Introduction
B2B marketing relates to the marketing focused on the sale of products and services in an organizational setting rather than targeting the population of consumers. This means that currently, there is more than one trillion dollars of B2B sales every year in the US only, which implies the great potential for B2B organisations that are capable to target the audience and convert the prospects.
However, B2B marketing is also not without its obstacles, which are different from those that exist in business-to-consumer (B2C) cases. For instance, B2B buyers are Business to Business buyers, who are more logical, calculative and spend considerably more time to make purchases. More approvals can be observed in today’s business environment due to the increased number of involved stakeholders.
The ultimate guide below outlines the most effective strategies that one needs to apply in order to effectively market a B2B company, generate demand and increase revenues.
Content Marketing
Content marketing focuses on providing strategic, relevant, and interesting content to potential B2B buyers in order to build trust and gain their business. This has turned out to be one of the essential features in the current B2B marketing strategies.
Useful types of content for B2B include:
- Articles – Create and publish articles on a variety of topics, it can be educational articles, expert opinions, the latest trends, and more, also use the keywords to ensure that the articles rank well for search engines.
- White papers and guides – Create white papers, ebooks, and guides to strengthen leads and portray your company as a market innovator. Enclose them behind opt-in forms to capture some leads.
- Webinars – Broadcast live or recorded seminars about topics of interest. They should be given the opportunity to freely engage and ask questions with the intention of building rapport.
- Videos – Make animated videos, software demos, online presentation, webinars and so on. So, it is the perfect time for business-to-business industries to focus on short videos.
- Examples of usage – Highlight the positive experiences had by clients as a result of your product or service. As much as possible, try to express the value and benefits in a concrete monetary value.
While creating content, make sure that it always is consistent with the pain points, ambitions, and information consumption of the target buyer personas across their purchaser journey. Share new posts on all marketing platforms to ensure reach across all stages.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is still relevant and effective in the B2B context as a tool for generating and cultivating leads. Some effective email campaigns to implement include:Some effective email campaigns to implement include:
- Follow up series – Create an independent sequence of 3-5 messages that will be sent to new subscribers to introduce them to the newsletter and its contents.
- Educational/nurturing series – It means to create a regular content series with high value and relevance to always engage the subscriber towards offering gate to get through.
- Promotional series – Essential to fill the email sequence with product-related communication such as announcements, discounts, free trials, and other promotional content that will help create conversions.
- Win back series – This is a series that is sent in a special attempt to regain contacts that have gone inactive or unsubscribed.
- Relating with festivities – ensure that your campaigns correspond with the general festivities open to the society and the parts of the world as well as the industry.
When sending emails, it is always proper to always segment the contacts by using characteristics like buyer persona, lifecycle, behavior, etc. , and this will greatly enhance the results as the email content will match the needs of the contacts.
LinkedIn Advertising
Since it reaches more than 675 + million members across the world, LinkedIn advertising is a chance to target decision-makers in B2B markets where they spend their time.
Choose from a variety of powerful targeting options:Choose from a variety of powerful targeting options:
- Position description – Target specific job position to match the target buyer roles, for example; CEOs, Directors, Managers.
- Company – To narrow down the search results, users can filter according to company name, size, industry, location and more.
- Interests – Develop major messages to appeal to professional member interests and segments
- Decision making readiness – Target members who are in the process of making decision in their buying process, whether this is to purchase a product, a service, a solution or a vendor among others.
Ad types that work well for B2B brands on LinkedIn include:Ad types that work well for B2B brands on LinkedIn include:
- Sponsored content – Use the platform for sharing owned content such as blog posts, whitepapers in an attempt to gain more page views
- Message ads – Engage your audience and focus on action by creating compelling text, image, and video message ads.
- Program ads – Create ads to be changed depending on the information received from the professional profile of each viewer
Conduct CTR, CPL, and conversion rate analysis to determine which target segment and creative is performing well with the audience and hence focus our efforts on pushing these.
Support the LinkedIn advertising with an ongoing Company Page to strengthen reputation and credibility all year round.
Conclusion
The combination of Content Marketing, Email Marketing campaigns, LinkedIn advertising, and more can be highly useful for B2B organizations that seek to maximize their marketing efforts and pool to drive increased results and pipeline. Identify your target audience, align content with stage in the funnel, hound down and enhance approaches, measure tangible outcomes and active involvement, and adjust techniques as necessary. Thus, it will help you find a space in a very competitive B2B environment as well as show higher marketing program ROI.
