The B2B marketing landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years. Digitalization has taken the B2B journey online and empowered buyers to self-educate and collaborate with their peers before ever speaking to a sales or marketing person. This shift has put increased pressure on B2B marketers to execute a strategy focused on demand generation and growing the lead pool.

As a B2B marketing manager, how do you deal with changing digital trends in marketing and deliver the type of growth your organization expects? The answer: inbound marketing.

An Inbound Marketing Refresher

Just to ensure we’re all on the same page, HubSpot defines the inbound methodology as:

Inbound marketing is about creating valuable experiences that have a positive impact on people and your business….By creating content designed to address the pain points and needs of your ideal customers, you attract qualified prospects and build trust and credibility for your business.



Now that we’re all on the same page, here are eight inbound marketing hacks your B2B company should be using right now:

1. Give Old Content New Life

Content development should always be seen as an iterative process. Your team has invested valuable time in creating content; don’t let that hard work stop there. Reformatting your existing content is a great way to give your hard work more longevity. Repurposing existing content into a different format (i.e., multimedia, infographics, blog posts, or even stand-alone social media posts) breathes new life into your content and gives you additional opportunities to engage prospects in the format that best aligns with their stage of the Buyer’s Journey.

2. Collaborate with Influencers

Reaching out and connecting with industry experts is a great way to boost your authority. Building relationships with influencers not only improves your industry standing but also increases the potential of your business being shared with a broader audience. Some ideas to get started include:

Inviting an influencer to write a guest blog

Hosting a joint webinar where you can both provide value

Interviewing an influencer for your podcast

3. Fuel the Buyer’s Journey with Additional Relevant Content Offers

As marketers, we should constantly be thinking about the content we’re delivering at each stage of the Buyer’s Journey and making it clear what we want prospects to do next. Don’t create digital dead ends. Instead, offer your audience a next logical call to action to keep them continually engaged.

For example, if you’re writing a blog post about a specific topic, look to see if you have other complementary resources on a similar topic that dive a little deeper, perhaps a guide, white paper, or e-book that you could offer to give readers deeper insight and additional value.

4. Take that “Thank You” Page Up a Notch

Traditionally, people see thank you pages as merely the webpage that gives them the offer they requested to download or filled out a form for. However, thank you pages are another opportunity to offer value and engage with customers. Think about including an additional call to action, such as a survey, webinar or event invitation, or promotion, or using the thank you page to showcase new content offerings.

5. If You Can’t Create—Curate!

There is an endless amount of content in the digital universe. And although it’s important for your company to invest in creating your own valuable content, curating popular content that already exists is a great way to not only save your team time and energy, but it also helps:

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Position your business as helpful industry thought leader

Increase outbound links to high-ranking pages

Give you additional content ammunition for your other channels, such as social media accounts

6. Invest in Your Blog

Blogging should be an integral component of your inbound marketing strategy, period. In fact, B2B companies that blogged 11 or more times per month had almost three times more traffic than those blogging 0-1 times per month (HubSpot). These companies also saw four to five times more lead volume than those who blogged four to five times per month. Start creating your content calendar now.

One of the best things about business blogging is that your posts will continue working for you long after they’re published. Producing relevant, valuable content not only does wonders for SEO, discoverability, and traffic—but it also has the potential to convert prospects into new leads for your business.

7. Use Video if You’re Not Already

In 2017, video became the most dominant form of native content on almost every social platform. Early adopters discovered it — and now platforms like Instagram, Vidyard, YouTube, and a host of others have taken it to another level.More companies are going to be investing time into creating huge quantities of video content. Social influencers like Gary Vaynerchuk have proven that video content doesn’t need to be high-quality or expensive, so your team should start thinking about how your team can start leveraging video today.

8. Don’t Forget About Social Media

Many B2B companies don’t think social media has a place in their marketing strategy. And although platforms like Snapchat or Instagram might not have a place in your industry, other social media platforms like LinkedIn might be powerful ways for your business to generate leads.

Social media is also a great place to watch and/or join the conversation about your industry, connect with other industry peers, and see what your competition is up to.

If you’re looking for social media tips, here is a blog with 20 tips on how to up your social game!

*Bonus Hack for Lean Marketing Teams: Content Atomization

For those not familiar, content atomization refers to the process of taking one content piece (most often a premium, long-form piece of content like an e-book) and breaking it into smaller, more digestible content pieces.

Content atomization is not only a great way to repurpose content to engage and convert your audience, but it can also bring that content to new audiences by adapting it for different channels and stages of the buyer’s journey.

Conclusion

B2B buyers are more informed now than they’ve ever been. And although their path to purchase is often longer, with more people involved in the buying decision, there is an incredible opportunity for B2B marketers to use inbound marketing best practices to win the hearts and minds of their prospects and find new ways to generate leads and revenue.

Now that you’ve learned some great hacks to try out in your B2B marketing efforts, which are you most excited to try?