16.06.2022

Traffic Generation Ideas for B2B Websites - Part 4

Marketing Consultant, Internet Marketing Consultant

Throughout this week, I’ve been talking about a different B2B website traffic generation idea each day.

Today I want to look at a somewhat overlooked idea that’s effective at driving traffic if implemented correctly.

Idea 4 Interact on Industry Forums

As a B2B marketing channel, Linkedin has taken off in the last few years and has become quite saturated since the pandemic.

This can make it challenging to get your message across, especially if you are starting with a new profile or haven’t posted regularly for some time.

Marketing on relevant industry specific forums can be the antidote to the overcrowded nature of Linkedin.

For example, as a B2B Search Marketing Consultant, a good forum for myself might be. https://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/.

It is likely to consist of members that could be my future clients, asking questions that I could potentially answer.

Adding value in this way will eventually translate to future revenue.

Below I outline a process for marketing your business on forums that your prospects may be active on.

Collect a list of Relevant Forums. If the industry your particular business operates in, has niche forums, they will be easy to find through a Google search e.g. 'industry type’ forum.
Assess Forum Activity. There is no point signing up to a forum if the last post was ages ago. You should be able to determine whether or not the forum is active by looking at the dates of the last post and seeing whether posts get comments from forum members.
Register & Create a Signature. Sign up for the forum. Most forums allow you to create a signature. Make sure you use your business brand name as a username. This will help you develop brand recognition amongst forum members as you begin to interact. Also remember to add your website url in the signature. This will be a potential source of relevant visitors to the website.
Interact. Make sure you regularly participate, adding value rather than going for the hard sell. Forums are an excellent venue to showcase business thought leadership amongst a target audience of prospects. Being too pushy with sales won’t work. As with most B2B marketing strategies, build trust first and sales follow later.

Like the blogging strategy we looked at yesterday, marketing on forums is not an overnight matter.

But if you add value consistently and interact regularly, you will start to get noticed as a business thought leader amongst a very targeted and relevant audience.

And this in turn will lead to traffic, leads and ultimately revenue in the longer term.

Tomorrow we will look at the 5th and final idea for this week.

Until then, wishing you all a productive Thursday!