Driving Growth with The 4-Corner Inbound Marketing Model

I recently shared our 4-corner inbound marketing model on The HealthTech Marketing Show podcast.

When I started healthlaunchpad, I was determined to build a sustainable marketing engine. I am a passionate believer in inbound marketing. Curiously, I learned a lot from sailing. You can read about that story here.

In growing my prior software company, Uniphy Health, inbound marketing had been key to our early growth, but I was frustrated that we never scaled it effectively.

With healthlaunchpad, I was determined to perfect this. In this post, I will share what I have learned works.

The 4-Corner Inbound Marketing Model

The key to our approach is the tight integration of four key elements:

• A regular cadence of educational content
• An Intentional SEO Strategy
• Amplification through social media
• Extended reach through partnerships

Establishing Authority Through Content Creation

The keystone of this model that has driven the agency’s rapid growth is creating high-quality content, including blogs, videos, and podcasts. 

Our goal is to establish authority in the healthtech marketing niche by consistently publishing educational content the audience finds valuable. This serves three key objectives:

1. Earning recognition as experts in healthtech marketing
2. Showcasing expertise in account-based marketing (ABM) specifically  
3. Becoming a go-to source for relevant ideas and insights

In practice, this means publishing a weekly in-depth blog on topics like ABM, marketing to healthcare providers, content strategy, and more. The HealthTech Marketing Show podcast features interviews with other healthtech marketers and is published weekly.

The transcript from each video podcast episode is then transformed into a written blog using AI tools like Descript and Claude. This creates additional on-demand content while keeping the entire process efficient.

Driving Organic Growth Through an SEO Strategy

The second piece of the 4-corner marketing model is search engine optimization (SEO). Done right, a focused SEO strategy delivers highly qualified visitors to your site who have never heard of your brand before. 

When I started healthlaunchpad, I worked extensively with an SEO specialist to identify relevant target keywords, like “ABM” and “healthcare marketing”. These keywords now inform an annual content production calendar to ensure consistency.

We analyze site traffic and keyword rankings monthly to optimize this SEO content engine. Over 18 months, this helped grow the site’s organic traffic 10X.

Today, 60-70% of total site traffic comes from non-branded organic keywords.

Amplifying the Message via Social Media

We are passionate about the power of social media. We focus primarily on LinkedIn to amplify the message to over 10,000 followers. My Linkedin routine includes sending targeted invites, posting articles and content daily, and optimizing content based on engagement analytics.

We recently won a significant contract thanks to this approach. The prospect found us a year prior while googling “ABM healthcare”. After following us and consuming a lot of our content, he proactively reached back out when he was ready and became a six-figure client.

This exemplifies how social media builds familiarity and trust over time through consistent exposure. And that leads to business.

Extending Reach Through Partnerships & Referrals  

Partnering with organizations like HIMSS and Bombora has extended our reach tremendously. These involve co-creating content offers like webinars and collaborating on other initiatives.

While giving more than you get, these partnerships tap new audiences and often convert them to inbound leads over time. Referrals from business acquaintances send additional qualified opportunities. 

This Model Drives Results 

I have found that 50% of new business comes from our inbound marketing model. The other 50% originates from referrals, likely heavily influenced by the content they’ve been exposed to through our inbound approach.

The best validation of this holistic model is our rapid expansion in recent years:

• 70% growth last year
• 50% the prior year 
• Even higher growth before that

Doubling down on inbound and content helps sustain this business momentum. Today, 60-70% of the site’s visitors are strangers who come in through organic search. Then, about half of closed deals originate directly from these previously unknown site visitors.

By integrating these four elements, this approach has delivered even greater results than I expected.

It takes time, consistency, and a lot of hard work to be successful with this approach. The biggest benefit is that it creates a sustainable competitive advantage.

Actionable Tips

If you want to replicate this, here are ten tips to get started with the inbound marketing model:

1. Identify your audience and 3-5 content topics to establish expertise
2. Commit to a publishing cadence like 1 blog/week 
3. Work with an SEO advisor to optimize initial content and pages 
4. Set up business profiles on LinkedIn to engage socially with content  
5. Look for relevant potential partners to guest post, co-host a webinar, etc
6. Build a referral network by providing value to others 
7. Analyze traffic sources and add analytics tracking
8. Set monthly meetings to review metrics and optimize efforts
9. Slowly scale activity across all 4 corners in a measured fashion  
10. Be patient and focused on providing audience value above all

Moving the flywheel by nurturing inbound leads and referrals through helpful content can profoundly transform any B2B organization.

You can learn more about inbound marketing by connecting with us. With the right vision and commitment, this framework could provide the blueprint to fuel your future growth.

If you liked this post and want to learn more…

1. Check out more posts like this in the Healthtech MarketingLearning Center. It is chock-full of articles, use cases, how-to’s, and ideas to get you started on your Inbound marketing model and ABM journey.
2. Follow me or connect with me on LinkedIn. I publish videos and articles on ABM and healthtech marketing.
3. Buy Total Customer Growth: Our book on how to win and grow customers for life with ABM and ABX.
4. Work with me directly. Let’s book a growth session and we can explore ways you can improve your marketing using the latest techniques in account-based marketing.