The industries that really shine with an inbound marketing strategy

Inbound marketing might be touted as a silver bullet for generating high-quality leads, increasing conversion rates and lowering the cost per lead, but can it really work for your industry? As marketing manager, you need to justify any new modus operandi against the budget, one that usually doesn’t get bigger. Inbound marketing, when applied consistently for at least five months, has the potential to decrease the average cost per lead by 80%. The only catch is that patience is required. As such, inbound marketing is most appropriate for industries with longer buying cycles because inbound is based around educating leads: the longer the buying cycle, the more time you have to nurture leads. In this blog, I give an overview of the industries that really flourish under an inbound marketing strategy.

Mortgage applications are a lengthy process, creating plenty of time to nurture leads with valuable content about applying for a home loan.

Applying for a mortgage can be an extremely intimidating and convoluted process, given the complexity of the procedure, the legalities involved and the lack of engaging educational content about it. The home loan application process takes time, making inbound marketing ideal for this industry. Home loan businesses – and many other financial services businesses such as accountancy firms and insurance brokers – have the perfect opportunity to create easy-to-understand and informative content that’ll demystify their products and instil trust in their leads. And it works for this industry too, with AmeriFirst Home Mortgage seeing a fourfold increase in site traffic, 57 times more leads after a year and a 5% increase in sales after two years.

Highly complex products and the extensive research carried out by decision makers before buying means that the industrial manufacturing sector is an ideal fit with inbound marketing.

You might think that inbound marketing suits B2C more than it does B2B industries, wouldn’t you? After all, consumers spend more time online than B2B decision makers, don’t they? Not so: the State of B2B Procurement Study 2014 found that 94% of business buyers engage in online research. Inbound marketing seeks to make business more visible online, making it an ideal tool to use in a B2B environment. Industrial manufacturing is as B2B as you can get: its products are complex, which means businesses need to provide a lot of information about them (the perfect content marketing opportunity). Industrial manufacturing products are also expensive, meaning highly-trained decision makers – who value information more than most – invest a lot of time into researching the different options available to them, which makes the need for valuable content about these products even more pressing.

Not only that, but the more expensive and complex the products, the longer the buying cycle. And as I mentioned in the introduction, the longer the buying cycling, the greater the opportunity to nurture leads. The Fisher Tank Company is one industrial manufacturer that’s made inbound marketing work for them, with a 119% increase in web traffic, 500% increase in quote requests and a 3,900% increase in lead conversions.

Healthcare marketing needs to be personalised and information rich – inbound marketing is perfect for achieving this.

With the NHS aiming to become more digitised, the healthcare sector is an ideal candidate to enjoy the benefits of inbound marketing – especially as more and more people are using online search and medical websites to self-diagnose before making an appointment with a healthcare professional. This is a huge opportunity for both the private and public healthcare sectors to use inbound marketing to attract patients by providing educational content about health and offering advice to patients. In a B2B context, the pharmaceutical industry is suited to inbound marketing, as its products are specialised and customers require a lot of information about them before making a purchasing decision.

Inbound marketing is a brilliant strategy for B2B businesses wishing to generate higher website traffic, high-quality leads and more conversions. For more information on how inbound marketing can work for your business, download our guide: