As an advanced civilization, technology has come a long way in altering the way we think, act, learn and shop – which is often most apparent in the B2B sector. However, despite many marketers being aware of the fact of how technology has been playing a major role in influencing our thought processes, there are still many marketers who continue to make the mistake of using decades-old marketing strategies in their current business framework. This article is about the B2B marketing guide.
What is B2B Marketing?
Business-to-business (B2B) marketing is one of the two main categories for marketing that significantly differs from other major categories like business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing. It is a widely used practice that allows businesses to sell their services or products to other companies or organizations that either uses them in their own products, resell them or utilize them to support their own business processes. Hence, it has become of utmost importance that B2B based companies should invest ineffective marketing strategies.
Although, effective marketing can be a big challenge to get right. Between budget limits, channel decisions, and creative demands, there are a lot of things marketers have to constantly juggle with when developing when it comes to their b2b marketing guide.
When creating marketing tactics, the most influential determinant is your audience. If you are not properly aiming at your buyer persona, your advertisements and promotions will not serve their intended purpose and deliver the results you were hoping for.
The Effective B2B Marketing Guide
There are many ways to capture the attention of your buyers as long as you have an in-depth understanding of who your audience is.
According to Branding Strategy Insider, it was found that more than 70% of buyers are millennials who come from a variety of geographies, job descriptions, and departments. Moreover, since the internet has allowed users to access immense and often overwhelming information, they can often turn into hesitant or uncertain buyers. So, as a B2B based company, it is your job to develop clever marketing tactics to approach your buyers.
· Email Marketing
To help you get started in engaging with your buyers is through the email marketing strategy. This is a tested method that has the potential to reach both business customers and individual consumers. In fact, more than 90% of B2B marketers tend to use emails to effectively catch their buyers’ attention.
Emails can lead to engagements that affect your subscribers and turn them into leads and then to customers. One of the major differences between B2C and B2B customers is that the B2C ones are more prone to responding to entertainment and emotions, whereas B2B customers are on the lookout for a positive return on investments. Upon coming across your business, they ask themselves, “How can their business help my business grow?“. That is why it is essential that your email marketing must resonate with business customers and are focused on things of value to them like resources, time, and money.
Moreover, since we are always dealing with lots of emails flooding up to our inboxes, it is now more important than ever to develop effective marketing emails. For example, writing captivating subject lines is an excellent way to start. Think about the content of your email and how you can use a few words to deliver your message effectively. At times you might even need to spend more time creating subject lines than the content itself. You can also segment your email so that each email reaches a particular audience which makes it appear more personal and tells your audience that you have been attentive to their needs.
· Content Marketing
Since B2B customers are more focused on logic and have a desire to be educated, what better tool to satisfy their needs than B2B content marketing?
Through content marketing strategies, you are able to educate your audience with valuable information that your customers are looking for. Plus, this form of marketing also supports SEO practices that involve the prediction of what your audience is in search of and helping them discover your website.
The effectiveness of this strategy is given proof at Marx Communications, where they have stated that more than 80% of decision-makers in a business prefer getting information from articles rather than an advertisement, so it would be ideal to spend a good chunk of your resources on content marketing strategies.
· Digital Marketing
With advanced technology becoming a part of our daily lives, it is essential that every business should have a virtual presence that should consist of search engine optimization, paid advertisements, and various other places where your B2B company can be active online.
To strengthen your B2B digital marketing strategy, you must begin with defining your buyer persona. This particular demographic source of information will inform every marketing activity thereafter and ensures that your digital content is being utilized by the targeted customers.
Another important aspect to keep in mind is the fact that every digital marketing strategy will only work well with an engaging and informative website. If that is something you do not have, we suggest working on that first to build upon productive results in the future. In fact, according to AdWeek, more than 80% of buyers have been known to visit a website before making any purchase.
Additionally, aside from having an engaging website, your website also has to be discoverable. This can be done through search engine optimizations practices which include everything from meta descriptions and image-text to site speed and relevant structured data.
Another important aspect that can significantly help your digital presence is to make use of pay-per-click advertisements. This practice allows you to use your brand and content in front of potential online customers through search engines and various other platforms of advertisements. As such, it has been recommended to maximize your pay-per-click investments by focusing more on advertising specific services or products or services. This can include social media content, brand personality, or even a company tagline.
Furthermore, you can see your return on investment through paid ads by incorporating data from your buyer persona and boost content that your customers can relate to.
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