Does Inbound Marketing Work for B2B Demand Generation?
There is a lot of talk about Inbound Marketing and the value it can bring to companies. Is it more useful for B2C than for B2B? Is it really a method that can bring value to demand generation?
We will answer these and other questions below.
What does demand generation in B2B aim for?
Demand generation is at the core of any B2B marketing strategy, and in an environment as unique as B2B it is especially important to keep potential customers on your company’s radar.
With a demand generation strategy, companies achieve:
Brand positioning, products and concepts linked to your company: you can also promote new products and improvements.
Generate reach: ensure that your company B2B Demand name and what it does reaches as many interested people as possible.
Brand recognition: Through continuous exposure to your messages, you aim to make your audience think of your company’s name when they have a need that you can solve.
Take your website visitors out of anonymity and transform them into leads: through the creation and “seeding” of lead magnets (content of value to the user, downloadable and almost always free), on landing pages that host them, users leave their contact B2B Demand information in a form in exchange for your lead magnet.
What metrics tell you if your demand generation is effective and how does Inbound Marketing help you meet them?
To ensure that you are not throwing your demand generation efforts down the drain, you need to closely monitor the metrics explained below, and we will tell you how Inbound Marketing supports you in achieving them:
How does Inbound Marketing help you achieve it?
Metric: Conversion from anonymous visitor to suspect
Meaning: This metric shows how many of the visitors to the website left their data in a form.
It allows us to guide a content strategy for the initial contact stage (TOFU) between our company and the potential lead.
It allows us to work on a keyword strategy using the keywords that potential clients use to search for information online. An effective keyword strategy shows your company’s website in the first results on Google.
By defining the keywords we want to rank for, telemarketing data we can create content to respond to them.
Metric: Conversion of suspect to lead.
Meaning:
Shows how many of the users who left their data are qualified to be potential clients
With a content strategy based on some of the most effective tactics include the stages of the funnel and executed through platforms such as: email marketing, marketing automation, lead scoring, lead management, CRM awb directory and sales acceleration.
Metric: Conversion of lead to MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)
Meaning: Shows how many of the immature leads advance in the maturation flow. (we identify interest, need for our product or service)
Inbound Marketing accompanies the lead on their journey as a buyer by providing them with information that helps them in 3 things:
Understand your problem.
Understand how you can solve it.
Why your company is a possible and plausible solution.
When the lead understands point 3, it is ready to be called an MQL.
Metric: Conversion of MQL leads to SQL (sales qualified lead)
Shows how many of the leads
validated by marketing become a sales opportunity. Inbound marketing seeks to integrate the work of Marketing and Sales through agreed policies on how to treat leads and how to follow up on them.
It brings technology and automation to the process (CRM, Marketing Automation, Lead Scoring, Email marketing, Sales Acceleration, Marketing Collateral) and allows the marketing funnel to be connected to the sales funnel.
The result is a single funnel with full traceability.
In conclusion, Inbound Marketing is just as effective in B2B companies as it is in B2C companies. A well-executed Inbound strategy can increase your company’s demand not only in quantity, but also in quality, bringing more potential customers to your doorstep; in addition, it aligns marketing and sales efforts, two areas that are often divorced, increasing the commercial performance of your business in general.