The

B2B TECH
MARKETER’S
Guide To
INBOUND
What is Inbound Marketing?
The easiest way to explain inbound marketing is to start with what it’s not.

Inbound marketing doesn’t use traditional, unsolicited tactics, like TV commercials, direct
(ahem, junk) mail or cold calling. Those methods are considered “outbound” because they
focus on pushing your message out to people…who probably aren’t interested in hearing it.

By contrast, inbound marketing focuses on bringing people to you by offering content that
is truly valuable to your customer. Valuable content can take many forms: an entertaining
Twitter account, an email newsletter full of tips n’ tricks or an informative business blog,
especially since marketers who blog are 13x more likely to see positive ROI. These are all things
that prospects (and even current customers!) will voluntarily sign up to receive because they’re
helpful. Of course the end goal is a sale, but the messaging focuses on solving a problem, not
selling a product.

Think of it this way…

Do you remember the last time you considered making a big purchase—a car, an appliance
or maybe a new piece of technology? Did you run to the store right away to talk to the nearest
salesperson? Or did you take the time to compare prices, read customer reviews and then talk
with a salesperson when you were ready to “test drive” the product or service?

$ $$ vs

We thought so.

Online buyers today go through more than half of the buying journey without ever talking to
sales. So, inbound marketing is helpful to your customer because it’s made up of all of those
“research” elements that are especially important when considering a hefty investment. It’s the
valuable and helpful information you need to provide to attract strangers and convert visitors,
close deals or delight your customers during their buyer’s journey. (More on this later.)

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Creating Your Buyer Persona
Speaking of customers…do you know who your ideal prospect is?
SMALL BIZ SAM
About Sam As a smart tech marketer, we bet you already know some basic
demographic information, like company size and job title. You
Adjectives Pain Points probably also know that C-level execs tend to care most about ROI,
whereas mid-level managers prioritize process improvement.
Interests
Common Questions

But beyond that, how much do you really understand about your
Primary Goal
customer's challenges, motivating factors and goals? And do you
appreciate how important that insight really is to your business?

Demand Gen reports that a whopping 64% of B2B buyers chose providers based on a
personalized buying experience. The top reason these vendors won was by demonstrating
stronger knowledge of their buyer’s company and its needs!

Taking and educated guess at this information is a good first step, but it’s easy to dig deeper.
Interview your sales team to see what they’re hearing on an everyday basis. What questions are
they constantly asked? Odds are, they’ll have tons of anecdotes about customer issues, buying
objections and more. Even better, interview your best clients over the phone or via an online
survey to get firsthand information.

Once you’ve done your research, compile all of the data into a buyer persona: a semi-fictional
representation of your ideal customer. (And don’t forget to add a cutsey, alliterated name, like
IT Ian or C-Suite Charles!)

Once you’re done, don’t let this document live in a folder on your computer. Print out your
buyer persona and hang it up at your desk. As a marketer, this tool will help you remember
not only who you’re targeting, but also what type of content they’ll find useful at every
stage of their buyer’s journey.

buy•er per•so•na (n)

a semi-fictional representation of you ideal customer based on past customer trends,
historical data and some super sleuth work about their demographics, psychographics,
behaviors, motivators and goals

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Defining Your Buyer’s Journey
The path your prospect takes as they move down
Visit
the sales funnel is called the buyer’s journey.
Awareness
It’s made up of three stages that the buyer goes Stage
Lead
through when making a purchase:
MQL
1. Awareness: “I’m experiencing pain…what’s my Consideration
real problem?” Stage
SQL

2. Consideration: “I know what the problem is…

Opportunity
what are my options?” Decision
Stage
Customer
3. Decision: “I know the potential solutions…
which one should I choose?”

While every buyer goes through these three stages, what customers do in each stage—
and the length of time they “live” in each stage—is unique for every business.

For example, during the awareness stage, one company might attract visitors through blog
posts whereas another could have great success on LinkedIn. During the decision stage,
a SaaS company might find that downloading a trial works best whereas a cybersecurity
company might close more deals through case studies or white papers.

By defining the actions your customer takes during each stage of the buyer’s journey, as well
as how long the tend to “live” in each stage, you can use the inbound methodology to develop
and distribute content that will help move them further (and faster!) down the sales funnel.

The Tech/Software Buyer’s Journey

Bonus Content:
BUYER STAGES AWARENESS CONSIDERATION DECISION

Have realized and expressed Have clearly defined and given a name Have defined their solution strategy,
symptoms of a potential problem to their problem or opportunity method or approach
or opportunity
User Behavior

Research focused on vendor

neutral 3rd party information around
identifying problems or symptoms
Research &
Committed to researching and
understanding all of the available
approaches/methods to solving
Researching supporting documentation,
data, benchmarks or endorsements to Want to add this cheat sheet
make or recommend a final decision

to your marketing tool belt?

their defined problem or opportunity
Info Needs

• Analyst Reports • Comparison White Papers • Vendor Comparisons

• Research Reports • Expert Guides • Product Comparisons
• eGuides & eBooks • Live Interactions • Case Studies

Download the full page PDF.

• Editorial Content • Webcast/Podcast/Video • Trial Download

Content Types • Expert Content • Product Literature

• White Papers • Live Demo
• Educational Content

• Troubleshoot • Upgrade • Solution • Tool • Compare • Pros and Cons

• Issue • Improve • Provider • Device • Vs. • Benchmarks
• Resolve • Optimize • Service • Software • Versus • Review
Key Terms • Risks • Prevent • Supplier • Appliance • Comparison • Test

Sam is frustrated because he’s
having technical problems at his
small business. Since there’s no
“tech” person on staff it’s up to him
Example to resolve these issues.
Sam starts talking to his business
owner friends and researching online.
He needs to figure out his options to
get this off his plate.
Sam determined his options are
hiring a part-time internal IT manager
or outsourcing to a full-service managed
IT company. He now needs to make
his final decision.

CREATED BY KIWI CREATIVE KIWICREATIVE.NET

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Understanding Inbound
Methodology
So how exactly do you move prospects from awareness, to consideration, to decision?
By using the inbound marketing methods to attract, convert, close and delight your customers.

Attract Convert Close Delight

Strangers Visitors Leads Customers Promoters

Blog Forms CRM Surveys

Keywords Calls-to-Action Email Smart Content
Social Publishing Landing Pages Social Monitoring

You attract strangers during the awareness stage through tactics like blogs,
keywords and social publishing, after which they become visitors.

You convert visitors during the consideration stage through tactics

like forms, CTAs and landing pages, after which they become leads.

You close leads during the decision stage through tactics like CRM,
email and workflows, after which they become customers.

Bonus: If you delight existing customers, through tactics like surveys, smart
content and social monitoring, they become promoters (AKA brand evangelists).

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Creating an Inbound Strategy
If all this sounds great in theory, but you’re still confused about how to execute inbound
marketing for your tech company in a real-life scenario, fret not…here’s an example of how
the buyer persona, buyer’s journey and inbound methodology all work together. We’ll use
a managed IT services company in this scenario.

Small Business Owner Sam

Age: Late 40s

Job Title: Owner, Principal, CEO, Partner

Adjectives: entrepreneurial, visionary, impatient,

delegator, conservative

Interests: running charity races, drinking craft beer,

playing with his dog, DIY weekend projects

Pain Points: Common Questions:

Technology breaks on a semi-regular basis • How fast can you fix something if it breaks?
(phone systems down, server misses a How much down time will I experience?
back up), causing him to waste time finding
• How many hours should I expect
a band aid solution to keep operations
maintenance to take each month?
flowing smoothly.
• How do I know my systems are secure?
Primary Goal:
To have a suite of technology solutions Your Company’s Competition:
that “just work” to keep his business • Other managed IT services companies
up and running.
• Hiring an internal employee

• DIYing himself

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Buyer’s Journey Stage #1: Awareness (Top of Funnel)
Small Business Sam is frustrated because his printer isn’t connecting to the WiFi…for the
third time this month. Since he doesn’t have a dedicated “tech” person on staff, he’s tried to
fix it himself, but can’t figure out if it’s the internet connection or his laser printer. Sam is sick
of wasting time running in circles. Oh, and his landline phone bill increased by 20% at the
beginning of the year and he’s trying to control fixed monthly costs.

What action should occur at this stage?

You want to attract Sam to your website where he can learn all about the benefits of
a full-service managed IT company.

How can you attract strangers like Sam?

• Optimize your website content (keyword research) to match what Sam would be Googling

• Write informational blog content that gives (semi!) unbiased advice

• Distribute quick tips and tricks via social media channels

Buyer’s Journey Stage #2: Consideration (Middle of Funnel)

Sam has spent some time researching online, as well as talking to a couple other of his business
owner friends. He’s realized he can no longer handle his growing IT needs himself. Sam needs
to figure out what his options are to get these tasks off of his plate.

What action should occur at this stage?

You want to convert Sam to a lead by getting him to opt-in to receive your stellar content.

How can you convert visitors to leads?

• Offer gated premium content, like an in-depth white paper

• Promote an upcoming webinar that requires registration

• Create leadflow pop-ups to get blog posts delivered to your inbox

Why get him to take these actions, you might ask? Digitally speaking, email is currency.
By collecting Sam’s email address in return for a piece of content, you now gain the
opportunity to nurture him down the sales funnel through email marketing.

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Buyer’s Journey Stage #3: Decision (Bottom of Funnel)
By now, Sam has narrowed down his options to either hiring a part-time internal IT manager
or outsourcing to a full-serviced managed IT services company. He’s still deciding which will
be the best option, from a service and cost perspective.

What action should occur at this stage?

You want to close Sam and make him your customer!

How can you close leads?

• Email a vendor comparison checklist

• Provide case studies focused on ROI

• Schedule a one-on-one audit of his current hardware

Bonus Stage: Delighting Customers

Congrats…Sam has decided to become a retainer client of your managed IT services
company! As a marketer, you may think your work is done, but it’s really just beginning.
B2B buyers trust word of mouth more than any other source of information. In fact, a
reported 48% of B2B marketers get 50%+ of their business from brand advocates! (Fuggetta,
Rob. Brand Advocates: Turning Enthusiastic Customers into a Powerful Marketing Force. Wiley,
2012. Print.) So, why not take your relationship a step further and turn Small Business Owner
Sam into a brand promoter?

What action should occur at this stage?

You want to delight Sam into becoming a promoter of your company.

How can you delight customers?

• Be innovative: code your website to offer personalized, smart content when he revisits

• Keep it personal: send a customer satisfaction survey, mail cool swag or give shoutouts
on social media

• Be creative: use your imagination to come up with fun products, promos or programs your
customers will actually find entertaining and valuable…think a customized daily planner vs.
yet another stress ball

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Measuring Your Results
How effective is your inbound marketing campaign at moving prospects through the buyer’s
journey explained above? The only way to know is to measure results. Luckily, thanks to tools
like Google Analytics, you can determine success (or failure!) virtually in real time.

Let’s look at some metrics that can help you determine if your inbound
marketing campaign is performing well:

Page Visits: How many visitors viewed your content? If you launch new marketing
efforts, you should expect to see a jump in page visits. Over time, this number
should steadily increase. But remember…quantity doesn’t always mean quality!

Bounce Rate: Are people spending five minutes or five seconds on a web page?
If your answer is less than a few seconds, they are likely not finding relevant
content so it’s time to try a new message.

Leads Generated: Did the content convert any visitors to leads? If not, consider
changing up your CTA. You want your visitors to be engaged, but you also want
to pave a path for them to move seamlessly through their buyer’s journey.

Social Proof: Did anyone like, share or repost your content? Give your audience
the tools to do the work for you. Place social “share” buttons on all content pages
to expand opportunities for your content to be distributed.

Inbound Links: Are any outside websites linking to your content? (This will help
build your website’s authority, a key SEO factor.) Build relationships with industry
leaders and become active in relevant online communities where your customers
hang out. Share their content and perhaps they’ll share yours.

Even if your marketing seems to be working great, a smart tech marketer will ABT: always
be tweaking! Be sure to follow this simple formula for continuous improvement: test, analyze,
optimize, repeat.

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Why Inbound Marketing Works
for Software/Tech Companies
If you’re still not sold on the idea of inbound marketing, here are some specific reasons
it’s a perfect match for a software/tech company like yours:

More than 50% of the buyer’s journey is digital.…and you are a technology
company, after all.

Practice what you preach. If you’re trying to get people to invest in cybersecurity or move to
the cloud, why are you still allocating so much money offline to print ads or direct mail? These
methods can be used to supplement an inbound strategy, of course, but the majority of your
efforts should be invested in digital tactics where you can focus on educating people who are
already in the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey.

It’s more effective, and less expensive, than traditional outbound marketing.

We live in a skippable world—caller ID, spam filters and streaming services like Netflix
make it easier for customers to avoid cold calls and commercials. These old-school tactics
push content in the face of potential customers whether they’re ready to buy…or not. Plus,
businesses who focus primarily on inbound marketing experience a 61% cost-per-lead (CPL).

It gives you huge amounts of data to personalize your marketing.

If you’re in tech, you probably appreciate the power of big data…and going digital with
your marketing efforts gives you access to unprecedented user behavior insights. By using
a powerful all-in-one marketing automation platform (like our favorite, HubSpot), you’ll be able
to see how individual users interact with your marketing—think page views, email opens and
link clinks—then use this information to personalize future marketing outreach.

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It’s immensely helpful in a confusing industry.

Tech can be overwhelming for novices. Your goal with inbound marketing is to make it easy
to understand, positioning yourself as a clear expert in the field. Assuming you’re not selling
purely on price, being seen as a trusted advisor will give you the clear edge during the decision
stage of the buyer’s journey.

It adds lasting value.

Inbound marketing is a long-term move. Sure, there are ways to get “quick wins”—like adding
a lead flow pop-up to your website—but proving yourself as the industry expert to your
customers (and Google!) takes time. The good news is that each and every piece of content
you create adds value, and all of these build upon each other. A top-performing blog post
could bring in leads months, if not years, after it was originally written. Can you say the same
thing about a radio commercial?

Getting Started with Inbound

Ready to get started with inbound marketing? Or looking to take your existing inbound efforts
to the next level?

We can help.

Kiwi Creative is a HubSpot Gold Agency Partner that specializes in working with B2B software
and technology customers. And hopefully after reading this web page, you can tell that we
know our stuff.

We’re a small, but talented, team of strategists, writers, designers, technologists and
developers…all ready to help in-house marketing managers at tech companies with branding,
website design, sales enablement and, of course, inbound marketing.

Want to chat about an upcoming project?

Click here to schedule a time that’s convenient for you.

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