts to ensure you don’t have holes in your inbound marketing strategy.

Elements of B2B Inbound Marketing
Getting inbound leads is the process of attracting potential clients and converting them into contacts/leads that can be nurtured through the buyer journey to become paying customers. Around 85% of B2B marketers believe that lead generation is one of the most important goals for growing sales. (Content Marketing Institute) Naturally, the more quality leads you have, the more opportunities and subsequent sales can be made.

Leads are generated when you successfully attract and engage your audience with a content offer, free demo, or free consultation.

Step 1: A prospect discovers your company after exposure to one or more relevant pieces of content (e.g. blog article, free guide or white paper, webinar, etc.), promoted through various marketing channels, and on your website.
Step 2: This prospect is presented with a call-to-action (CTA) button or image that encourages them to take action.
Step 3: The CTA will lead them to a landing page where they can learn more about the content offer.
Step 4: The visitor fills out and submits the lead form to get the content offer, and becomes a lead.

Channels to Drive Targeted Traffic and Generate Quality Leads
After putting together the elements mentioned above, you must decide which channels to promote your lead-generating content on. Identify which channels your target customers spend their time on and create and implement marketing campaigns that get your content in front of target customers. The goal, of course, here is to generate awareness, drive targeted traffic to your content and landing pages, and generate leads.

Some of these channels to consider:

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Google / SEO
• Email
• Blogs
• Referrals

Lead Nurturing, the Key to Generating 47% Larger Purchases

The value of lead nurturing cannot be understated. And it’s frankly one of the practices that companies neglect or do poorly that leaves a lot of upfront and especially recurring revenue on the table.

Here are a few lead nurturing stats to help you understand why this piece on your inbound marketing chess board should not be overlooked, or underutilized:

• Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. (The Annuitas Group)
• Businesses who use Marketing Automation to nurture prospects experience a 451%  increase in qualified leads. (The Annuitas Group)
• 82% of prospects agree that content for lead nurturing, targeted to their specific industry, is more valuable. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

How does lead nurturing achieve the above?

It’s simple really. Lead nurturing…

• Keeps your company top of mind while your sales team is reaching out to schedule a demo or meeting with the prospect.
• Helps address questions and objections your sales team typically faces during the sales cycle, making it easier for them to close a sale
• Accelerates the buyer journey by providing timely content relevant to prospects’ current stage in the buyer journey, with calls to action to gently nudging them along.
• And, as noted above, increases both the volume of marketing qualified leads and the revenue value of new customers.

To implement lead nurturing, you’ll need to utilize a marketing automation tool, (e.g. HubSpot, Pardot, ActiveCampaign, etc.) Marketing automation enables you to automate sending a sequence of emails relevant to the content prospects submitted their contact info to receive. Marketing automation can greatly accelerate the different lifecycle stages of the buyer journey.

B2B Lead Lifecycle Stage

B2B Lifecycle stages are defined slightly differently from one marketing automation tool to the next, but they essentially cover the same steps in the buyer journey. For our purposes here we’ll use the lifecycle stages as defined by HubSpot:

• Subscriber – A blog newsletter subscriber where you have captured only a contact’s email address
• Lead – A contact who has submitted at least their name and email address. But, can also include additional data fields like company name, phone number, and other custom form fields you may with to capture on a lead form.
• Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) – A contact who has achieved a predefined lead score high enough to be considered an MQL
• SQL – A contact that the sales team has identified as an actual potential customer
• Opportunity – There is a potential “deal” being discussed with a contact and a sales rep
• Customer – The contact has become a paying customer
• Evangelist / Advocate – A customer who is so happy with your companies product(s) and/or service(s) that they have openly advocated for your company
• Other – This is your miscellaneous catch-all bucket

Lead Scoring

Lead scoring automatically assigns predetermined numerical values for various content engagement leads have with your content. A lead score typically ranges between 1 – 100. Apply higher points for engagement activities that show higher levels of interest and higher buyer intent. Apply negative points for activities that show leads are less engaged. Lead scoring can also be leveraged to help move a lead/contact through the lifecycle stage faster.

Lead score values example:

• • Blog subscriber: +5
  • Guide or white paper download: +10
  • Blog article page visit: +1
  • Email opened: +1
  • Link in email clicked: +3
  • Case Study page visited: +5
  • Competitor comparison page visited: +5
  • Service page visited: +2
  • Pricing page visited: +5
  • Contact Us page visited: +10
  • Email unopened within 7 days: -2
  • Website not visited in the last 14 days: -3

Leveraging Lead Score and Automated Marketing to Accelerate the Buyer Journey

When a prospect’s lifecycle stage is Subscriber or Lead, create an automated email sequence that shares other relevant content to those lifecycle stages. Share things like new blog posts, infographics, industry news, webinars, videos, other guides or white papers, etc.

Once a lead has achieved a lead score of, say 20 points AND and they have visited your pricing page, you can trigger the start of an email sequence focused on educating prospects about your products or services. Focus on customer pain points and how your business can solve them. Share information on how specific features. Include competitive differentiators highlighting advantages over competitors.

When a lead achieves a lead score of, say 40 points, and they have visited your Contact Us page, trigger an email sequence focused on your company’s industry expertise. Share customer case studies, industry reports, press releases, your company history, and mission, etc. This will help prospects move closer to making a buying decision and increase the likelihood they’ll engage with your sales team and say ‘yes’ to the close.

Creating a B2B Inbound Marketing Strategy

Generating qualified leads can be difficult. Your marketing team or marketer has to attract high-quality leads to help the sales team turn them into paying customers.

Here are the steps your marketing team needs to take to come up with a solid inbound marketing strategy:

Step 1: Develop a buyer persona.
This character will represent your ideal client. It will serve as a guide in creating a strategy. Additionally, it helps in segmenting leads so that your sales team can come up with suitable follow-up techniques. It can also make websites 2 to 5 times more effective and easier to use. (Hubspot)

Step 2: Target informational keyword.
Understand what keywords are most relevant to your company, industry, and products or services. Then, incorporate them into the content that you release. Here are some tips you may want to try:

• Use a modifier.
• Alter the term you are using.
• Consider using alternative keywords that could reach the same audience.

Step 3: Create a content plan.
You may have heard of the saying “content is king in marketing”. Yes, this is true. That is why you need to come up with a content plan. It will be based on the needs of your target audience and the channels you will be using.

• Produce quality content.
  Find out what your target audience is talking about. What are the problems and challenges they face? Then, create relevant content. Make sure they add value and are educational. Avoid forcing self-promotion.
• Solve the audience’s pain points.
  Focus on providing solutions to your audience’s pain points. Doing this will help establish the value of your company and build authority.

Step 4: Content promotion
After creating content, your next step is to promote them properly. Having high-quality content will not result in B2B lead generation if you use the wrong channels. Consider the following:

• Social Media Campaigns
• PPC Ads
• Website Optimization

Step 5: Analyze performance and optimization.
An analysis is the last step in creating a B2B marketing strategy. It will help in finding out which campaigns work and what areas need to be improved.

Inbound Marketing Tools to Consider

Inbound marketing helps companies be where their target customers are. With the help of inbound marketing strategies and channels, you can help turn visitors into leads and leads to paying customers. However, that is not all. You also need to use the proper marketing platform to ensure success.

• Types of Inbound Marketing Platforms There are a lot of platforms available for B2B companies. Most of them focus on business needs. Here are some of the best platforms you can choose from:
• Marketing Automation Platforms
  This type of platform helps scale and streamline marketing efforts, But before using a marketing automation tool, you have to determine whether it is the right option. Here are some considerations:
  • You have a team focused on marketing.
  • You have found a marketing channel suitable for your company.
  • Your company’s marketing efforts are based on a defined strategy.
  • Your marketing team has the financial capacity.

  There are software platforms available to B2B companies that aim to streamline, automate, and measure different tasks and workflows. These enable the organization to market using multiple online channels.

• Email Marketing Platforms
  In marketing, trends come and go. However, there is a channel that has remained throughout the years and survived the different changes in the industry. That is email marketing. Around 35% of marketers say they send 3 to 5 emails per week to customers. (Hubspot)There are services and tools that help companies with email marketing. It can be through autoresponders, email builders, contact segmentation, analytics tracker, and custom templates.
• Landing Page Builder
  Landing pages refer to certain pages in websites that help with the marketing efforts of a company. They are similar to flyers but online. So, they allow direct product or service sales. They may also turn visitors into leads by getting information to include them in your email list.Some kinds of software help companies in building quality landing pages. With the right tool, you can have landing pages that effectively increase conversions.
• Website Analysis Tool
  Tracking the performance of your company website is necessary. It helps understand visitors and clients. It also helps you see how your website is performing. Popular website analysis platforms include Google Analytics and Hubspot.Companies, no matter the size, have to conduct frequent website analysis. Doing this will help in ensuring the efficiency of their website.
• Choosing the Best Inbound Marketing Platform for Your B2B Business After having an idea of the various platforms and tools you can use for inbound marketing, you may be wondering which one is the best for your B2B business. The simple answer is that it depends on your company’s need.For instance, some businesses may prefer software with standalone uses. Meanwhile, others may want those that are integrated. But, ideally, the best inbound marketing platform for B2B businesses is one that can offer different features in one tool.

Inbound marketing for B2B can be a powerful strategy with proper support. Using certain platforms and tools can help in increasing productivity and driving more traffic. They may also help in capturing relevant data that will allow you to make better and intelligent business decisions.

Insourcing vs Outsourcing Your B2B Inbound Marketing Strategy

You may have realized how crucial inbound marketing is in boosting the efforts for B2B lead generation. The next thing you should do is to make a decision.

B2B businesses have to decide whether they should insource or outsource inbound marketing for B2B. There is no definite answer. It will depend on the circumstances of the company as well as its ROI.

• Inbound Marketing Process and Responsibility
  Inbound marketing comes with responsibilities. You should also think about the various components you should address in the execution of a marketing effort.
  • Creating a Strategy – There are many steps involved in inbound marketing. You have to determine whether your internal staff is capable of fulfilling them.
    • Building buyer personas
    • Understanding the buyer’s journey and sales cycle
    • Developing a consistent voice and brand
    • Research and planning for the following:
      • Campaigns
      • Content calendar for content generation
      • Website audit
      • SEO keyword research
      • Creation of profiles
      • Outline of a social media strategy
      • Development of lead nurturing workflows
      • Follow-up campaigns
      • Important and relevant metrics
      • When and how to gather metrics
      • Set up a reporting schedule
  • Blogging and Generating Premium Content – Blogging can have a huge impact on increasing traffic. However, companies need to be consistent. Ideally, blogging should be done once a week. Consistency can create a stream of original content that is shareable in various channels. These should be optimized for SEO. At the same time, blog posts should have a call-to-action to promote premium offers.Generating premium content is important for B2B businesses. Given that your target audience is also companies, you have to provide educational offers. Create ebooks or white papers. Using videos and infographics is also a good idea. All of these can help with lead generation.Premium offers are often placed behind forms. This way, you can also get the contact information of visitors. Thus, turning them into leads that can eventually become customers.
  • SEO Marketing– SEO requires website auditing, keyword research, daily monitoring, implementation of inbound marketing strategies, and understanding of realistic goals. So, it may be hard to do this task on your own.Mistakes in SEO can lead to huge expenses. If you let untrained personnel handle this aspect, you may fail in maximizing the benefits that it offers.To help you get started, here are some of the things you should avoid when hiring an SEO marketer:
    • Shady email addresses
    • Too good to be true pricing
    • Grand promises, such as immediate top ranking
    • No data requirements from you
    • No transparency in the processes they take
    • Plagiarism of content from other companies
    • Focuses only on link building
    • Concerned only on rankings
    • Irrelevant keywords
  • Social Media Marketing – Through the years, social media has become one of the most important marketing channels. In fact, 83% of B2B marketers say they use social media for content marketing. (Content Marketing Institute)That is because most people visit social networking sites every day. So, posting regularly and proper networking can enhance engagement.In B2B marketing, it is important to understand the differences in using each social media channel. The way your audience interacts will vary depending on where they are.
  • Choosing Inbound Marketing Platforms – Expertise and proper research are necessary when choosing the right platform to use. Your inbound marketer should be able to determine whether your company requires the use of certain software and tools for your campaigns.
  • Generating Leads – Another responsibility that B2B marketers have is finding the best way to generate leads. After that, they should also come up with sales workflows. Then, the sales team should know which follow-up campaign is most suitable and effective to nurture the lead.
  • Analyzing and Reporting Results – To measure the impact of a marketing strategy, you should use get the proper metrics. Your marketer should know how, where, and when to get them. They should also be able to interpret the results to create the appropriate plan of action.
• Challenges of Building an Internal Team
  Building an internal team for inbound marketing for B2B is not easy. You may encounter some challenges. Here are some of the possible issues you may face:
  • Cost of acquiring and retaining in-house staff
  • Familiarization with different responsibilities
  • Acquiring necessary skillset
  • Providing resources
  • Having an office infrastructure
• Benefits of Hiring an Inbound Marketing Agency
  Partnering with a professional inbound marketing agency has many benefits. Here are some of them:
  • Immediate access to staff with the necessary skillset
  • Cheaper than the salary for an internal B2B marketing team
  • Access to necessary resources for the implantation of the marketing strategy
  • Proper optimization through industry best practices
  • Proper handling of technologies, platforms, and software
  • Proper training in and knowledge about inbound marketing

Summary

The main goal of inbound marketing for B2B is to attract strangers and turn them into leads that could eventually become paying clients. Proper inbound marketing can even help a B2B business grow. Your sales pipeline could even grow by up to more than 300%.

While this goal may seem simple, it requires an understanding of various concepts, appropriate application of different tools, and the use of multiple channels and platforms. That is why expertise is necessary.

Aside from that, proper planning, a solid strategy, and effective management are also crucial. Some companies think that their in-house marketing team is enough to fulfill these duties. But for those that want to achieve success turn to outsourcing.

Doing this gives them access to a competent team that no longer requires the company’s training. They know what to do and when to do them. If you want to learn more about B2B marketing, contact us at Adjossible.