10 B2B Marketing Strategies

B2B marketing can be define simply as Business to Business marketing. This B2B marketing strategy refers, products and service marketing to the other businesses in the industry.

• A business is sourcing materials for their production process for output. In other words "providing raw material to the other company that will produce output".(e.g., a food manufacturer purchasing salt)
• A business needs the services of another for operational reasons (e.g., a food manufacturer employing an accountancy firm to audit their finances).
• A business re-sells goods and services produced by others (e.g., a retailer buying the end product from the food manufacturer). 

Let's discuss about 10 B2B strategies as follow.

1) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As we alluded to in the previous item, your target audience has to be able to find your site for it to be effective. That’s where search engine optimization comes in.

This is such a key piece of the online marketing puzzle that in our studies, high-growth firms list it as the most effective online marketing technique available to them. Though SEO is a complex and evolving discipline, it ultimately consists of two primary components.

On-site SEO -

uses targeted keyword phrases to communicate the concepts on your site that matter to your audience. These keyword phrases typically focus on your services and expertise.

The purpose of on-site SEO is to communicate to search engines what your website is about. This allows search engines to produce more relevant results to searchers. And when audiences search for insight on your area of specialty, they’ll find you.

Off-site SEO -

takes the form of links to your website, either through outside engagement or guest articles in other publications, for example. These efforts work to increase your site’s authority as a widely recognized leader on your topic.

As more high authority and relevant websites link to your website, search engines will begin to see your site as more credible – resulting in higher rankings.

2)  Advertising

There are a number of platforms on which your firm can advertise effectively:

Industry publications and websites, Social media, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Google AdWords, as well as Bing and Yahoo, Retargeting – A cookie-based technology that uses a simple JavaScript code to anonymously “follow” your audience across the Web and serve relevant ads.

Advertising doesn’t just promote your services – it can also play an important role in driving content downloads, increasing both your expertise and visibility.

It’s important, however, to use forms of advertising best-suited to professional services. LinkedIn, retargeting, and other industry-focused advertising tend to work best, because they allow you to most directly target appropriate industry audiences, which leads to more conversions, higher click-through rates, and lower cost per download.

Search engine marketing (SEM), on the other hand, often can be more expensive and harder to target for professional services’ purposes. Similarly, Facebook ads tend to be less effective because the platform is used at a lower rate by professional services buyers than other social media networks.

However, it’s important to remember there are many variations of each of these advertising types. Professional services firms might find them more or less successful depending on budget, ad purpose, targeting, and industry niche.

3) Build trust with your leads

In modern B2B marketing, you need to give your prospects a reason to trust you. No prospect will convert on your landing page, let alone become a customer, without trusting your offer. Building trust should be a top priority for all marketing interactions, from in-person meetings to your web pages.

For example, when it comes to web content, buyers have little patience for obstructions and don’t trust websites full of distractions such as:

• Poorly written content or useless content
• Poor design, or sites that don’t “look the part”
• Intrusive or ugly Calls to Action   
• Lack of contact info or contact forms/messaging
• But, building trust with your leads dives deeper than useful web content or helpful sales calls.

It is always deals with principles.

If you want to be seen as credible, you have to serve up authentic messages that genuinely empathize with your audience's pain points, and put the spotlight on what solution you offer. Then your audience will be more willing to trust you. Only then will the next 4 best practices work.

4) Share your expertise with your leads

If you’ve learned a lot from your industry experience and now have high-level knowledge, talk about it. Sharing your expertise builds trust and can generate leads (think webinar registrations). Successful strategies embrace opportunities to showcase industry knowledge by:

• Publishing blog posts
• Recording podcasts
• Hosting webinars
• Posting LinkedIn articles

Among B2B buyers, web and email content tend to rank among the most successful channels, but webinars are not far behind. Look for opportunities to share content that allows your audience to engage and get in touch with you.

But don’t boast about your expertise. Puffed up claims only damage your credibility (remember, trust is everything). Simply share your expertise in helpful ways through more than one medium.

5) Always be interesting to customers

Just because you need integrity in your promises doesn’t mean you have to deliver a boring message. You need to keep your audience's attention. So stay interesting.

Catching your audience's interest may be easy at first, but it’s harder over time. The longer you publish blog posts and send emails, the more likely you are to recycle the same old content, topics, and phrases.

Resist that urge. Focus instead on copy and visuals that are new and intriguing to your audience.

• Think of new angles for your blog posts
• Cover industry topics that no other expert has touched
• Start reaching out to prospects personally

Go outside of your comfort zone all while keeping content relevant. Whatever you do, make sure your audience is watching closely.

6) Marketing Automation

More and more B2B marketers are turning to marketing automation platforms to help manage the amount of data and complex market dynamics. Email marketing campaigns used to be pretty straightforward – you’d devise a campaign, send out an email and wait for the sales to roll in. It’s not so simple in today’s multi channel world.

Same with tracking website visitors – while it used to just be a matter of keeping track of how many people came to your site, now detailed reporting can provide you with valuable insights. The topic is a good one to explore and this comprehensive guide to marketing automation covers everything from email to visitor tracking to database management – give it a read.

Marketing automation is one of the b2b marketing strategies that makes it easy for B2B marketers to target prospects and clients with the right content at the right time. And it works – According to a Demand Gen Report, 75% of companies using marketing automation see ROI in only 12 months, and Pardot saw that marketing automation users have seen an average increase in sales revenue of 34%.

Marketing automation can combine multiple types of data, such as pages visited, items downloaded, form submissions, etc. and assign scores to various leads. This is incredibly helpful to B2B marketers because it not only automates tedious processes, it allows you to offer thoughtful, personalized messages to potential customers based on exactly where they are in the funnel. Tools like Mail-chimp, Unbounce and Zapier help you to automate a variety of marketing functions so that you can focus your time on improving your strategy in other ways.

7) CRM Tools

B2B-marketing-strategies-tool set CRM systems are a powerful part of your B2B marketing strategy because they help you monitor the habits of your B2B customers and make informed decisions about how and when people buy. CRMs help store information in easy to access databases instead of storing them haphazardly. It’s incredibly important to monitor the buying habits of B2B customers very closely because a single B2B customer presents a much higher value than a single B2C customer. A good CRM tool, like Salesforce or Getbase, can help make your marketing efforts much more efficient and effective by optimizing the way you maintain records about your leads and current customers.

According to CRM experts, it’s never too early to get a CRM – you should invest right away. Studies on CRMs show that a CRM, on average, returns $5.60 for every $1.00 spent. Brent Leary, who co-founded CRM Essentials, explained in a HubSpot interview:

“In today’s world, you need to have a customer engagement process right from the very beginning…If you start blogging and somebody likes what you’re writing about and they want to learn more, you have to have an engagement process that helps you respond quickly and effectively so you can keep the momentum going.”

8) Native Advertising

According to Smart Insights, 49% of companies are increasing content marketing spend in the next year. Paid digital campaigns  just started to pick up steam and publishers and social media networks are both using a combination of earned and paid media. Native advertising lets you place your content alongside journalistic pieces or social posts to grab an audience’s attention in a way that traditional advertising never has. Sponsored posts on Facebook, Instagram and other platforms work in much the same way – your posts appear totally organically next to other ordinary content in a user’s feed. Marketing expert Chris Bennington explains why every B2B company should be focused on native advertising, saying, “For B2B advertisers, there are some real benefits. Many B2B buying decisions are not made spur of the moment. Due to this, banner ads are typically ineffective. Native ad placements give these businesses a chance to engage with their prospects by adding value through conversation.”

9) Trade Shows

Event research firm, Exhibit Surveys, found that 38% of attendees visiting events say that it influences their purchase intent and 73% say the value is excellent to very good. Trade shows and exhibitions can be a great way to connect with potential customers. This is because you’re certain the people at the event are interested in what you have to offer. Or else, why would they be there?

While trade shows can be a lucrative marketing venture, you have to know how to take advantage of them properly and that comes down to three ways…

• Determine Your Goals: Much like content marketing, you can use trade shows to bolster a portion of your marketing funnel that is lagging. Let’s say you’re a new B2B company, you can use your booth to educate potential customers on your service. Maybe you’re a well-known B2B company. In that case, you can let potential customers know what separates you from the competition.

• Pick The Right Events: Your ROI is only as good as the quality of the event you go to. Make sure that you are picking reputable events where you’re sure your target demographic will be active at.

• Market Yourself Prior: Don’t put effort into planning and putting on an event only to have no one show up to your booth. Use every channel at your disposal to let people know when and where you’ll be, and most importantly, why they should visit you (give them an incentive).

• Create An Experience: Your first instinct at an event or trade show might be to start pitching new leads. However, you’ll want to hold off. Trade shows and events are more for marketing than sales. Use this opportunity to gain valuable face-to-face time with prospects and spark a relationship. Remember: all successful relationships are built on trust – gain their trust and you’re that much closer to closing the sale.

• Measure: Unlike digital marketing, which can be simple to measure, trade shows and events are not so simple. Many B2B companies hire event measurement firms such as Exhibit Surveys for this purpose only.

• Have A Post-Show Plan: Once the trade show or event is over, your work as a marketer is just beginning. You’ve most likely collected a generous amount of lead information. Now it’s time to follow-up and get them back into the marketing or sales funnel.

10)  Co-Marketing

Co-marketing is one of the least used marketing strategies in general (between B2B and B2C companies). Despite that, it could be one of the most lucrative. At its core, a co-marketing relationship is referral marketing and referral marketing (AKA “word of mouth marketing”) is one of the highest ROI producing marketing strategies there is. Why? Prospective customers trust others who have dealt first-hand with your company rather than anyone or any marketing material from your company. This is because they are well aware that your company is trying to sell them. However, a 3rd party review is impartial.

How do you go about creating a co-marketing relationship? It’s not that hard. First, think about complimentary services to the one your company provides. What companies provide those services? Can you offer anything in return to those companies if you were to join a deal together? There are many ways a co-marketing relationship can work.

• The business you’re working with can upsell your service to their current clients.
• They can directly refer their clients to your business.
• They can white label your service from you and offer it to their clients.