B2B Inbound Marketing

In today's digital age, businesses need to adopt a more effective and efficient approach to attract, engage, and convert potential customers. B2B inbound marketing is a customer-focused methodology that addresses the needs of your potential customers by providing them with valuable information and experiences that can help solve their problems. This approach is an excellent alternative to traditional outbound marketing strategies such as cold-calling, direct mail, and advertising.

B2B inbound marketing is a strategic approach that involves attracting, engaging, and converting potential customers by creating valuable content and experiences that address their needs and problems. It follows a customer-focused methodology, as opposed to traditional outbound marketing that interrupts people to sell them products or services.

According to a report by HubSpot, 84% of businesses that use inbound marketing as their primary marketing strategy find it to be effective. Additionally, B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those that don't, highlighting the importance of creating valuable content and using inbound marketing to attract, engage, and delight your potential customers.

Creating a successful B2B inbound marketing program requires a tactical approach that involves several stages. These stages include conducting a website audit, developing a comprehensive inbound marketing plan, measuring your key performance indicators (KPIs), and optimising your campaigns for better results.

In this article, we will explore these stages in detail and provide you with handy tips and tactics to create a successful B2B inbound marketing program. By the end of this guide, you will have a better understanding of how to create a successful B2B inbound marketing program that can help you grow your business and achieve your business goals.

Product & services review

The first stage of building a B2B inbound marketing plan is to conduct a product or service review. This stage helps you to identify the unique selling proposition (USP) of your product or service. It involves analysing your product or service's features, benefits, and USP. You need to identify what sets your product or service apart from your competitors.

According to a survey conducted by HubSpot, 61% of marketers believe that developing a unique value proposition is the most challenging aspect of marketing? This demonstrates the importance of identifying your product or service's USP to differentiate yourself from your competitors is crucial to B2B inbound marketing success.

During the product or service review session, you should focus on identifying your product or service's features and benefits. You should ask questions such as:

What are the features of our product or service?
How do these features benefit our customers?
What makes our product or service unique?
How does our product or service solve our customers' problems?
What is our most successful product?
What is our most profitable product?
What products and services should marketing prioritise?

By answering these questions, you can identify your product or service's USP and use it to create effective marketing campaigns that resonate with your target audience. In addition, you can ensure that your campaigns are focused on the areas of highest priority aligned to the businesses overall objectives.

Competitor analysis

You also need to conduct a competitor analysis to identify your competitors' strengths and weaknesses. This includes analysing their website, content, SEO, and social media presence. By doing so, you can identify opportunities for improvement, analyse any gaps, and create a competitive advantage for your business.

To conduct a competitor analysis, you should focus on the following areas:

Website design: How does your competitor's website design compare to yours?
User experience: How does your competitor's user experience compare to yours?
Content: What type of content is your competitor producing? How does it compare to yours?
Social media presence: How active is your competitor on social media? What type of content are they sharing?
SEO: How does your competitor's website rank in search engine results pages (SERPs)? What keywords are they targeting? What is their website domain authority? How many referring domains do they have vs your website? What is the SERPs competition for your most crucial keywords?

One of the key reasons why creating buyer personas is important for effective inbound marketing is that it helps you to tailor your marketing messages and content to resonate with your target audience. By understanding your target audience's needs and pain points, you can create content that addresses their specific challenges and provides them with valuable information.

Furthermore, creating buyer personas can help you to identify the channels and platforms that your target audience uses to consume content. This allows you to tailor your content distribution strategy to reach your target audience where they are most active.

To create buyer personas, you should start by collecting data on your target audience. You can use tools such as surveys, social media analytics, and website analytics to gather information about your target audience. Once you have collected enough data, you can identify commonalities and group your target audience into different personas.

After creating buyer personas, you need to review and validate them with your team. A persona review session is a collaborative session where you can discuss and refine your buyer personas. It helps you to ensure that your personas are accurate and align with your business goals.

By conducting a persona review session, you can refine your buyer personas and ensure that they are accurate and relevant to your business goals.

During the persona review session, you should focus on the following areas:

Persona accuracy:

Are your personas accurate?
Do they represent your target audience's needs and behaviours?

Persona relevance:

Are your personas relevant?
Do they align with your business goals and objectives?

Persona differentiation:

Are your personas different from each other?
Do they represent unique target audiences?

After conducting a persona review session, you need to select your core target personas. These are the personas that you will focus on in your inbound marketing efforts. By focusing on your core target personas, you can create content and messaging that resonates with your target audience. You will also ensure your budget and spend is focused on your core marketing targets and avoid weakening or diluting your impact by spreading your strategy too thin.

According to the study, 71% of B2B buyers said they consume 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a salesperson. This highlights the importance of creating high-quality and relevant content that resonates with your target audience. The study also found that 82% of buyers viewed at least 5 pieces of content from the winning vendor before making a purchase decision. This underscores the importance of creating a content strategy that supports the entire buyer's journey and guides potential customers towards making a purchase decision.

Website situational analysis and recommendations – getting your website inbound ready!

After identifying your product or service's USP and understanding your target personas, the next step is to conduct a situational analysis of your website. This involves analysing your website's structure, navigation, and user experience. You need to make sure that your website is optimised for inbound marketing and provides a seamless user experience. The analysis should highlight areas for improvement and offer recommendations for changes that need to be made.

When conducting a situational analysis for B2B inbound marketing, it's important to consider the impact of website design on user perception and engagement. According to a study by Sweor, 94% of first impressions are related to a website's design, and it takes less than 0.05 seconds for users to form an opinion about a website's design. Additionally, the study found that 75% of users make judgments about a company's credibility based on their website's design. These statistics highlight the importance of having a visually appealing and professional website design that can help to establish credibility and trust with your target audience. By prioritising website design, user experience and conversion in your situational analysis, you can identify opportunities to improve user engagement, establish brand credibility, and ultimately drive business growth through your B2B inbound marketing efforts.

To conduct a situational analysis of your website, you should focus on the following areas:

Website design

Is your website visually appealing?
Is it easy to navigate?

User experience:

Is your website easy to use?
Does it provide a seamless user experience?

Content:

Is your website content relevant and valuable?
Does it speak to your target audience?

Calls-to-action (CTAs):

Do your CTAs stand out?
Are they compelling?

Conversion optimization:

Are your landing pages optimized for conversion?
Do they provide a clear path to conversion?

By conducting a situational analysis of your website, you can identify areas for improvement and optimise your website for inbound marketing get your website ready for inbound!

Keyword research

Keyword research is a critical stage in building a strong B2B inbound marketing plan. It involves identifying the keywords and phrases that your target audience uses to search for information related to your product or service. By conducting keyword research, you can optimise your website and content for search engines and improve your website's search engine ranking. In this section, we will explore how to conduct effective keyword research and why it is essential for B2B inbound marketing.

Why is keyword research important for B2B inbound marketing?

By optimising your website content for keywords relevant to your persona, you will strengthen your website’s position within the SERPs, which, in turn, can help you to attract more traffic to your website and generate more leads. Undertaking keyword research will also enable you to understand your target market’s use of language and terminology to ensure your ideas, content production, adverts are aligned to your customers common search language.

How to conduct effective B2B keyword research

To conduct effective keyword research, you need to use keyword research tools to identify the keywords and phrases that your target audience uses to search for information related to your product or service. These tools help you to identify the search volume, competition, and relevance of different keywords.

There are several keyword research tools available, including Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz. These tools allow you to enter a seed keyword related to your business and generate a list of related keywords and phrases.

Once you have generated a list of keywords, you need to prioritise them based on their relevance and search volume. You should focus on keywords that have high search volume and are relevant to your business. These are the keywords that are most likely to attract traffic to your website and generate leads.

It's also important to consider the competition for each keyword. High-competition keywords are more difficult to rank for, so you may want to focus on lower-competition keywords that are still relevant to your business.

Another factor to consider is the search intent behind each keyword. This refers to the reason why someone is searching for a particular keyword. For example, someone searching for "best CRM software" has a different search intent than someone searching for "CRM software pricing." By understanding the search intent behind each keyword, you can create content that addresses your target audience's specific needs and pain points.

Ideally, when carrying out keyword research, you should be aiming for keywords with the highest search volume and intent. Partnered with low keyword difficulty, this will enable you to rank in the top SERPs.

Why is content optimization important for B2B inbound marketing?

Effective B2B keyword research is crucial for developing a comprehensive content strategy that resonates with your target audience. By identifying the keywords and phrases that your ideal customers use to search for information related to your product or service, you can create content that addresses their pain points, answers their questions, and helps to establish your business as a thought leader in your industry.

Keyword research is the foundation upon which your content strategy is built, and it helps to ensure that you are creating content that is optimised for search engines and user experience. With the right approach to keyword research, you can identify new opportunities for content creation, stay ahead of industry trends, and attract more qualified traffic to your website.

Topic clusters are a group of related content that revolves around a central topic. This includes a pillar page, which is a comprehensive resource on a particular topic, and cluster content, which are blog posts that support the pillar page. Topic clusters help to organise your content and make it easier for your target audience to find what they are looking for.

Creating effective topic clusters is an essential part of a successful B2B inbound marketing strategy. By organizing organising your website's content into topic clusters, you can improve your website's search engine ranking, attract more traffic to your website, and provide a better user experience for your target audience. In this section, we will explore how to create topic clusters effectively for B2B companies: and use HubSpot stats and examples to support this.

Step 1: Identify Your Core Topics

The first step in creating effective topic clusters for your B2B company is to identify your core topics. These are the topics that are most relevant to your business and are likely to be of interest to your target audience.

To identify your core topics, you can use keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Moz. These tools will help you to identify the keywords and phrases that your target audience uses to search for information related to your products or services.
Once you have identified your core topics, you can use them to create pillar pages. A pillar page is a comprehensive guide to a specific topic that covers all the subtopics related to that topic. Pillar pages serve as the main hub for your topic cluster and link to related blog posts and web pages.
For example, if you sell marketing automation software, your core topics may include "lead generation," "lead nurturing," "sales enablement," and "customer retention." You can create a pillar page for each of these topics and link to related blog posts and web pages.

Step 2: Identify Subtopics

The next step in creating effective topic clusters for your B2B company is to identify subtopics related to your core topics. Subtopics should be specific and focused, providing in-depth information on a particular aspect of the core topic.

To identify subtopics, you can use your keyword research. This will help you to identify related keywords and phrases that your target audience uses to search for information related to the core topic.
For example, if your core topic is "lead generation," subtopics may include "lead magnets," "landing pages," "lead capture forms," and "email marketing." You can create blog posts and web pages that cover each of these subtopics and link back to the pillar page for "lead generation."

Step 3: Create Content

Once you have identified your core topics and subtopics, it's time to create content.
Once you have identified your topic clusters, you need to develop a content strategy that outlines your content creation and distribution plan. A content strategy helps to ensure that your content is aligned with your business goals and provides value to your target audience.

Your content strategy should include the following elements:

What formats will your content take, such as blog posts, videos, or webinars?
How will you distribute your content, such as social media, email, or your website?

When will you publish your content?

How will you promote your content to ensure that it reaches your target audience?

By creating a content strategy, you can ensure that your content is aligned with your business goals and provides value to your target audience.

You should aim to create high-quality, informative content that provides value to your target audience.
When creating content, it's important to keep the search intent of your target audience in mind. By understanding the reason why someone is searching for a particular keyword or phrase, you can create content that addresses their specific needs and pain points.

For example, if your target audience is searching for "lead capture forms," you can create a blog post that provides tips and best practices for creating effective lead capture forms. You can also include a call-to-action (CTA) that directs readers to your pillar page for "lead generation."

When creating content, it's important to keep the search intent of your target audience in mind. By understanding the reason why someone is searching for a particular keyword or phrase, you can create content that addresses their specific needs and pain points.

In summary, you should aim to create high-quality, informative content that draws in your core persona at whatever stage of the sales journey they are at.

Step 4: Link Your Content

The final step in creating effective topic clusters for your B2B company is to link your content. You should link related blog posts and web pages together to create a hierarchy of related content.

This helps search engines to understand the structure of your website and improves your website's internal linking structure. By improving your website's internal linking structure, you can improve your website's search engine ranking and make it easier for your target audience to find the information they need.
For example, if you have created a blog post about "lead magnets," you should include a link to your pillar page for "lead generation." You should also include links to other blog posts and web pages that cover related subtopics such as "landing pages"

There are many successful B2B topic clusters that have helped businesses improve their search engine rankings and increase organic traffic to their website.

Here are some examples to give you more food for thought on this tactic:

HubSpot's "Inbound Marketing" Topic Cluster

HubSpot is a leading provider of inbound marketing software, and they have created a successful topic cluster around the concept of inbound marketing. Their topic cluster includes multiple subtopics such as "content marketing," "SEO," "social media," and "email marketing." By creating a comprehensive content hub around inbound marketing, HubSpot has been able to establish themselves as thought leaders in the industry and attract a large audience of potential customers. This topic cluster has helped HubSpot achieve a top search engine ranking for the keyword "inbound marketing" and drive a significant amount of organic traffic to their website.

Moz's "Link Building" Topic Cluster

Moz is a popular provider of SEO software and services, and they have created a successful topic cluster around the concept of link building. Their topic cluster includes subtopics such as "link building strategies," "link building tools," and "link building mistakes to avoid." By creating high-quality content on this topic, Moz has been able to attract a large audience of potential customers and establish themselves as thought leaders in the industry. This topic cluster has helped Moz achieve a top search engine ranking for the keyword "link building" and drive a significant amount of organic traffic to their website.

SEMrush's "Keyword Research" Topic Cluster

SEMrush is a popular provider of SEO software and services, and they have created a successful topic cluster around the concept of keyword research. Their topic cluster includes subtopics such as "long-tail keywords," "keyword research tools," and "keyword research best practices." By creating high-quality content on this topic, SEMrush has been able to establish themselves as thought leaders in the industry and attract a large audience of potential customers. This topic cluster has helped SEMrush achieve a top search engine ranking for the keyword "keyword research" and drive a significant amount of organic traffic to their website.

HubSpot's "Sales Enablement" Topic Cluster

HubSpot has also created a successful topic cluster around the concept of sales enablement. Their topic cluster includes subtopics such as "sales enablement strategies," "sales enablement tools," and "sales enablement best practices." By creating high-quality content on this topic, HubSpot has been able to establish themselves as thought leaders in the industry and attract a large audience of potential customers. This topic cluster has helped HubSpot achieve a top search engine ranking for the keyword "sales enablement" and drive a significant amount of organic traffic to their website.

Creating a successful B2B topic cluster requires identifying your target audience's pain points, conducting keyword research, and developing comprehensive content that addresses their needs. By implementing a successful topic cluster strategy, businesses can improve their search engine rankings, increase organic traffic to their website, and establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an essential component of any B2B inbound marketing strategy. It involves optimising your website and content to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords and phrases relevant to your business. There are several types of SEO, each with its own unique set of techniques and strategies.

Below, we’ll take a closer look at the three main types of SEO and how they can benefit your B2B marketing efforts.

1. On-Page SEO

On-page SEO involves optimising individual web pages to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. This type of SEO includes optimising the content, HTML source code, and meta tags of a web page. The goal of on-page SEO is to make sure that search engines understand the topic and intent of the page and that it provides value to the user. Some of the key on-page SEO factors to consider include keyword research, title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, internal linking, and image optimisation..

2. Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO focuses on improving the popularity, authority, and relevance of your website through external optimisation techniques. This type of SEO includes tactics such as link building, social media marketing, and online reputation management. The goal of off-page SEO is to improve the credibility and visibility of your website in the eyes of search engines and users. Some of the key off-page SEO factors to consider include backlinks, social signals, online reviews, and brand mentions.

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO involves optimising the technical elements of your website to make it easier for search engines to crawl and index your content. This type of SEO includes techniques such as optimising the site structure, improving page load times, and implementing schema mark-up. The goal of technical SEO is to ensure that your website is easily accessible and understandable by both search engines and users. Some of the key technical SEO factors to consider include website speed, mobile optimization, crawl errors, and XML sitemaps.

Once you have completed your SEO audit, it's time to set clear goals and develop a roadmap for achieving them. By setting SMART goals and conducting a funnel analysis, you can develop a strategy for optimising your sales funnel to maximize conversions and achieve your business objectives.

Goal setting and funnel analysis are critical components of any successful B2B marketing strategy. In this section, we will explore how to set goals and analyse your marketing funnel effectively to achieve your business objectives.

The first step in goal setting for B2B marketing is to identify your business objectives. Your business objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

Once you have identified your business objectives, you can set marketing goals that align with your business objectives. Your marketing goals should also be SMART.

For example, if your business objective is to increase revenue by 10% in the next six months, your marketing goals may include:

Increase website traffic by 20% in the next six months
Generate 500 leads in the next six months
Increase conversion rates by 15% in the next six months
When setting goals, it's important to ensure that they are realistic and achievable. You should also monitor your progress regularly and adjust your goals as necessary.

Analysing Your Marketing Funnel

The next step in achieving your marketing goals is to analyse your marketing funnel. Your marketing funnel is the process that your target audience goes through from the initial awareness of your business to the final purchase decision.

To analyse your marketing funnel, you need to track the metrics at each stage of the funnel. The key metrics to track include:

Awareness: website traffic, social media reach, email subscribers
Interest: time spent on website, page views, video views, downloads
Consideration: form submissions, content downloads, email inquiries
Intent: demo requests, consultation requests, proposal requests
Purchase: sales, revenue, customer lifetime value

By tracking these metrics, you can identify areas of your marketing funnel that need improvement and take action to optimize your marketing campaigns.

If you don’t have this data yet, then your plan should be to track and analyse this activity using inbound marketing software.

For B2B inbound marketing managers, implementing software to track and analyse the performance of their campaigns is essential to success. Without the right tools and data, it can be challenging to identify what is working and what isn't, which can lead to wasted resources and missed opportunities.

There are many software options available for B2B inbound marketing tracking and reporting, but selecting the right one for your business can be overwhelming. Here are some tips for selecting and implementing the right software for your B2B inbound marketing needs:

Identify Your Key Metrics

Before selecting software for tracking and reporting, it's crucial to identify the key metrics that you want to track. This can include metrics such as website traffic, lead generation, conversion rates, and ROI. By identifying these key metrics, you can better evaluate software options based on their ability to track and analyse the data that is most important to your business.

Research Software Options

Once you have identified your key metrics, it's time to research software options that can help you track and analyse them. There are many options available and it's important to evaluate each option based on factors such as cost, ease of use, features and your business needs.

Implement the Software

After selecting the software that best meets your needs, it's time to implement it into your B2B inbound marketing strategy. This can involve setting up tracking codes on your website, connecting your social media accounts, and integrating the software with your existing marketing tools. If you need help with this, book a free consultation with our team anytime.

Use the Data to Optimise Your Campaigns

Once the software is in place and tracking data, it's important to use that data to optimise your campaigns. This can involve analysing which campaigns are generating the most traffic and leads, identifying areas where conversions can be improved, and adjusting your strategy accordingly.

By implementing software for tracking and reporting, B2B inbound marketing managers can gain valuable insights into the performance of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions to optimise their strategy for success. With the right tools and data, B2B businesses can stay ahead of the competition and achieve their marketing goals.

Strategy & planning

The final stage is to create a strategy and planning document that outlines all your research and your inbound marketing goals and objectives. This document should include the following elements:

Business goals and objectives
Buyer personas
Topic clusters
Content strategy
SEO strategy
Social media strategy
Email marketing strategy
Marketing automation strategy
Funnel analysis and goal setting

By creating a strategy and planning document, you can ensure that your inbound marketing efforts are aligned with your business goals and objectives.

Our team of experts at Angelfish Marketing are here to help you succeed.

We're offering a free one-hour consultation with one of our inbound marketing experts, as well as a comprehensive marketing report that covers the following core areas:

Website Analysis - We'll conduct a thorough analysis of your website. We'll identify areas where improvements can be made to increase conversions and drive more leads.

Content Review - We'll review your existing content to ensure that it's engaging, informative, and effective at generating leads. We'll also provide recommendations on how to optimise your content for search engines and improve your overall content strategy.
PPC and SEO Audit - We'll review your current PPC and SEO strategies to identify areas where improvements can be made. We'll provide recommendations on how to optimise your keywords, ad copy, and landing pages to increase conversions and drive more traffic.

Social Media - We'll conduct a review of your social media accounts to identify areas where improvements can be made. We'll provide recommendations on how to optimise your social media presence and engage with your target audience effectively.

During your consultation, you'll have the opportunity to discuss your report findings with one of our experts, who will provide you with one hour of solid marketing advice. We're dedicated to helping you achieve success through effective inbound marketing strategies.

We won't use this time to push sales pitches or make false promises. Instead, we'll provide you with valuable insights and recommendations to help you build better digital marketing strategies and achieve your business goals.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your B2B inbound marketing to the next level.

Simply book your free consultation with our experts at Angelfish Marketing here.

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Angelfish Marketing have supported our inbound marketing programme for over a year now. Their knowledge, guidance and advice has always been first class and the increased return on investment is evident. Thank you to the team for your continued support – not only are you assisting our company growth, but it is a pleasure to work with such an approachable and friendly team.
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