The business world has seen an enormous transformation in the steps involved in business-to-business marketing and sales. Business to Business (B2B) marketing has evolved so much that outbound marketing has started becoming to be the tactic of the past. Automation, Digital Business Network & Social Media have rewritten the way business used to operate.
The B2B business is characterized by fewer customers, complicated business transactions, derivative demand and a few numbers of employees. The internet has played a major role in turning the B2B marketing into a round-the-clock activity making it very competitive since every business is scrambling for the clients found on the internet.
For every business to grow and make profits there have to be strategies put in place to govern and enhance the marketing and sales activities. Setting an online presence is not just enough to put you ahead of the game in a B2B business set up. The following strategies can be used to increase the market share and generate more revenue.
1. Establish a specific goal
Before setting any specific goals for marketing you need to establish the kind of customers you want to reach out to. With this, you will be able to determine the tactics, strategies, promotional avenues and the messaging you can use in the marketing campaigns. You can start by creating buyer information channels to gain knowledge about your customers’ goals, motivations, pain processes.
By this, you can understand where the buyers get their information from, what kind of products attracts them and how they carry their research. You can then synchronize the buyer’s needs and challenges with your products/services and how you can add value to them. This will help in creating relevant content which will keep you ahead of your competitors. Since the B2B marketing has many stakeholders, you have to go through this process to make sure you deliver the right message to the right person and at the right time.
2. Use video in your marketing
By 2019, global consumer Internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words and the easiest and fastest way to spread your product in the market is through video advertisement.
YouTube has been a very powerful tool in the social media for advertising, promotion, and marketing. This is a media platform that can no longer be ignored because videos are becoming more prominent as a content formatting tool. You can work on the strength of your video to deliver a special and unique experience that will assist in sharing accurate insights, create emotional and personal connections and help solve market problems.
3. Prioritize Digital Advertising
With digital marketing becoming more mature, it’s no surprise that companies are continually getting better at SEO. Marketers see SEO as becoming more effective, with 82% reporting effectiveness is on the rise and 42% of this group stating effectiveness is increasing significantly.
Google receives 63,000 searches per second on any given day.
In terms of efficiency the digital paid advertising was ranked at 52 percent while posts promoted by social media came second with 39 percent. The preference of using paid advertising whether it’s the social media ads, social media posts that are promoted or the pay-per-click ads found in search engines will continue being in an upward direction.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is more suitable for B2B sales and marketing because it enables you to reach out to your intended market organically.
4. Use Content marketing to assist customer’s journey
94 percent of people that buy through the B2B marketing platforms are said to have done some online research before buying any product, while the majority of decision makers of a business prefer to know the company they are engaging with from a number of articles rather than hearing of them through adverts.
Content marketing can take the perspective of the buyer about your products right from the awareness stage to the buying or purchasing stage. Apart from that, it can also help to increase the awareness of the brand to people, direct new customers to your website and helps to boost your search engine optimization.
A content marketing strategy that is well designed allows you as the seller to get the best leads, build trust with the buyers, nurture relationships, help prospects, lead decision makers of companies to their platform which finally leads to getting high sales
5. Build a good e-commerce website platform
If your potential clients are bypassing the website without spending time or engaging in the available resources on the page, then you need to know that your content marketing and advertising techniques are all in vain. It is very important that your business is supported by a strong e-commerce website that is fully featured.
This can help you to process the number of website visits to sales and then to recurring orders which obviously is the goal for any business.
This entire customer journey can flawlessly happen only when your website offers an outstanding user experience.
The digital era has brought with it significant changes posing some challenges while at the same time opening up numerous market opportunities in the B2B world. The big question is, Are you making the best use of all the available resources and technology to meet the demands of your customers? If not then you now know the strategies to run a successful B2B marketing campaign.
