What is nearbound marketing

The problem with modern marketing playbooks (read more here)

Modern marketing playbooks don’t distinguish between demand creation and demand capture. Demand creation is the thing that happens before your customer goes to Google—conversations behind closed doors, Reddit threads, and communities. Demand capture is what happens once your customer has identified the problem and is trying to fix it, i.e. funnel activities. For that reason, Chris Walker believes,

The entire operating model that governs B2B go-to-market strategies is outdated & broken.

Nearbound surround (watch more here)

Gone are the days of ’marketing to’ buyers—they’re tuning out. Outbound was about targeting. Inbound was about attracting. Nearbound is about surrounding your prospects with voices they trust.

So nearbound marketing is layering nearbound tactics on existing marketing motions.

The problem with inbound: a bigger magnet isn’t enough (read more here)

Buyers are frustrated with direct GTM methods which has companies leaning towards inbound. But even inbound isn’t as impactful as it used to be. The problem with inbound is that every company is competing to have a bigger, stronger magnet. Nearbound marketing doesn’t rely on being bigger or stronger, it relies on turning data into customer insights so you can take more precise action.

Why getting marketing onboard is pivotal for nearbound success  (read more here)

Pete Caputa (Databox, ex-HubSpot) introduced his approach—Collaborative Growth—at the summit which promotes the idea of starting your partner program with a marketing-first mindset. He explained, 

Most partner programs build a product and the partner resells it as it is. Instead, help partners create a unique service that provides unique value to a segment of the market.

Starting with marketing creates future opportunities.

How to do nearbound marketing

Run nearbound ABM plays (read more here)

Nearbound ABM is a strategy that allows you to align sales and marketing to target specific accounts strategically, leveraging partnerships and targeted messaging for higher value.

Nearbound ABM combines ecosystem power, trusted partnerships, and targeted marketing to engage specific high-value accounts.

Tap into nearbound evangelists (read more here)
Your evangelists are a network of zealous advocates. You can have internal evangelists (team members, internal influencers) and external evangelists (customers, partners, and industry influencers). Tap into evangelists to extend your reach and surround prospects with the voices they trust. 

Leverage the power of nearbound social (read more here)

Nearbound social, a branch of nearbound marketing, focused on creating and distributing content across social media channels with your nearbound evangelists.

It used to be that you’d create and distribute content through social channels by yourself. Now even social is a collaborative task.

Marketing used to be something you did to and through your channels. Now, it’s something you do with your ecosystem.

Nearbound and events (read more here)

GTM Partners named event-led growth one of the 6 GTM motions you need to use to succeed.

In this GTM motion, you have to match the stage of your prospect in the sales cycle to the type of event you want to do and the attendees you want to aim for. Only this way can you generate event-influenced revenue or event-attached revenue. 

More nearbound marketing resources

• Does your marketing account for pre-funnel activity with Rand Fishkin
• How Logan Lyles used nearbound tactics to fill his event’s registration in less than 24 hours
• Nearbound Surround: How to Reach Buyers in the ’Who’ Economy with Isaac Morehouse
• The Journey to Chief Marketing and Ecosystem Officer with Allison Munro and Jill Rowley
• Revenue Renaissance: Why Marketing & Partnerships Will Lead Revenue in 2024 Tyler Calder
• The Data is In: It’s About ’Who’ not ’How’ with Vinay Bhagat
• Building trust in the Age of Data Overload with Dan Sanchez
• The Nearbound ABM Play you Can Run Today with Blake Wiliams
• Three Nearbound Marketing Tactics to Start Using Now with Logan Lyles
• 3 Ways to Market With Your Community Members with Sydney Waterfall
• 4 Steps to Execute Survey Co-Marketing with Jakub (Kuba) Grajcar
• Activating the Hidden Evangelists Within Your Company with Jess Cook
• How to Identify the Nearbound Evangelists in Your Ecosystem
• Marketing Against the Grain LIVE at the Nearbound Summit

Stuff you don’t want to miss!

• Nearbound Summit 2023 Recordings—The future of GTM is Nearbound. Watch the recordings to hear how B2B leaders across departments unite with Nearbound strategies and tactics. Listen here.
• January 25th— CEO Summit—Join Pavilion and many more companies to be part of expert-led educational sessions, covering top-of-mind issues for CEOs and Founders. Learn about the latest sales insights, building a pricing strategy, and co-selling. Register here. 
• Feb 5th-7th in Miami—Impartnercon 2024—Partnerships are the future of growth. Join partner leaders to learn what it means to build the future of business, together. Register here.
• March 19-20th—Affiverse’s Amplify Summit—Join them for a 2-day virtual event to help affiliate businesses amplify their performance. Learn about digital, partnership, and affiliate marketing. Register here.