Inbound Marketing: Why It Works for B2B & How to Start

For B2B marketers, inbound marketing is essential for attracting potential customers and guiding motivated buyers toward a conversion. The key to success? Creating valuable content for each stage of the customer journey.

In this article, we'll define inbound marketing, cover how it works for B2B, and explore the difference between inbound and outbound marketing. We'll also share the best tactics to use for B2B inbound marketing.

What is inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing is a digital marketing strategy that attracts and engages prospects by sharing content that aligns with their goals and challenges. It focuses on organic marketing channels.

Inbound is about speaking to prospects' needs and presenting solutions to their problems. When done well, this strategy builds trust, improves brand awareness, and creates long-lasting customer relationships.

To succeed with inbound marketing, you need to know your ideal customer profile (ICP) and how to connect with them by creating helpful content for each stage of the buyer's journey.

B2B inbound marketing efforts can include everything from webinars and video marketing to email and social media marketing. We'll cover each of these tactics in depth below.

Inbound marketing vs. outbound marketing

Outbound and inbound marketing definitions cover opposite ends of the marketing spectrum:

• Inbound marketing focuses on attraction. It pulls in prospects via relevant content that you distribute across organic channels.
• Outbound marketing focuses on disruption. It pushes out messaging to a larger target audience via paid channels, cold calls, and email outreach.

A successful B2B marketing strategy often includes both inbound and outbound marketing. This combination helps sales and marketing teams create a comprehensive approach to engage prospects, generate leads, and drive conversions.

Inbound marketing vs. account-based marketing

Account-based marketing (ABM) centers on creating tailored campaigns for target accounts. It revolves around personalized content marketing campaigns for high-value prospects.

A strong ABM strategy typically includes inbound tactics. But it uses marketing automation to personalize content for specific prospects or buyers.

How inbound marketing works

The inbound marketing methodology uses a three-step approach to connect with prospects: attraction, engagement, and delight. These steps form a flywheel that drives more customer interest and B2B sales over time.

Attraction

To attract prospects who fit your ICP, create content that provides value. From blog posts to email newsletters to short-form videos, the content you create should speak to your audience's pain points and goals.

For example, write a series of blog posts that answer common customer questions. When prospects find these blog posts via a Google search or shared in their social media feed, they might be compelled to read more and learn about your brand's solutions.

Engagement

To engage interested leads, respond to their communications promptly and highlight the value of your product or service. Aim to cultivate trust and build long-term relationships.

For example, reply to leads' comments on your social media posts or respond to their questions in your webinars. Answer their queries and share helpful resources.

Delight

To delight existing customers, make their post-purchase experience exceptional. Ideally, you want to turn one-time customers into long-term customers—or even into loyal brand advocates.

For example, use email campaigns or chatbots to continue the conversation after purchase. Share tutorials and pro tips that help them get more value from their purchase, and send special offers for VIP customers.

7 Inbound marketing tactics

Use these B2B inbound marketing tactics to create a flywheel that attracts, engages, and delights potential customers.

1. Webinar marketing

Webinar marketing helps you draw in prospects by providing valuable content—often via livestream. For inbound marketers, webinars are great for sharing knowledge and building brand authority while connecting with prospects in real time.

Like many inbound tactics, webinar marketing works throughout the flywheel. It's helpful for educating new prospects, sharing high-level information with engaged leads, and showing delighted customers how to get more value from your product.

Great webinars come in a range of formats. For example, webinars can feature a single thought leader, a panel discussion with several industry experts, or a small group of co-marketing partners.

For example, in this Livestorm webinar, CEO Gilles Bertaux discusses webinar trends, data, and expert tips.

2. Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) helps your business rank at the top of search results for relevant keywords.

It includes tactics like on-page optimizations, off-page link-building, and technical updates. However, content marketing is often at the core of a successful SEO strategy.

With a strong SEO strategy, your website can capture tons of organic traffic from prospects as they search for content about the solutions your business provides. To drive more traffic, create content that aligns with the topics your audience searches for and that positions your products and services effectively.

For example, our team regularly updates the Livestorm blog with helpful content about webinars, video marketing, and other topics relevant to our customers.

3. Social media marketing

Social media marketing empowers your business to reach prospects across platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok. With social media content, you can also engage with potential customers via comments and DMs.

While social media posts can include completely unique content, they're also great for distributing other formats. For example, your social media content strategy might include sharing webinars and SEO content.

For example, this Livestorm LinkedIn post invites followers to browse our updated guide to webinars.

4. Video marketing

Video marketing is ideal for creating educational and entertaining content for your target audience. You can host it on platforms like YouTube, which is ideal for discovery, or Livestorm, which is great for lead generation.

With video, you can prioritize short-form content (90 seconds or less) to capture attention and share bite-size clips. Or you can focus on long-form content with in-depth tutorials, product walkthroughs, or expert interviews.

For example, Livestorm's YouTube channel features tutorials and webinars, including the one below that covers how to follow up with webinar attendees.

5. Email marketing

Email marketing lets you nurture leads who expressed interest in your business by signing up for your list.

Similar to social media, your email strategy can center on exclusive content that subscribers can't access elsewhere. But it's also a great channel for sharing useful content offers and new resources, such as your latest blog posts or research reports.

For example, this Livestorm email encourages subscribers to download our new webinar marketing report.

6. Research reports

Research reports include original data, often from surveying your audience or from reviewing your user analytics.

Reports and ebooks often make great lead magnets. Because they include exclusive, high-value content, you can request prospects' email addresses in exchange for the download.

For example, Livestorm's 2024 Webinar Marketing Report features insights from 500+ marketers who run webinars.

7. Online tools

Online tools allow your business to help prospects solve a small problem instantly.

They often help people benchmark results, generate content, or calculate return on investment (ROI). These tools provide immediate value and often lead to additional engagement as prospects get to know and trust the brand.

For example, the Livestorm webinar toolbox includes several free tools to measure webinar engagement, generate webinar titles and scripts, and run ice breaker games during online meetings.

Why inbound marketing is important for B2B

No matter which demand generation tactics you use, you can take advantage of several benefits of inbound marketing. Some of the biggest perks include:

• Customer empowerment: The inbound marketing process puts customers in control. Once they discover your brand, they can choose which content to explore and how to learn more about your solutions.
• Improved brand trust: When you create valuable content that meets customers' needs, you earn their trust. The more credible your brand appears, the easier it is to do business with your brand.
• Long-term growth: Inbound marketing doesn't focus on quick wins. Instead, it sets the stage for long-term relationships that lead to higher customer lifetime value and more growth opportunities.

Challenges of inbound marketing

Although inbound marketing helps boost awareness, drive sales, and build relationships, it also has downsides. Some of the biggest challenges include:

• Longer time to see results: Because an inbound strategy puts customers in control, conversations can take longer. In comparison, an outbound strategy that uses direct outreach often produces results faster.
• More resource intensive: Successful inbound marketing campaigns require substantial content libraries. While content creation and maintenance can be resource-intensive, this approach tends to pay off.
• Harder to measure results: Tracking the results of inbound marketing strategies can be difficult, especially during the attraction stage. To prove ROI, get clear on the metrics that matter to your team (e.g., marketing qualified leads and conversion rates) and set key performance indicators (KPIs).

Livestorm for inbound marketing

Livestorm makes it easy to host webinars as part of your inbound marketing strategy.

With our webinar software, you can interact with prospects in real time during live events or create a series of automated webinars that leads can watch on demand.

Plus, our software integrations sync with your marketing automation and customer relationship management (CRM) tools, helping you connect with prospects across channels.

Ready to test our webinar platform? Sign up for Livestorm and set up your first webinar in minutes.