how integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a btob … · who never delete email and trash mail...
TRANSCRIPT
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 1
Table of content................................................................................................................................................ 1
Acknowledgement........................................................................................................................................... 3
Glossary ............................................................................................................................................................... 4
1) Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 5
1.1) Example of inbound marketing from a customer point of view .................................. 6
1.2) Inbound vs Outbound marketing ............................................................................................ 7
2) Inbound marketing presentation......................................................................................................... 9
2.1) Origins .................................................................................................................................................... 9
2.1.1) Permission marketing concept ............................................................................................. 9
2.1.2) Inbound marketing = Permission marketing + Internet.......................................... 11
2.1.3) Definition and side concepts............................................................................................... 13
2.2) Inbound marketing pattern and tools ..................................................................................... 15
2.2.1) Attract strangers ..................................................................................................................... 15
2.2.2) Convert onlookers .................................................................................................................. 16
2.2.3) Close leads ................................................................................................................................. 18
2.2.4) Delight customers ................................................................................................................... 19
2.3) Actual context ................................................................................................................................... 20
2.3.1) Figures ......................................................................................................................................... 20
2.3.2) A BtoC pattern .......................................................................................................................... 22
2.3.3) BtoB specificities ..................................................................................................................... 23
3) Inbound marketing in BtoB cases ..................................................................................................... 25
3.1) Methodology ..................................................................................................................................... 25
3.2) Case studies ....................................................................................................................................... 26
3.2.1) Case 1: Foundery ..................................................................................................................... 26
3.2.2) Case 2: FreshBooks ................................................................................................................. 30
3.2.3) Case 3: Maersk .......................................................................................................................... 33
3.2.4) Case 4: General Electric ........................................................................................................ 38
3.2.5) Case 5: Dell (for Businesses)............................................................................................... 41
3.3) Adaptation of the pattern ............................................................................................................ 44
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 2
3.3.1) Global results of cases ........................................................................................................... 44
3.3.2) Key success factors ................................................................................................................. 44
3.3.3) Standard Vs Customized solution ..................................................................................... 46
3.3.4) Small companies Vs Large corporate .............................................................................. 46
3.4) Consequences in the company ................................................................................................... 47
3.4.1) Human resources management ......................................................................................... 47
3.4.2) Sales process ............................................................................................................................. 48
3.4.3) Outbound marketing ............................................................................................................. 48
3.4.4) Discussion .................................................................................................................................. 49
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................... 50
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................... 52
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 3
I would like to thank Ashley Proctor, manager at Foundery, who trusted me and gave me
the opportunity to achieve my final year internship in a wonderful coworking space. She
was also my tutor, and working with Ashley was a real pleasure. Thanks a lot to Jake
Koseleci, founder of the Foundery, who also warmly welcomed me.
Thank to Alex Rascanu, Marketing & Operations Director at Drive Conversion, who
answered lot of my questions about inbound marketing in BtoB.
Thank to Stephen Clarke, former EVP at Saatchi & Saatch, who also spent time with me
to give me his insights about advertising and marketing evolution and trends. Thank
also to his wife, Svetlana Ratnikova, with who I worked with to organize an event.
I assisted to the InboundTo Meetups during this internship. During this monthly based
event, I learned a lot about inbound marketing practices, and met very skillful, and
experiences marketers. I want to thank organizers and participants of this very
interesting Meetup. I especially think of the team of Powered by Search (inbound
marketing agency in Toronto): Dev Basu, Joel Popoff, Dat To, and so many more.
Thank to Gabriel Szapiro from Saphir agency who also was a source of trustful
information on inbound marketing. I wish him success for the soon release of his book: "
L'inbound marketing selon la stratégie du sherpa".
Finally , thank to Christophe Lejeune, my tutor at ESTA, who gave me useful feedbacks
during the different steps of the writing of this dissertation.
I would like to give extra thanks to people who believed in my work and support me in
different ways during the writing of this dissertation.
Geoffrey Bressan CMO at Markentive (inbound and digital marketing agency in
Paris)
Jérôme Simon CEO at Remarqbl (inbound marketing agency in Paris)
All Foundery and Creative Blueprint members
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 4
BOFU: (Bottom Of the FUnnel) Hot prospects or customers who are about to buy.
Buyer persona: A semi-fictional representation of the ideal customer based on market
research and real data about existing customers.
Content marketing: The technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable
content to attract, acquire and engage a clearly defined target audience.
CRO: (Conversion Rate Optimization)
CTA: (Call-To-Action) Small sentence that push the visitor to do a specific action.
Curation: Find information on a specific subject, sort them, comment them and share
them with an audience.
Inbound marketing: Inbound marketing refers to marketing activities that bring
visitors in, rather than marketers having to go out to get prospect’s attention.
Landing page: Page where a visitor will arrive on once he clicked on a CTA.
Lead nurturing: Action from the company in order to reinforce the relationship with a
lead and push him a little bit more toward the purchase.
Lead scoring: Giving a grade to leads according to their interactions with the company.
Marketing automation (software): Software that handle the lead scoring and lead
nurturing. Can be assimilated to a CRM software that handle lead relationship by itself.
(Hubspot is a marketing automation software)
MOFU: (Middle Of the FUnnel) Leads who already interacted with the company but
aren't ready to buy.
SEO:( Search Engine Optimization) Techniques that are focused on giving a higher rank
for a page or website in SERPs.
SERP: Search Engines Result Page
SMO: (Social Media Optimization) Techniques to develop brand image and awareness
with social networks.
TOFU: (Top Of the FUnnel) People who discover the company but didn't interact yet.
UI/UX: User Interface/ User Experience
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 5
To explain what is the inbound marketing, it is important to know what is the outbound
marketing first.
Outbound marketing was almost the only way companies used to promote themselves
until few years ago. Before the generalization of the internet access, all medias we had at
disposition were a 1 way communication. TV, radio, magazines, direct mails…
We had no way to interact with these medias, and we had to accept them as they were:
preselected information and mainly advertising we didn’t want. All companies
worldwide were spending huge amounts of money to reach a maximum of people, not
caring about the targets expectations or who would see their advertisements. From our
consumer point of view, we had no real way to avoid them. We were always in presence
of unasked products or services promotion. This is outbound marketing.
Then, internet appeared and all services coming with (forums, emails, wikis, blogs, social
networks…). So, what did companies? They did exactly what they were used to do: spent
a lot of money to create a website, and have flashy and dazzling advertising on as much
as possible websites, and they bought email address list (from a much or less reliable
sources) to send their “digital flyers and magazines”.
But, how do we really find information nowadays when we want to buy a product or a
service? Internet most of the time. In reality, here is what has been happening since the
last few years: there is so much TV channels, radios, newspapers, websites… that the
consumer retrieve its freedom to avoid advertising.
Who don’t change channel when ads come?
Who stay on a website half covered with pop-ups?
Who never delete email and trash mail without opening them?
Technologies and the multiplicity of media channels, give us the possibility to switch
from a media to another in a fraction of second. Less and less people are receptive or
paying attention to ads.
For companies, advertising expenditures goes up, while ROI goes down.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 6
Let’s review what really happens today with an example. Here is how a small company
could buy a new professional printer.
An SME needs a new printer for its activity. For the sake of the example, there is two
fictional resellers possible (company A and company B).
The company A: They sent a salesmen few months ago. He wasn't expected but,
he was politely welcomed. He delivered his speech to the receptionist who didn't
really paid attention to it. Anyway, he left a catalog and a business card " just in
case". Then he sent regularly some promotional mails which all ended on a bin
without being opened. The day the CEO decide to buy a new printer, the buying
responsible remember that there was a printer reseller that never stopped
harassing them. But what was their argument? Where are information about
their product?
The company B: The CEO ask to his buying responsible to find a professional
printer that fits their needs. The buying responsible does some research on
internet to find what kind of printing technology is the most accurate (inkjet or
laser). He land on an informative article on a printer reseller website. The article
answers perfectly his question. At the bottom of the page, a link to another page
on the same topic "how to select a printer and pay only for features you need" is
displayed. That way, the buying responsible go through different content on this
website until he knows exactly which printer he want to buy.
Which company of these two has the most chance to have the deal? Which one looks the
most skillful, the most professional? The one that harass or the one that is helpful?
It is highly probable that the buying responsible will order a new printer through the
company B, instead of calling back the company A.
Off course, this example is simplified, but it still represent two very distinct approaches,
and illustrate outbound marketing (company A), and inbound marketing (company B).
The importance for the seller is to be at the good place, at the good moment, and with
relevant information.
It is all about the three main point of permission marketing: anticipated, personal,
relevant. If we look closer, the company A reaches none of these points, while company
B reaches all of them.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 7
The lesson from this short story is that the company probably received numerous ads
for printers or printing services in past months, but they had no reason to look at them.
But when they had a specific question, when they decided to buy a new printer, a
company was there, at the right place, at the right time to answer it. And once, someone
give you answer and advice, why would you search for someone else?
This is what we call inbound marketing.
Inbound marketing can be summarized in one sentence: get your company found, be
helpful when a potential customer is seeking for information, then guide him to the sale.
This is very different from the outbound marketing which is based on this principle:
come to your eyes, your ears whenever, wherever, by any means necessary.
Outbound marketing is very intrusive and interrupt you in what you are doing, while
inbound marketing is about being reached by yourself with your authorization, when
you want, where you want, and for the subject you want.
There are three objectives for companies which do inbound marketing strategy:
1. Be found
2. Provide resourceful content
3. Convert
It is exactly what our previous example showed. The search engine showed him a
website, he read an interesting content, and he finally bought to this company.
This is the very principle of the inbound marketing. But don’t delude yourself,
implementing that strategy in companies needs numerous different skills, and can’t be
applied in few days. It is a long term view strategy which has to be well prepared and
thought to be effective.
Inbound marketing is probably going to be the main way for companies to reach new
customers in coming years. Look around you to see the buying process of people: less
and less people buy without doing researches on internet, or , in general, without doing
research about the product.
To illustrate differences between inbound marketing and outbound marketing, we can
compare it to fishing and hunting. The inbound way would be fishing, and the outbound
one would be the hunting.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 8
The marketer who is seeking for a new place to advertise is like a hunter walking in the
countryside and seeking for a prey. They both expect that a maximum of target will
come in front of them and that they will be able to catch them. Badly, their behavior is
much predictable by their targets who are easily able to avoid them. The animal would
hear or smell the hunter and run away, such as the potential visitor won't even glance at
the advertising, because he knows this is not in its interest.
On the other hand, we have the fisher, and the inbound marketer. They both give a bait
to their target: a worm for the fisher, relevant information or advice for the marketer. In
both cases, the target can catch the free bait and leave. But in another cases, the fish /
customer might want to go further and have more. Once the fisher got a bite, it doesn't
mean the fish is caught: there is specific techniques to pull up the fish until it goes to the
fisher's basket. Same for the potential customer, the marketer have to bring them more
and more value in exchange of more and more engagement until the sale is close.
This comparison works for other points. The hunter go through forests and countryside,
disturbing many animals that are obviously not its targets: mice, squirrels, raptors,
birds, and so much more. Same for the outbound marketer, its advertising is probably
targeting 5% of the audience, but the other 95% are just disturbed by this advertising,
they just don't care about. In the meanwhile, the fisher is in a corner of the lake, and
animals which are not targeted are not disturbed. If the fisher want to change target, he
just change the bait. Also, the customer seeking for information or advice will find it, but
people who are not interested will never read, hear, or see anything about it.
Finally, let's compare the amount of efforts necessary for these both activities: the
hunter have to walk all day long, with a heavy weapon, and with lot of mud on its boots.
During the same time, the fisher is sat comfortably, drinking its coffee. The outbound
marketer spent huge amount of money trying to be everywhere and be noticed by
everybody, while the inbound marketer focused its efforts on making a great bait, and
pull up its leads to the sales.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 9
Before going deep into the inbound marketing, it is
interesting to speak about what it came from. For
reminder, the inbound marketing concept appeared in
2006 and was really pushed forward by the company
Hubspot and its two founders: Brian Halligan and
Dharmesh Shah.
The direct ancestor of inbound marketing is the
permission marketing. It was defined by Seth Godin
(on the right), previous head of marketing at Yahoo, in
his book "Permission Marketing" in 1999.
Back then, it was still the beginning of internet, when people and companies were
switching from direct mail to email. And this is interesting to see how Seth Godin,
already saw the swift in marketing methods needed to adapt to it.
Mr Godin noticed that direct marketing methods (mails, emails, cold callings, doors to
doors, ads campaigns) were less and less effective. He explain this trend with two
factors.
The increasing number of requests and interruptions.
Indeed, medias are permanently cutting their content to show to their audience
unexpected advertisings. When mass-marketing appeared, there was very few ads. Each
of them were an impact on people seeing it. But nowadays, we are exposed to thousands
of promotional messages per day. Think about every ads which are on medias (tv, radio,
magazine, street panels...), but also ads inside shops (hundreds in each shops), or just
every logos you can see every day on almost every products. How can we be focused on
every one of them? How can get the message that each of company would like to relay?
The point is: we can't. The more ads we see the less impact each of them have. And as
brands are trying to interrupt us every single second of our day, each message have
almost no chance to influence us (or it have to be displayed many times).
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 10
The increasing number of ways to escape these interruptions.
Though years, more and more channels appeared in our environment. When mass
marketing started there was few radio stations, few TV channels, few magazines... Then
more and more channels appears: we have now dozens of radios or TV channels,
hundreds of magazines... If we are not satisfied by the content (including ads), we can
switch very easily. Who don't switch of radio stations when commercials start?
Everybody! But this is true for almost all medias: TV, magazines, mails, emails, or even
shops. There is so much of them, that we have no reason to stay with one of them when
marketing is pushing too much.
In a nutshell:
Nowadays, ads are inefficient because they are too much of them, and because you can
skip it very easily.
Let's illustrate this with a parable.
Imagine yourself walking in small and quiet village somewhere in France. Suddenly,
foreign visitors ask you where is the post office. It would be rude to ignore them, so you
would probably spend one or two minutes to explain them how to go to the post office.
Now, imagine yourself on the Champs-Elysée in Paris. It is crowded! You walked 100
meters and you already has been interrupted by a guy who want you to sign a petition, a
guy who ask you if you have a cigarette for him, a tourist who want you to take a picture
of him, a guy who wanted to give you a flyer,
and a guy who tried to make you enter in his
shop... It is highly improbable that you are
going to be kind and spent time to explain to
another tourist how to go to the Eiffel Tower.
And you won't even feel bad, because, five
people in front of you just skip them just as
you've probably done. And in case you feel
bad, there will be another guy who want
something from you 20 meters forward.
The solution proposed by Seth Godin was the permission marketing. It relies on the idea
of turning stranger into friends, then friends into customers. To reach this state the
brand had to create a bait that would interest its market audience. To access to this bait,
the potential prospect have to give the permission to the brand to contact him again.
This permission might be explicit or implicit. Once this permission granted, the brand
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 11
have to reach higher permission level step by step by following three essential rules in
their communication with their leads:
1. Anticipated
2. Personal
3. Relevant
To sum up the permission marketing, have a look at the table below.
Interruption Marketing Permission Marketing Anticipated No Yes
Personal Not usually Yes Relevant Sometimes Yes
With these three critical parameters, and with a marketing highly focused on each
prospect' expectations, the brand communication is a way more effective as leads
willing to consume the brand' marketing.
The inbound marketing is widely inspired by permission marketing. It is less theoretical,
and more concrete in the application. Inbound marketing can be summarized as a
process on internet that follow the permission marketing concept.
When the book "Permission marketing" was released, it was the very beginning of the
web: internet access was mainly for comfortable households, people and companies
were switching slowly to emails, social networks and blogs didn't exist yet, and Google
wasn't the uncontested leader it is today. Moreover the world wide web was most of the
time a one way communication: static pages that show information without any way to
interact with.
In 2008, Brian Halligan (on the right on the picture) and Dharmesh Shah (on the left),
released their book: "Inbound marketing: Get
found using Google, social media, and blogs". In
this book they promote tools, technologies, and
interactivity of internet to create a process that
can convert a random visitor into a profitable
customer.
In first years of the world wide web, marketers
tried to convert the ads, they were used to
published on traditional channels, to the web.
Internet was seen as another TV channel, in
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 12
which companies would promote themselves as they were used to. But quickly, and with
the fast increase of the internet speed in download and upload, internet became a two
ways communications media. Most successful website are now collaborative, or at least
involve the visitor: forums, blogs, socials networks, Wikipedia, comments, shares,
customers reviews...
On internet, companies can't reach consumers directly. At the opposite, consumers use
internet to find products or information all of the time. The idea behind the inbound
marketing is to be found easily when people are searching for information on subject
related to the product we want to sell. This is in total opposition with interruption
marketing which is based the capacity of being heard, seen, noticed wherever and
whenever by any means necessary.
To be found, the company need to create relevant content in order to provide useful
information to their potential clients. This will create awareness, build trust, and give to
the firm an image of expert in its field of activity.
The inbound marketing is considered as a funnel. At the entrance (Top Of the FUnnel:
TOFU) there are all visitors. Then according to their interaction and engagement, they
move forward in the funnel (Middle Of the FUnnel: MOFU). Once they become customer
they are in the bottom of the funnel (BOFU). They still can go further to become loyal
customers, or even promoters of the brand.
To make the lead move forward in the funnel, the company will provide more and more
value-added content in exchange for more and more engagement. In other words, the
bait is quality content, and the permission is the engagement of the visitor.
Below is the chart that illustrate the inbound marketing methodology promoted by B.
Halligan and D. Shah.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 13
The general concept of inbound marketing:
We see that this definition is totally in agreement with the permission marketing
concept. Moreover, this sentence don't specify any tools, and stay focused on the concept
and don't mention a specific process.
As "inbound marketing" term appears in 2006 with B. Halligan and D.Shah and their
company, Hubspot, it was quickly assimilated with tools they promoted.
From this perspective, there is an obvious conflict of
interest. They promote a method for which their
company offers tools to perform it.
This is why I choose to keep the above definition,
that stay general and explain the concept instead of
a method.
However, the commonly accepted definition is:
While searching information about inbound marketing, this definition might sound more
accurate. Indeed, it is commonly accepted that inbound marketing is an online based
strategy. With this point of view , inbound marketing could be assimilated to web-
marketing, e-marketing, or any other activity related to the promotion of an entity on
the web.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 14
Content marketing
It is frequent to find misuse of the "inbound marketing" term to express a side concept:
the content marketing. This is why it is important to understand how they are linked to
one another.
The definition of content marketing:
This definition is quite close to the previous one about inbound marketing, ant it explain
the confusion with these terms.
Content marketing is limited to the creation and publication of content. It doesn't
involve any conversion of the audience, leads generation or lead nurturing process.
At the opposite, inbound marketing is a global process that start with content marketing
to drive an audience but also handle all the rest of the sales funnel until gaining the
loyalty of consumers.
Criticism of the inbound marketing
The inbound marketing as presented by Hubspot founders is focused on internet
presence. It means that the company have to create remarkable content and diffuse it on
internet in order to convert its audience. Badly, it is not that easy to do. It needs a lot of
different competencies, mainly technical ones, to master the visibility of the content
(SEO, copywriting, PPC campaigns), conversion rates (landing pages, leads nurturing),
and to measure efficiency of the whole inbound funnel (Google analytics, marketing
automation tools). But, while the principles of inbound marketing is just about attract
customers and convert them, the method described by in the 2009 book "Inbound
marketing: Get found using Google, Social medias, and Blogs" never talk about a possible
offline method. Moreover, the method shown in this book is very strict, and it is
presented as the only one. This thesis is about keeping the initial principles of inbound
marketing but discover methods that are actually done in BtoB businesses. This book is
the reference of inbound marketing, but I will go further in the real process of
integration, and adaptation which can be done to match BtoB market functioning and
requirements.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 15
First step of inbound marketing is to attract potential prospect. This can be done
through different way and techniques. Here I'm going to describe main ones as they are
described by marketers: online. The goal is to help people find the company website as it
is the only place it can be manage entirely (in opposition to search engines, social
networks, or any third entity websites).
The most natural way to drive visitors to a website is to be found in results of a search
engine. Search engines have powerful algorithms to scan all websites and pages of
Internet and sort them. Then, when people search for such or such expression, the
search engine present the most accurate pages. As algorithms are kept secret and evolve
every single day, it is impossible to guarantee the rank of a page in search engine result
page (SERP). Whatsoever, main criteria to be well ranked are known, and some
professional can do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to improve the ranking of a page.
Without going into details, there is two main fields in SEO: on-page SEO, and off-page
SEO.
On-page SEO is the optimization inside a web-page. Algorithms scan the page and
try to figure out what it is about. Some techniques are: use of keywords, efficient
coding, server quickness, internal linking, use of semantic beacons...
Off-page SEO is not based on the web-page , but on its impact. Search engines are
looking for links from other websites that point to this web-page. A page with a
lot of links pointing at it is considered as relevant and informative and have more
chance to appear in SERPs.
Through time, some people tried to find some leaks in algorithms and exploit them. But
websites using these "borderlines" techniques usually get caught by search engines and
suffer a penalty in ranking. Some "black hat" techniques (in opposition to "white hat"
ones, and called like this after a recent update on Google algorithm) are: keywords
stuffing, duplicate content, backlinks purchase...
The SEO is the technical way to be more visible on internet through search engines, but
there is another way: the creation of content.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 16
Think about a raffle. If your name is write only once, you have very few chance to be
picked up. On the other hand, if your name is written a lot of time, your chances greatly
increase.
Company blogs are one og the best way to increase its visibility. Each article written is a
new page, and each new page is one more chance to appear in SERPs. As words are
bricks of the internet, the more words the company website / blog have, the better the
visibility will be.
Actually it can be compared to traditional advertising. The biggest advertise is more
likely to be seen. Advertise that appear a multiple time are more likely to influence the
audience.
The creation of content is called content marketing.
Social networks might also be a source of traffic.
Since few years, we hear that content is king. And this is not only for the reason told
above (increase visibility). A message seen only once is ineffective. It is the multiplicity
of the views of a message that might influence. This is why there is advertising
campaigns instead of unique large ads. The same logic is true on internet. One of the
most influent companies in term of SEO and inbound marketing is Moz. Their business is
only based on inbound tactics. However, even considered as the state of the art, their
leads went, on average, through seven piece of content before getting in touch with the
company. Being found only once by a potential lead isn't enough. The visitor have to
land on the same website multiple times before starting to trust it.
Once a visitor found the company blog, the goal is not to promote the awesomeness of
the firm or of its product. Why? Because visitor are not looking to buy something, but
are seeking for answers to their question. Articles on the company blogs, and its content
in general, have to answer question potential leads might have.
For example:
-I'm seeking information to find which variety a flower is more accurate for such or such
event. Google redirect me to a specific article about this subject. If the article is
irrelevant or not answer my question, I leave the website. But if it answer my question
accurately, odds are good that I will stay to this website and order flower from this one
instead of another one.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 17
This is just the same reaction as if I would go in bricks and mortar shop: I'm more likely
to buy from the seller who spend some time to advice me, instead of the one that let me
chose by myself, or advice me poorly.
If it is better for SEO to have content presented as text (as explain in the previous part),
content can be displayed in multiple format: video, picture, webinar, white paper,
newsletter, podcast, infographics, report...
Texts are the easiest kind of content to create, publish and promote. But each format has
its strengths and weaknesses. According to the message, the audience, the goal, the
budget... An article on the company blog might not be the most accurate format.
Once the visitor consumed the company content and consider it (unconsciously) as a
trustful source of information, the objective is to make him interact. Usually the first
information to ask to potential leads is his email address.
Through targeted call-to-actions (CTAs), it is possible to drive visitors to a specific
landing page.
A landing page is a web-page targeting one very specific buyer persona and specifically
designed to make him do a defined action. The creation of successful landing pages is
essential to leads generation. Important efforts have to be made to focus all the websites
to drive visitors to these landing pages, and to reach high conversion rate though them.
Beyond UI/UX, the principle is to create an interesting offer the visitor can have in
exchange of engagement (in the form of personal data). Most common offers are: a
newsletter, a report, a white paper, a demo, a free trial, a discount rate... This is the bait
featured in the permission marketing.
The more appealing the offer is, the more chance the visitor will give his personal
information, his permission. The appeal of an offer can be measured by the value it have
for the prospect, and by the engagement asked.
For a newsletter or to download a white-paper, asking more than just my name and my
email address would be irrelevant. But to receive free sample of a product, I would be
more disposed to give my gender, age, and address.
As the email address is an effective way to communicate in the future with the prospect,
and as, for the visitor, giving it is not a big engagement; it is usually the first thing asked.
This low level of engagement is the most easy way to stay in touch with the prospect,
and it is the first step to build a stronger relationship with him.
However, tricking people to collect their email address is a waste of time, as the
permission given worth nothing. The opt-in system have to be explicit to have a valuable
permission from the prospect.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 18
Once first information is collected about a visitor, he becomes a lead. The goal is to
nurture him to reinforce the relationship with him, develop awareness about the brand,
and build trust. This step is called lead nurturing. It is all about leveraging the
permission granted in the previous step by following the principles of permission
marketing: anticipated, personal, and relevant. This is mandatory, otherwise, and with
the ease given by internet, the prospect can dismiss his permission in one click.
For the potential customers it is very easy to avoid the company communication if it
doesn't match his expectations: unsubscribe from the mailing list, sort emails as spams,
unfollow the company on social networks...
Lead nurturing is actually like dating. It is all about building a stronger relationship little
by little without trying to skip a steps or at the risk of break up the relationship. Exactly
as dating, it might take more or less time and effort to convert the lead into a customer,
and to make him trust the company enough to purchase from it. Physically, these steps
are more and more engagement from the prospect in exchange of more and more value.
This also means that the company have to create relevant content for each steps. If the
relationship is already well established, it would be a shame to offer to hot leads same
content as new comers.
A theoretical path might look like this:
1. The visitor is invited to give his email address to receive a white-paper and
subscribe to the newsletter. He receive the newsletters and clicks on some of
them.
2. The company offer him to assist to a free webinar. To assist to it, the prospect
need to give further details (name, age, gender, country, field of activity).
3. Then, after the webinar, the company offer him to try its product for free. They
asked him specific address details to send him the sample.
4. At the end, the company offer him to buy the product if he liked the sample.
Of course, paths really have to be design according to characteristics of the product or
service to sell. Lot of parameters might influence the complexity of the nurturing
process, and not every prospect will be receptive to same incentives. That is why the
nurturing process have to be customized at maximum with information gathered about
the prospect.
While this can be handle manually in very small companies, it is quickly impossible to
manage if there are hundreds of leads. In corporate with enough resources, a marketing
automation software permit the automation of the leads nurturing. Hubspot, for
instance, is one of them.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 19
Once the lead becomes a customer, the inbound marketing process is not over. As well
known, it is way much easier and cheaper to create customer loyalty, than prospecting
new ones.
It means that the buying action is not the end of the relationship, but a step that can use
as a leverage. With a successful relationship after the purchase, it can lead to multiple
other purchases, feedbacks about the products, recommendations, or even creation of an
ambassador of the brand.
Lead nurturing, as explain in the previous page, is still relevant. Providing extra
information about the product purchased, or access to specific resources to enhance the
customer experience. For example, it can be very effective ways to reinforce the
relationship. By leveraging the permission given previously, before the buying act, the
brand could ultimately turn customers into ambassadors.
Of course, the content provided to people who already purchased still have to follow the
three rules of permission marketing: anticipated, personal, and relevant. While this was
difficult to do before the internet era, nowadays it is very easy to stay in touch with the
customers. Moreover, educating clients after their purchase might avoid some problems
of misuse, or failure of products. It decreases the risk of unsatisfied customers and
reduce the after sales service work.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 20
Figures below are from a 175 pages report done by Hubspot: " 2013 State of Inbound
Marketing". Data come from 3339 companies in 128 countries. Only 9% of answering
companies are Hubspot's customer. However, companies that replies to a Hubspot's
query are more likely to have a favorable opinion of inbound marketing.
From companies which does inbound marketing in 2012, 49% of them increased their
budget in 2013, while only 9% lowered it.
41% of companies doing inbound marketing had a positive ROI and 9% didn't. While it
is supposed to be easily measurable, 34% of them still don't know how to evaluate it.
Finally, the most interesting data is the cost per lead, and the cost for the acquisition a
new customer. Here are figures:
According to these figures, lead acquisition costs 12% less and customer acquisition 5%
less with inbound marketing than with outbound methods.
Another interesting figure, not directly related to inbound marketing, is the average cost
per customer in companies with and without a formal agreement between sales and
marketing teams that determines both teams' responsibilities. A formal sales-marketing
agreement results in a drop of 60% in costs for customer acquisition.
Following figures are from the "B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets, and
Trends—North America" report done by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). Data
come from 1217 B2B marketers across North America, and 93% affirm doing content
marketing. As the previous report, people who answered a CMI's survey are more likely
to be involved in content marketing.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 21
First noticeable data are the kind of content produced by BtoB marketers. The most used
are social networks, articles (on various media), newsletter and events. In comparison
with the 2013 report, infographics did the largest increase: from 38% last year to 51%
in 2014. Marketers who reach best effectiveness use, on average, 15 of the tactics below.
While social media is the most used tactic, it only 37% of marketers believe in their
effectiveness. As we could expect the tactic that are considered as the most effective are
the ones that bring the more value to the audience: events, case studies, videos, and
webinars. These kinds of content are also much more difficult to produce.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 22
In term of business goals, improving the brand awareness arrives first. However, we can
distinguish two wide objectives: improving the company's image, and leads generation
and nurturing. In the second case, we can guess these companies have an inbound
marketing process.
As the inbound marketing, as described by Hubspot founders, is only online. The first
barrier to BtoB is here. While we can offer standardized products or services to final
customers, it is mostly inappropriate for companies selling on BtoB.
Even if the company have different products targeting different market segment, it is
still easy to track visitors' engagement sign for such or such thing. With a marketing
automation tool, well defined buyer personas and an adapted lead nurturing strategy,
the customers follow a defined path. With experience and testing these paths can be
very accurate and lead to a high conversion rate.
The company can have hundreds of pre-designed emails and the same amount of
landing pages. That way the path will be more and more accurate. Each steps the lead go
forward is a descent into the sales funnel.
From the customer point of view, it means that he will feel understood, and happily
surprised by the relevance of information provided by the company. As the permission
marketing advice it, the content he will receive is anticipated, personal, and relevant.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 23
For BtoB businesses the strategy of the multiplication of paths don't work as good as
BtoC. When a company is seeking for a provider, it don't expect to have a standardized
products. He wants a specific and adapted solution to its needs. No needs of extra
features that will increase the price or a lack of features that will affect it's productivity
or lower its own customers expectations. Moreover, expectations and stakes are way
more important than in BtoC. Guess a misfit engine on a production line, it would affect
the whole productivity of the factory (and all consequences on HR, logistic, customers...
coming with), and even put some employees in danger. In BtoC, there is never so much
consequences. What the worth could happen? The customer won't be happy, he won't
buy your product anymore, and if he has a bit of influence, won't advice your products
to his family and friends. It will be a unique sell but for the customer and for the selling
company consequences aren't very important.
That is why human relationships are even more important in BtoB. Companies buying
from another one expect a specific product but also a specific relationship. They are not
seeking for a random provider but for a long term partner that will be able to react
quickly if needed, even in few years.
That being said, 57% of the BtoB purchase decision-making is complete before
contacting any potential suppliers. This figure confirm the necessity for companies to be
found, provide information, and prove their technical abilities before any sales process
is engage.
The inbound marketing offers a step to turn customers into loyal customers then into
ambassadors. But it is still done through marketing automation tools. In the perfect
inbound marketing as described by Hubspot, face to face dialogue between the customer
and the provider never happens. That is why this inbound marketing can't be applied
this way in BtoB markets. Even if the buying decision making is already well forward, it
is the personal relationship created between companies that is the first factor of
customer loyalty.
If a BtoB business is selling standardized products or services, and if consequences of
the purchase of these products are not critical for the buying company, there is no need
to establish a strong relationship between the buyer and the seller. For examples: a
stationary business don't need to establish strong partnership with its clients, and if
they sell a product that doesn't fit the need or has not a good quality, there is almost no
deep consequences.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 24
However, if products sold are standards (computers, phone, internet access provider...),
they might be mandatory for the smooth running of activities of the buyer. In that case,
services coming with are way more developed than in BtoC. A final consumer can switch
easily of computer, phone, or internet access provider. A company can't afford doing
such a switch, mainly because it is usually linked to many other tools or people within
the business.
In B2C, the buyer is the user (almost always). It also means that the reseller have to
convince only one person to buy the product. The marketing target is the decision
maker, who is the buyer, and who is the user. This is rarely true in B2B. There is usually
lot of people involved in the buying process:
One person to search potential providers (personal assistant)
One person who have the decision making power (CEO)
One person who focused on technical features (engineer)
One person focused on financial aspect (CFO)
One person focused on maintenance and long term services (maintenance guy)
One person focused on certifications and contract details (layer)
One person who will use the product on daily basis (factory worker)
So if we do inbound marketing, in the better case, we would reach a personal assistant,
or a guy in R&D department without any decision making power. And all efforts done to
reach this guy might be pointless. This is a reason why defining different buyer personas
is important. Content created have to alternatively feed interest of different buyer
personas, and answer their respective questions.
People, as customers, are well connected to internet and to social media. But companies,
as potential customers are not. If a company reach someone online, he reached is target
directly. But how a company can reach another company online? Contacts information
available are always generic email address (info@..., contact@...) that are almost never
taken into account. Another ways might to contact the company through its after sales
services, or directly on their social media profiles. Either ways, there is very few
chance that the person on the other side of the screen will be directly interested by what
you want to sell. This prove that outbound marketing tactics aren't relevant online, and
that other ways have to be used.
Anyway, inbound marketing is about being reached, and not be able to reach. The
remaining problem is that you can't target the decision maker because you don't know
who he is. In some companies the financial guy will decide, in others it will be the
engineer. They both have very different goals within the business they are working for.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 25
In following pages, I'm going to analyze very different companies that seems to practice
inbound marketing. The following businesses, except for Foundery, are well known for
their online presence. There would be no point of doing an analyze of a company doing
only outbound marketing.
I choose to analyze five companies. It enables to have various situations, and going deep
enough to find specificities of each.
The five companies are:
Foundery
FreshBooks
A.P. Møller-Mærsk
General Electric
Dell
This choice is not random. It was done to cover a wide range of BtoB cases. I choose
companies which have major and significant differences that might impact their way of
doing marketing and promoting themselves.
SME (Foundery, FreshBooks) vs Large corporate (Maersk, GE, Dell)
Product (GE, Dell) vs Service (Foundery, FreshBooks, Maerk)
Pure player (FreshBooks, Dell) vs Brick & mortar (Foundery, GE, Maersk)
Leader (FreshBooks, Maersk) vs Challenger (Foundery, Dell)
Standard solutions (Foundery, FreshBooks,) vs Customized solutions (GE,
Maersk)
The goal of the following observations is to compare the inbound marketing theory (as
exposed in the previous chapter), with the real practices of these companies.
Except for Foundery, which I worked for, it is difficult to study every step of the
conversion of the leads into customers. However, the attraction of prospect and the first
conversion can be evaluated and give a good overview of the global inbound marketing
integration.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 26
Presentation of the company and its activity
Foundery is a coworking space located in
downtown Toronto, Canada. Its customers
are entrepreneurs, startups and
independent workers.
It has been created in 2009 by Ashley Proctor and Jake Koseleci. Nowadays it offer three
floors of office space: 2 of private office and 1 of coworking that might be occasionally
adapted into an event space.
The first coworking space opened in Sans Francisco in 2006 to fit a specific need:
provide affordable office space to people working by themselves or in small teams, and
who haven't resources to invest in a workplace. Coworking spaces offer affordable,
flexible, and adapted workspace for entrepreneurs, freelances and startups. There is
usually no long term contract, and professional equipments are provided. These
workspace are also a good alternative to working from home or from a coffee shop. In
addition to provide a working environment free of distraction, them give the
possibilities to network and share ideas, or skills. With time, the community aspect of
coworking space became a first selling arguments, especially in coworking spaces
targeting narrow niche market.
A consequences of the worldwide coworking trend is the quick growing number of these
spaces. In Toronto, there are eleven coworking spaces within the city. Foundery is the
third biggest in term of number of seats, and one of the oldest. In term of price,
Foundery is in the average with a full-time membership at CAD 290 (Toronto average:
CAD 305). However, we noticed that potential coworkers are most likely to choose the
closest coworking space to their home, unless they have specific needs.
The question for coworking spaces is : how to reach their target? Even with a lot of
money, there isn't an obvious way to reach a good amount of them. Of course, we could
spent a huge amount to do large advertising in the whole city in order to be seen by
everybody, including our targets. Even if the ROI of such operation isn't measurable, it is
quite sure it wouldn't be very good. Anyway, at Foundery, we can't afford spending so
much money, and we need to have a good ROI. As we couldn't go out to reach our
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 27
audience, we tried the other way: let people reach us. As in many
SMEs, we do that way because we can't do another. But usually,
as soon as they have enough money they turn back to
advertising, cold calling, mailing.
Inbound marketing integration
Facts are when people come at Foundery for the first time and just pay for a day, there is
more than 80% chance that they will subscribe to a monthly membership. From that
reality, the goal was to make them come just once.
The first idea I proposed and that we realized is that to give a maximum of free day pass.
Even if we waived money on their first day, and even if 40% never come back, we are
still making profits from the other 60% who subscribe to a monthly pass. This idea is
easy and not expensive to set up, and can be stopped at any moment in case of a bad ROI
(which is very easy to measure). The counter part of a free day pass is the lack of
perceived value. Indeed, it is a human behavior to give value to a service, or a product
according to its price.
For example, if you buy a newspaper $3, you expect it to find more accurate and relevant
information than information in the free newspaper in the subway. But is that really the
case? Same for clothes, it is not because you buy your expensive shoes they will last
longer, but you think so anyway. At the opposite if you buy cheap shoes, you don't
expect them to last more than few weeks. All luxury brands are based on it, you buy
their product at crazy price because of your perceived value of it (technical and/or
emotional), even if it doesn't really worse it.
Back at our free day pass, people who will have it, might not be aware of its real value
($25), and think that it is what we give to everybody. To counter this risk, I proposed to
define a precise guideline in order to reach targeted people and to make each of them
valuable to us. Firstly, the format of the free day pass has to promote its value. An oral
invitation, as done before, can't obviously reflect that value. We decided to print
invitation cards instead. To reflect the privilege given to the owner of the card it had to
be classy, and to don't look like a basic flyer. That means it doesn't have promotion on it:
only address, logo, and a simple call-to-action. The way we give these cards has also to
reflect the value and the privilege given. We decided that each invitation had to be given
face-to-face, through a human relationship. In other word, they can't just be stacked at
the entrance of the building and free to pick-up. Finally, the question was: to who
should we give these invitation cards? It was simple to answer that question. Firstly, we
give them to every entrepreneurs, independent workers, artists, or startup owners we
can met. We also decided to give some invitation cards to people who are potentially in
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 28
contact with the previous target: current members at Foundery, people working with
them, event organizers.
An important part of inbound marketing is the attraction of stranger with a relevant
content. In the case of Foundery, to attract new entrepreneurs, freelances, or startups,
we decided to intensify events targeting these people. Moreover people intending to
these kind of events are more likely to network and shares ideas with other which is
typically the expected people for a coworking space.
For example, I organized an event with a Toronto based startup mentor I met during a
networking event where he was the speaker. During this event the speech was about
advice for entrepreneurs. He promoted this events in his network, so as we did at
Foundery. As Foundery and him have the same target, this kind of events bring potential
prospects for both. As the speaker, he had the opportunity to do a lot of networking. On
the Foundery side, we also did some networking, but also took few minutes to explain
the purpose of the space. Whatsoever, as the inbound way is supposed to be we offered
value in exchange of contact information, a bait. We organized a raffle for people
attending the event and they might win a free mentoring session with the speaker, or a
free monthly pass at Foundery. Then, we decided to pick up winners among the most
interesting profiles for both prices.
The promotion of Foundery was also done through its members. The promotion of a
company that is especially successful, or very innovative can, indirectly, promote the
coworking space where it works from.
For example, the Real Escape Game company was
widely promoted through local blogs, and
newspapers as they were the first of the kind in
Toronto. Their concept: twelve people are locked
in a room and have to work together to find clue
and solve enigmas to escape within an hour.
Another example is Normative. The company
design specific software according to the needs of
their clients. The company started its activity at
Foundery and now is leaving because they have
bigger needs in term of office. This was an
occasion for Foundery to show its appropriate
work environment for small companies.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 29
Thanks to the history of the building of Foundery, and the
renovations done by a famous architect, the Foundery
building was selected to be part of a city wide event:
Open Doors Toronto. This annual event is a weekend
when couple dozens of buildings in Toronto with some
architectural interest are open to the public for free. The
Foundery building wasn't probably the most interesting
one, but it was still very interesting for us to be part of
this event. While doing the tours with people visiting, we
explained the concept of coworking space that is mostly
unknown. Some of visitors were here for the architectural aspect, but some of them
were just from the neighborhood and were just wondering what was going on in there,
and didn't had the opportunity to know. The purpose wasn't to promote Foundery
directly but rather to educate about the coworking concept. It was proven by previous
events in the past years, that new members can come because someone who came at
Doors Open Toronto spoke to them about the coworking.
Results
As all seats in the coworking space were rented, but never occupied all at the same time,
we decided to sell more membership than seats. Moreover, it wasn't very attractive to
new people to see an almost empty space, and it is against the idea of the community we
tried to promote. So, we decided to sell 50% more memberships than seats.
No outbound marketing was done to reach this state. However, an outbound and
intrusive marketing wouldn't be viable and relevant to reach our target.
An interesting comparison might be done with my previous internship done in another
coworking space in Hong Kong last year. A part of my job was to prospect with outbound
methods, and intrusive tactics. Efforts needed for a new lead acquisition were much
higher and these efforts were wasted if the conversion into a customer failed. While,
with inbound methods all efforts can be leverage with a wide audience, and with good
conversion rate. By the way, the most effective ways to gain leads was same methods:
articles about the space, regular events, turn customers into ambassadors...
The real advantages of these techniques for Foundery was the leveraging potential of
these actions, while efforts and money spent remained low.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 30
Presentation of the company and its activity
Freshbooks is a Toronto based company created in
2003 by Mike Derment. It was first designed to offer
invoicing system through an internet website. Through
time, it evolves into a cloud accounting software.
With more than 5 millions paying customers from 120
coutries, and as the leader in cloud accounting solution, it is definitely a success.
However, it wasn't an overnight success, and it has a quite common startup beginning. It
took a year to develop the product, then another year to reach 10 customers (and $99 of
revenues per month). FreshBooks stayed in Mike's parents basement for 3 additional
years. As show on the Google Trends chart below, FreshBooks really started to grow in
2007.
FreshBooks was focused on providing an easy to use invoicing system for small and
medium businesses. In August 2012, FreshBooks change officially its purpose by
becoming a cloud accounting solution. It was a natural evolution of the service to fit
SMEs' owner to save time and effort managing their cash flow.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 31
Inbound marketing integration
As an internet based solution that target worldwide SMEs' owner, it rather impossible to
launch an effective advertising campaign.
But it is interesting to know how FreshBooks started to promote its solution in the
beginning. Instead of targeting all kind of SMEs at once, they focused all their marketing
and promotion effort on one specific activity (graphic designers for example). Once they
reach a certain ammount of market shares or a saturation of the niche market, they
switch to another field of activity close to the previous one (web developers for
example). They called their technique "marketing Risk", in reference of the board game
in which players have to conquer small piece of lands one-by-one in order to expand
their territories worldwide.
By building strong relationships with first customers and being deeply involved in a
narrow niche market; FreshBooks benefited from word of mouth. It was and still is a
powerful way for them to expand.
As FreshBooks is typically a pure-player, all its activity is internet-based.
Freshbooks website is a really good example of a conversion
focused pages. Lot of companies are getting into a content
marketing process, but forget the real purpose of it:
converting.
By implementing A/B testing extensively, FreshBooks is
constantly working on its conversion rate optimization
(CRO). For example, the home page on the same day on two
different browser wasn't the same. The presentation is very
different, but the goal is still very obvious: "Try it for free".
Actually their home page is a landing page. Its purpose is to
convert right away. It makes sense as people arriving on
their home page are interested by the product.
FreshBooks manage a blog, updated regularly, mainly about
entrepreneurs and startups' topics.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 32
Results
It seems like FreshBooks rely mainly on word of mouth to expand their market. Their
target is definitely startups and entrepreneurs, which is pretty much logical as they are
not tied with other accounting software yet, and as they are more likely to trust a cloud-
based service than an older SMEs.
FreshBooks figures are not publicly revealed (such as turnover, or benefits). However,
the company has 150 employees today and plan to reach 400 by 2016. In 2012,
FreshBooks affirmed they customers invoiced $8 billion with their software within a 12
months period.
Their expansion is directly impacted by their multi-awarded excellent customer-service
that leads to trustworthy word of mouth.
FreshBooks doesn't practice inbound marketing as Hubspot' founders describe it, but
their customers are attracted naturally to their service. So it s not outbound marketing
either.
The marketing efforts of FreshBooks are the conversion of people who already heard
about them. Their website is focused on this single goal. Their content marketing is not
very developed and don't offer high-value resources in exchange of engagement. There
is no specific CTAs related to the content. Finally their single white-paper, "Breaking the
Time Barrier", can be downloaded without any kind of engagement from the random
visitor.
Their social media strategy don't seems to be very developed either. Their Facebook
page is updated on regular basis but don't get a lot of engagement. Same observation for
their Twitter feed.
The strength of FreshBooks is to delight their actual customers and transform them into
ambassadors of the brand that spread the word in their like minded community of small
company' owners.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 33
Presentation of the company and its activity
Created in 1904, A.P. Moller-Maersk Group. is a
Danish business conglomerate. It is commonly just
called Maersk. It operates in 135 countries, has
117,000 employees worldwide, and has a turnover of USD 59,03 billion in 2012.
Its historical and main activity is container shipping. Since 1996, Maersk is the largest
container ship and vessel supply operator in the world. It also has lot of other activities
such as port management, inland transportation, oil and gas shipping, drilling activities,
oil and gas exploration and production, training, shipyards, and even retail activities.
These activities are handle by multiple subsidiaries of the Maersk group.
The Maersk goal is to manage the all supply chain when its comes to containerization.
Its largest subsidiary, in terms of turnover and number of employees, is Maersk Line. Its
field of operation is containers shipping. They have a
fleet of more than 600 vessels, and have 3.8 million
containers.
I will focus my analyze on container shipping activity of Maersk: Maersk Line.
Maersk started a social media strategy in 2011, and reached within a year incredible
result in term of engagement. According to some engagement measurement tools,
Maersk's Facebook page has a higher engagement rate than Disney, Ford or Red Bull's
ones. This results match with the 2012' "Social Media Campaign of the Year" title given
by the European Digital Communication Awards.
As inbound marketing can't be reduced to social media, let's see if Maersk really do
inbound marketing, and how they did their digital strategy.
Moreover, containers shipping is far from an attractive activity, and it is the case of most
B2B companies. So this case might reflect the situation of lot of companies which believe
digital marketing is not accurate for their market.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 34
Inbound marketing integration
Maersk social media activities started in October 2011 with Jonathan Wichmann who
was hired especially for this task. The first interesting observation is, even within a
global company with a turnover of $ 60 billion , only one person was in charge of the
social media strategy and he succeeded. Other observation, all was done internally.
Initials goals of Maersk by going on social media were raising brand awareness,
increasing customer loyalty, improving employees engagement, and developing
customer insights. It wasn't a leads generation tactic.
Currently Maersk Line is present on nine social networks, including the most known
(Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube). It is important to remind that
every social media publication is a piece of content and that it can be part of wider
content marketing strategy.
The communication of Maersk Line on social media is very visual. Most of publications
comes with a high quality pictures. It explain also the Maersk' presence on pictures
oriented social networks such as Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest and Tumblr. Mr.
Wichmannn explains that he started with a huge unused pictures library within the
company files. Now, pictures come from multiple employees worldwide.
He also leverages the history of the company. Every pictures come with a small story,
which all together form the past and the culture of Maersk.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 35
They also use social medias as communication tools. Maersk handled very well an event
that could turn into a real image crisis for the company (or bad buzz). June 6th 2012, a
12 meters long whale was found dead on the front of a Maersk vessel arriving in a port.
Instead of trying to hide the news, finding excuses, or just broadcasting an apologize
message on every traditional channels, Maersk Line decided to expose the information
on social medias, and what they usually do to avoid these kind of accident. That was a
wise move from the communication team that avoid the spread of false information and
limited the image of a company which doesn't care about the environment. A similar
communication was done when there was rumors on internet about the sinking of their
biggest vessel, Emma Maersk, in the Suez Canal.
At the opposite of some companies, Mr. Wichmann was within the company and had a
great liberty of action. The top managers let him do without giving approval (or not) to
all messages. This give a good advantages in terms of reactivity, and proximity with the
audience. Messages aren't corporate oriented or just advertising. Maersk actively
continue this strategy but have now "glocally" messages. Publications feature multiple
local information from different location. The blog Maerskstories.maersk.com is a good
example. All these short stories help to showcase the company culture and vision.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 36
Results
Maersk Line goals wasn't to gain new clients by engaging a social media strategy.
However, after almost 4 years, we can't denied that these activities had a beneficial
impact on their business. Indeed, as the brand awareness increased drastically, and their
social profiles became a hub of information for people within the industry. It is definitely
a success.
Concerning their inbound marketing, they found a way to delivered their company
culture, and spread their information on a wide networks. Here are figures: 1,1 millions
likes on Facebook, 111000 followers on Twitter, 73000 followers on their LinkedIn
page, 26000 followers on Instagram.
Most of these piece of content target mass audience with a brand awareness goal. The
content is not very technical and the important visual aspect help a lot to increase
engagement from no-specialists.
However, Maersk Line keeps few channels for more industry centric subject. I think of
their main blog (maersklinesocial.com), which seems to be very relevant for
professionals. These piece of content are widely shared but almost only on LinkedIn.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 37
In addition, Maersk created private groups on LinkedIn to discuss with a limited number
and selected people.
Maersk Line doesn't do inbound marketing. Indeed, they describe their social media
activities, their side websites, and blogs as communication and not marketing. As we
saw, this is mainly true. They broadcast very accessible messages. Even if these
publications aren't technical or don't give insight about the shipping industry, it seems
that it is still relevant for the audience.
In a late 2012 survey, between 15 and 20 percent of Maersk' Facebook fans were
customers. Furthermore, 68 percent of Maersk Line customers had a better perceptions
of the company thanks to social medias.
Maersk Line reached to be the most influential online presence in the containers
shipping industry. Their digital strategy is a success according to their goals (brand
awareness, customer loyalty, and employees engagement).
Last but not the least observation, this strategy costs only few hundreds of thousands of
dollars. To reach the same goals with more traditional ways would have cost millions of
dollars.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 38
Presentation of the company and its activity
General Electric is a business conglomerate founded in
1892, and with its headquarter in USA. The corporate has
36 subsidiaries and is present within 142 countries. GE has
various activities: energy, transportation, water, oil & gas,
healthcare, appliance, entertainment, financial services.
In 2013, GE reached USD 146 billion in turnover, USD 13 billion in net incomes, and
employed 305 000 people. The turnover is spread as following: 33,7% from financial
services, 33,4% from infrastructure's equipment, 10% from appliances, 9,9% from
healthcare, 8,8% from entertainment, 4,1% from other activities.
Inbound marketing integration
Since 2011, General Electric had improved its online presence drastically and
implemented a content marketing strategy.
Txchnologist website, for example, is presented as an online technology magazine. In
other words, it is a blog: it drives traffic thanks to regular publications. However, there is
almost no direct link to GE, nor CTAs that are supposed to catch visitors contact
information. But, Txchnologist magazine highly promote the sharing on social medias.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 39
Another example is GE Reports website. On this one, information provided are more GE-
centric, but still might interest professional who are involved in high-technologies.
Anyway, this website still promote the sharing aspect than a conversion aspect.
These two websites, Txchnologist and GE Reports, are, indeed, Tumblr based. Tumblr is
a popular blogging platform, so it means that the goal was to publish content easily and
get it shared. If the goal would had been to convert visitors, Tumblr wouldn't be an
appropriate platform.
Their social media presence is also remarkable. Their Facebook page has over 1,2
million likes and is updated regularly with facts about GE. This content is adapted to the
non-specialist Facebook audience, such as Maersk do. Information are not technical, and
post are always coming with attractive pictures. On their YouTube account they post
either technical news and information, or either entertaining content. For example, they
did during the spring a serie of videos called #SpringBreakIt in which they put some
random objects into a extreme conditions to see how material react. It hasn't any
scientific interest but reach a wide audience.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 40
Results
The content produced by General Electric is not self-centric but embrace a wide range of
field of industries where GE is involved. From space exploration to healthcare most
recent advancement. It is produced by experts and is at destination of people involve in
these cutting edge field. Here, targets of GE's online content are businesses that are
seeking for technical information and news.
On another side, on their social media channels the content is less technical in order to
reach a wider audience. The goal here is, at Maersk does, to improve awareness of the
public about the brand, its activities, and its philosophy. For this aspect, it is a success:
figures of their social media profile show that their content reach a large public.
The goal of GE is to spread high quality content among professional to improve its image
of innovative thought-leader in the field of technology.
We can notice the total absence of any CTAs or conversion system. This is against the
inbound marketing techniques described by Hubspot founders. However, we can easily
guess that GE's consumers are not going to buy turbines online either.
The online presence of GE is really focused on its image. As few old companies, their
image might suffer while the time goes. This strong online presence focused on
innovation and forward-thinking in the technology field showcases GE as a leader on its
field and innovational-focused.
We can't say that GE does inbound marketing as it is obvious that marketing operations
don't bring customers directly. Whatsoever, they have an efficient content marketing
and handle social media channels very well to enhance brand awareness, and promote
brand' values.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 41
Presentation of the company and its activity
Created in 1984, in Texas by Michael Dell, the famous
computer manufacturer now employs more than 100 000
people and has a USD 57 billion turnover (2013).
Nowadays, Dell is the third worldwide computer seller (in
term of number of products) behind Lenovo and HP, with
13% of market shares. These figures are gathering B2C and B2B.
For servers, a B2B market, Dell is also the third manufacturer worldwide behind IBM
and HP, with around 20% of market shares. In B2B, Dell also offers multiple network,
server and storage' hardware, software, and services.
In 2013 its founder, Michael Dell, with the help of Microsoft, bought out 75% of shares
and leave the stock exchange. He explained that share holder were too focused on short
term profits and that it was not compatible with a long term strategy.
From the beginning, Dell choose to sell its computer online. The idea was to offer
computers at a lower price than the competition thanks to savings due to the absence of
retail stores.
Inbound marketing integration
Dell, such as FreshBooks, is a pure -player actor: most of his business is done online.
As Dell provide very technical solutions, its targets are IT specialists. Even if they
probably don't have the final word during the purchase process, they need to be highly
involved.
Moreover, for these kind of products, technical features and services are very important
to make sure that new hardware will run smoothly with the rest of the equipments.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 42
If the prospect's company is new and
purchase IT equipments for the first time, it
is also a great opportunity as it will be more
likely to purchase side services or extra
equipments in the future with higher
profitability for Dell.
Dell created a full website that provide news
and articles about many subjects related to
IT in companies: Tech Page One. This
websites don't just gather news in the IT
field, but give also insights of professional
from various companies. The content come
from various authors with influence or
considered as authoritative. Finally, this
website isn't about Dell's news, products or
services at all.
The "about" page sum up the goals
accurately:
This description and the reality match with
the idea of Mr. Halligan that recommend to
be the hub for a targeted community.
Let's analyze a random page of Tech Page
One (example on the right).
CTAs are present on all pages and invite visitors to stay up to date with IT insights by
email, register for the DellWorld event, or discover their range of server.
Few comments for their CRO:
- Their CTAs are the same on every pages, that means they are not related to a specific
topic and not targeting a defined buyer persona.
- There are three CTAs on every page instead of only one. It attenuates the efficiency of
each.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 43
Results
Dell provide a relevant content for IT managers in companies whatever the size. The
content is not focused on Dell' products or services but it is a hub of information and
news about computing, networks, data, security, cloud and related subjects.
With some CTAs on the sidebar, the visitor is invited to perform one of the following
action:
- Sign up for the annual conference DellWorld, which is mostly for tops IT responsibles
worldwide with cutting edge subject and well-known speakers. This CTA is targeting IT
managers in large corporate.
- Sign up for the Tech Page One newsletter. Once the email address is submitted a new
form quick offers to send a question to Dell. This simple, quick and easy way to stay up
to date on IT subjects gives to Dell a database of email address from a targeted audience.
This CTA is targeting IT managers in SMEs.
- Finally, the last CTA is just a link to the Dell ecommerce website for businesses. In
smallest companies IT guys can build their own solution with standard equipment and
don't need a real discussion with the seller. This CTA is targeting small companies with
few needs in IT equipment.
We can say that Dell do inbound marketing as they attract a targeted community with
specific content and, then, try to convert them with CTAs.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 44
The content marketing is globally well understood. Companies understand that intrusive
marketing, such as advertising, are not the only and main way to reach potential
customers nowadays. They started to provide valuable content on various format for
free: articles, reports, videos, events, expert interview... They also handle pretty well the
medias specificities, and know which, where, and how to provide information according
to the audience and its habits of content consumptions.
Globally the attraction process is mastered, but the conversion aspect is less effective. In
my opinion, the main barrier and problem is within the company. The marketing /
communication team and the sales force were always separated. It wasn't a problem
when businesses did advertising and other kind of outbound tactics. But driving a traffic
of potential prospects (online or offline) might be a waste of time, energy , and money if
there is no conversion process coming with.
We notice two main difference in term of business goals:
Image improvement: For GE and Maersk, their content marketing is a
communication tool. The goal is to improve the image of the company, spread its
message, and showcase its expertise, values and philosophy.
Leads generation: For Foundery, FreshBooks and Dell, the marketing activities
are focused on leads generation. The audience reached through the content
marketing is invited to increase its engagement with the brand and get closer to it
step by step.
While doing research I spotted three key factors that are at the roots of the success or
the failure of an inbound marketing strategy: quality content, conversion, and analyze.
Quality content
The first key success factor is the content. It is quite easy to produce content, but the
challenge is to create content that we will be relevant and valuable to the target
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 45
audience. In comparison to BtoC market, the BtoB content creation is much more
difficult as expectations and stakes are higher. With the "race" of content creation that
start to appear, the quantity often override the quality. Quantity might drive more
traffic, but it have a poor conversion rate. In the case of Foundery, if we would have
organized an event with poor interest for our audience, the potential prospect would
have never came back again after wasting few hours of their life.
Conversion
While there is not so much way to gain visibility on the web, the conversion process vary
drastically from one product to another. That is why it isn't relevant to give global
advice. As a sales representative would do, the knowledge about the prospect can be
leverage to get closer to him step by step. Each of them is unique and is receptive to
different appeals. However, it is a masterpiece in a inbound marketing strategy.
Analyze
As a factory process, the inbound marketing have to be constantly improved. Indeed, the
conversion rate of two landing pages can vary drastically. There are a lot of technical
parameters in the UI/UX, but there is also the audience parameter. A same landing page
can have totally different conversion rate from one country to another for example.
Likewise, landing page with a CRO targeting a technical-focused audience will have poor
results on price-focused people.
If the process is mostly online, there are numerous metrics that can be tracked. The
issue is to identify metrics that are representatives of the completion of business goals. A
company focused on brand awareness should track number of visitor on its website, and
the reach of their social media activities. At the opposite, these metrics are pointless for
a company focused on leads generation. For this last one, key metrics could be
conversion rates of their landing pages or the opening rate of their last email campaign.
Once the interesting metrics identified and tracked, it is time to experiment. As
FreshBooks do, A/B testing is one of the best way to improve the conversion rate of a
webpage. All visitors don't see the same page: the CTA might change, the layout lightly
modified, some graphical elements removed or added.... Then the version that reach
highest conversion rate is kept. This optimization process have to be done constantly.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 46
This is probably the factor that impact the most the implementation of an inbound
marketing process.
A standard solutions allow companies to create a limited number of process to drive
strangers to consumers. At the opposite, a business that design unique solutions for
technical and specific needs for their clients can't create a defined buying process.
Moreover, a standard product or service, include a fix price. This is also a factor that ease
the buying process.
As we saw in previous pages, Foundery, FreshBooks, and Dell (partially), that provide
standard solution have a conversion system available for their traffic. At the opposite,
Maersk and General Electric, don't have any conversion system.
This observation also confirm that inbound marketing is adapted to BtoC market, but
can't be applied in BtoB selling projects.
Large corporate (Maersk, Dell and GE) have resources to create high quality content that
drive an audience. Even Maersk that weren't very involved at first, employed one person
full-time and he had access to a huge database and worldwide sources of information.
This is impossible for most SMEs.
For small companies (Foundery, FreshBooks) creating quality content deeply impact
resources within the company. For example, at Foundery, organizing an event require a
lot of time that can't be dedicated to other tasks. The creation of content is done at the
detriment of other aspect of the business. However, it doesn't mean that SMEs can't have
an efficient inbound marketing. The format and quantity of content have to be adapted
to resources available: one event per month for Foundery, one blog post per week for
FreshBooks, few post on social medias per day for Maersk, multiple articles on various
websites and creation of videos for Dell and GE.
The content marketing have this specificities to have an efficiency in relation to two
parameters: the quality of the content, and the promotion of the piece of content.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 47
It was quite easy to outsource outbound marketing. Companies could pay advertising
agencies to create and diffuse promotional message, and ROI was very linked to the
amount paid for creating the campaign.
But content is not as shiny and expensive than ads displayed on giant panels. It have to
be relevant and interesting information targeting a well defined buyer persona. In B2B,
this is even more true as information that might interest potential customers are very
technical and specialized in specific field of activity.
The point is that marketing agencies can't provide relevant content for a B2B audience.
They don't have skills, knowledge, or experiences to speak about products or market of
their own customers.
For companies working in B2B and willing to embrace an inbound marketing strategy, it
means that the content have to be produced internally. For large corporate, it might be
easy to hire blogger, videos makers, or pay a training for their marketing team. But, it
can be a real problem in smaller organizations.
There is also the problem of myths about inbound marketing. As some people present
inbound marketing, it might seems to be an inexpensive and easy web-marketing
technique that gives quick and good results.
Inbound marketing is not proportional to money spent (at the opposite of outbound
marketing), but it needs an important commitment within the company. For most of
companies, someone working full-time on content creation is a minimum. At Foundery,
for example, with only one full-time employee, it is impossible to implement an inbound
process as described by Hubspot. Even an online content marketing wouldn't be
possible as the time needed would be a threat to the execution of other critical tasks.
The implementation of an inbound marketing can also not be taken very seriously by
decision maker. Board of direction are mainly manage by people who hasn't been
educated with an internet approach of business. Their success through years was only
done thanks to outbound marketing tactics. They don't really trust new marketing that
they consider "trendy" more than relevant, and they don't always understand the mind-
shift due to internet. The Maersk case is an example: the social media experience was
more a try than a real strategy (only one guy with no budget).
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 48
As it might be a problem in companies using outbound marketing, a defined borderline
have to exist between marketing / communication department, and the sales team. Even
in the sales team, problem can emerge if a prospect is assigned to different sales
representatives during the sales process.
The problem is, most of the time, a lack of information going through teams or
individuals. It means that persons who are first involved in the relationship with the
prospect don't provide all information they had to people involved forward in the
process. Even with CRM system, all information are not assured to be transmitted to the
right person.
In an inbound marketing process, the marketing department is supposed to be the main
source of new prospects, while with outbound marketing the sales representatives are
the main source of new prospects (cold calling, emailing, doors-to-doors...).
The company have to establish a clear borderline between team to insure a clear follow
through with the prospect. This fact is verified with figures given in the first part of this
report: "A formal sales-marketing agreement results in a drop of 60% in costs for customer
acquisition.".
According to the product, or the service, the sales team might be involved sooner or later
in the process. In general, the sales team have to handle the relationship soon in the
sales process when the product is a specifically design or customized solution. At the
opposite, standard solution don't need to involve sales rep, or at the very end. For
example, FreshBooks try to convert its visitors directly into customers because their
solution id standardized and the same to every customers; while Dell don't try hard to
sell something online directly.
Another problem might appeared in companies switching from outbound to inbound is
implicit hierarchy change. With an outbound marketing, the sales team is supposed to
provide information collected on the field to the marketing team. But, with an inbound
marketing, the sales team is totally dependent of the marketing team.
While inbound marketing might be a very effective way to attract new prospect and
customer, it doesn't mean that companies have to stop every outbound marketing
operations.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 49
In the early stages of companies, outbound strategy to earn prospects is still very
effective as we saw with the FreshBooks case. We can also take the example of AirBnB,
the startup that offer to people with extra bedroom to rent it to tourists or people
travelling for few days. They had a similar situation to FreshBooks in their early days.
They started with doors to doors prospection to create their initial offer in term of room
owners. Nowadays these methods aren't necessary anymore and , as FreshBooks, the
satisfied customers (room owners and room renters) spread their message.
Moreover inbound marketing is a long term strategy: it takes few months before
showing any results, and efforts have to be constant. For new companies striving for not
going bankrupt, this strategy isn't the most relevant, as the time needed to reach
effectiveness is a threat.
A side outbound marketing is not irrelevant as well. Most of companies which do
inbound marketing also do some outbound marketing. It might also be a way to prove
the credibility and the reliability of the brand. Indeed, we are more likely to trust a
brand we already saw TV ads about, than a company discovered randomly on internet.
In BtoB cases, if a sales person contact directly a prospect, and even if he gets nothing at
first, it creates awareness. Few months after, if a need pops up, the initial contact can
create a slight advantage in the decision-making process.
The inbound marketing, and especially the content marketing, might encounter, in few
years, a problem called "content shock". This concept recently discussed by some
marketers is about an overwhelming and crowded number of piece of content in a field
of activity. It means that there would be so much content already released that a new
one wouldn't be able to rise from the clutter. So far, it is a theory, but we can imagine
that content marketing will gain popularity in companies in coming years, and that the
amount of content will grow drastically. As the quality of content is already the key to
cut through the clutter, expectations of information seekers increase equally. We can
already think how hard it might be to overcome the quality of content of Wikipedia's
page on some subject. An extreme scenario would be a future internet on which only
corporate with large amount of resources could be visible.
Another situation might emerge with the democratization of inbound marketing.
Advertising was efficient when there was very few of them, but we developed an "ads-
blindness" as we are less and less receptive to them. This could be a side effect of the
multiplication of conversion tries coming with the interesting content. We would
consume the content and consider every CTAs as advertising and treat it same way:
ignoring them.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 50
As we saw with Maersk Line, it started with the discovery of social media, without
having goals defined with figures. Maersk came to social media because of the trend
more than for follow a really defined strategy. It is funny to observe that they are
currently doing exactly the same with blogging / content creation. On their website
Maersklinesocial.com, they say:
It sounds like they are not convinced by their own website. Just like at the beginning of
internet, when some companies didn't feel the need for a website, and some others
created ones without being really convinced by its usefulness; the leads generation
through internet will comes little by little. It is exactly what Maersk Line did with social
networks: companies will discover the interest of online presence step by step.
While a window-shopping website was good enough in past years, it is not relevant
anymore. The web is more and more crowded. Companies which want to cut through
this clutter will have to be more present.
As Maersk Line, lot of companies invest in only one field on internet (social media, e-
commerce, content creation....) but very few have an entire process that drive strangers
into customers.
Another reason of this slow evolution is the mentalities of top directors who always
performed outbound marketing campaign and don't catch and/or don't believe in the
potential of these new tools.
None of the companies we saw in this report have an inbound marketing process exactly
like it is promoted by Hubspot. However, the philosophy of attracting an audience and
convert it is present for some of them. The Hubspot process might be adapted for
standard online-based services or products (such as Hubspot software). For FreshBooks,
this process is almost fully integrated and is relevant. But for other kind of companies,
only an online process isn't the best practice, and they understood it perfectly. Even Dell,
a pure-player, don't rely only on online tactics.
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 51
The Maersk Line case is very representative of the fact that digital marketing success is
not proportional to money invested in. With only a full-time employees dedicated to it,
and with already produced content (pictures and history), Maersk is now a major hub
for the maritime community online. The same amount of audience reached with such
regularity would have cost a way more with outbound marketing.
A key success factor of an efficient inbound marketing in BtoB is a close collaboration
between marketing and sales team. In this case, the money saved in leads acquisition
might be lost if responsibilities are not well defined. It is often the difference between a
marketing focused on leads generation and a marketing focused on improving brand
awareness.
As we could have been expected, the online pattern promoted by "inbound marketing"'
creators, isn't totally relevant for BtoB business working by project. For standard
solution, it is easier to implement as the conversion and the nurturing process are focus
on one buyer persona at a time, and a limited range of products to sell. With complex
and specifically designed solutions, the entire buying process is too much different each
time to have a defined buyer person and a lead nurturing process. In these cases, the
corporate still can use the inbound marketing partially: by providing useful, technical,
and targeted content, they can develop their image as a thought-leader, and as at the
state of the art on their field of activity.
Inbound marketing is a trendy expression that, nowadays, is assimilated to online
content creation rather than a conversion process. Even some marketing agencies sell
"inbound marketing" services as they would sell a product. Moreover, a slightly different
concept might emerge and wipe out the "inbound marketing" term, as "inbound
marketing" did with "permission marketing". The general concept is very relevant, and it
is highly probably going to be a growing trends in companies, whatever its name.
The process will remain:
1. Attract a targeted audience with high quality content
2. Get the permission of the prospect thanks to an attractive bait
3. Nurture the lead with anticipated, personal, and relevant content
4. Track and improve these four steps
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 52
Books
BENAROYA Christophe, MALAVAL Philippe, 2013, Marketing Business to
Business, France, Pearson Education, 744 p., Collection "Eco Gestion"
BLITZER Adam R., CUMMINGS David, 2010, Think outside the Inbox: The B2B
marketing automation guide, USA, Leigh Walker Books, 160 p.
GILLIN Paul, SCHWARTZMAN Eric, 2011, Social marketing to the business
customer, USA, Wiley, 272 p.
GODIN Seth, 1999, Permission marketing: Turning strangers into friends and
friends into customers, USA, Simon & Schuster, 256 p.
HALLIGAN Brian, SHAH Dharmesh, 2009, Inbound marketing: Get found using
Google, social media, and blogs, USA, Wiley, 256 p.
HUTT Michael D., SPEH Thomas W., 2012, Business marketing management: B2B,
USA, South-Western College Pub, 464 p.
KOTTER John P., 2012, Leading Change, USA, Harvard Business Review Press, 208
p.
SCOTT David M., 2013, The new rules of marketing & PR, USA, Wiley, 464 p.
ZYMAN Sergio, 1999, The end of marketing as we know it, USA, HarperCollins, 247
p.
Articles
BARWISE Patrick, FARLEY John U., 2005, "The state of interactive marketing in
seven countries: Interactive marketing comes of age", Journal of Interactive
Marketing, Volume 19, Issue 3, p. 67–80
GARRIDO José, GUTIERREZ Ana, SAN JOSE Rebeca, 2011, "Online Information
Tools in Industrial Purchasing: An Exploratory Analysis of the Process of
Business-Service", Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce,
Volume 21, Issue 1, p. 50-70
How integrate an inbound marketing strategy in a BtoB company?
Frédéric de Thezy 2014 53
GOLSTEIN Dan, LEE Yuchun, 2005, "The rise of right-time marketing", The
Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management, Volume 12,
Issue 3, p. 212-225
JENSEN Morten B., 2006, "Characteristics of B2B adoption and planning of online
marketing communications", Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for
Marketing, Volume 14, Issue 4, p. 357–368
LUSCH Robert F., VARGO Stephen L., 2009, "Service-dominant logic — a guiding
framework for inbound marketing", St. Gallen Marketing Review, Volume 26,
Issue 6 , p. 6-10
MILLER Kenneth E., RAUYRUEN Papassapa, 2007, "Relationship quality as a
predictor of B2B customer loyalty", Journal of Business Research, Volume 60, Issue
1, p. 21–31
ROWLEY Jennifer, 2008, "Understanding digital content marketing", Journal of
Marketing Management, Volume 24, Issue 5-6, p. 517-540
Collection of articles
2011, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Change Management, Harvard Business Review
Press, 224 p., Series: HBR's 10 Must Reads
Others
Content Marketing Institute, 2014, B2B Content marketing: 2014 Benchmarks,
Budgets, and Trends - North America, 23 p.
Digital Doughnut, 2013, Digital Doughnut global inbound marketing report 2013,
16 p.
Hubspot, 2013, 2013 State of Inbound marketing, 175 p.
Marketing Leadership Council, 2012, The digital evolution in B2B marketing, 47 p.