Why Inbound Marketing Does Wonders for B2B Model with High-End Customer Persona
How should you approach online B2B customer acquisition for high-end clients? Originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
My former company sold services that would often exceed 1 million dollars. Typically, they were in the 50k to 150k range. We revolutionized our business by focusing heavily on valuable content creation and organic search. It got to the point to where nearly 80% of our business was coming from inbound website inquiries.
I believe effective inbound marketing strategies are even more important when dealing with very large purchases. Here are a few reasons why:
Length of Sales Cycle
Typically, the more expensive a product or service is, the more time potential buyers spend researching it. Since a significant portion of research is conducted online, you have the opportunity to help shape their learning about the product and the industry. If you have a great presence in the organic search results, you will show up over the many months that might be involved in the procurement process.
Team of Buyers
When companies are spending a significant amount of money on a product or service they will usually have a team of people on the decision making committee. This could include subject matter experts, procurement staff, or general managers. If you have an effective organic search presence in your market you will be there when these other parties search for information on the topic. We often heard from our buyers that we were “everywhere they looked” for information on the topic.
Reputation
Reputation becomes more important on large purchase as well. If you have an effective content strategy then your company should appear when the potential buyer searches for information. This will help you establish trust. If you have a few articles on the subject in 3rd party publications that will help even more.
Competitors
The best thing about using these inbound tactics in high-dollar markets is that in many cases your competitors won’t see the value in implementing them. This might result in a less crowded market for keywords relevant to your buyer. This lack of competition will help with both paid and organic search efforts.
As always, the most important thing with all of these inbound marketing efforts is to provide real value to the potential buyer. I always like to use the following as a benchmark: Make the content valuable to the reader even if they don’t choose to use your services.
Contributed by Michael Browning, Founder – Activation Ventures
