Everyone knows the major difference between B2C and B2B Marketing. In the former, you are marketing (and selling) your products or services to individual customers while in the latter, your marketing efforts are focused on selling to other businesses.

For years, B2B marketing strategies involved the use of direct and outbound techniques in order to persuade a prospect to engage with and eventually buy a seller’s product or service.

In today’s information-rich world, the modern business buyer is less likely to be swayed by references or outbound marketing (no matter how compelling it is) and rely more on his own research. This sea change in buyer behaviour has broadened the range of B2B marketing strategies now available to the modern marketer.

Which strategies should you use to get ahead in the B2B Marketing game?

Let’s take a look at 5 that are absolutely essential!

1: Never under-estimate the power of a professional WEBSITE

Think you don’t need a website because other firms in your industry don’t have one? Instead of using this belief as an excuse to conform to your peers, why not see it as an opportunity to set yourself apart from them?

If you want to showcase your products or services, engender trust in your brand, provide a valuable resource to your customers (and prospects) and even establish your reputation as an industry thought leader; you need to have one particular asset in place – a professionally-designed, up-to-date website.

• Want to build visibility?
• Influence conversations?
• Increase conversions?
• Get better returns on your marketing spends?

Get a website!

Of course, a website is not enough to give teeth to your B2B Marketing campaigns if it is devoid of good content. Provide valuable content on your website that addresses your customers’ pain points, solves their problems and provides useful information. Content marketing is powerful. Use it!

2: Strengthen your website with SEO

We have already seen why a website is critical to your B2B Marketing strategy and why content is so important to your website. But no matter how well-designed or well-written your website is, it will not be effective if your target audience cannot find it. Here’s where SEO comes in.

SEO is both on-site (e.g. keywords on your website) and off-site (e.g. external sites linking to your website) – and both strategies are important to strengthen your B2B Marketing activities.

If you have the budget for it, you can also try Search Engine Marketing (SEM), a paid form of digital advertising that can also yield great results for B2B Marketing.

3: Personalise your marketing efforts

A majority of marketers think of ‘personalisation’ as a B2C strategy.

Why bother to send a personalised newsletter when a generic ‘to whom it may concern’ email can work just as well?

Right?

WRONG!

Even in the B2B world, people do business with people first, companies later. Humanise your contact strategies. This means your sales and marketing personnel must speak to leads as people first. Prospects need to see that you invest time, energy and most importantly, human capital in your marketing efforts.

Never send out generic form letters. Do your research on your recipients first. Include their name and the reason why you’re reaching out (ideally to solve their problem). Don’t have these details? Find out! If you don’t – your B2B communication is destined for the dustbin (real or digital).

4: Social Media is powerful. Use it!

Social media offers a plethora of valuable branding opportunities for firms of all sizes. And yes, this statement also applies to supposedly ‘personal’ platforms like Facebook. In fact, even for business users, social media is now a more commonly used source of information than referrals or recommendations.

Do you want to:

• Engage better with customers and reach more leads?
• Build long-term brand equity?
• Improve your conversion ratio?
• Get more loyal customers and ‘brand advocates’?

With social media, you can do all this and more!

5: Use technology

Earlier, we spoke about ‘humanising’ your marketing efforts. This strategy is about ‘technofying’ it.

No, we are not trying to confuse you. The human touch and technology can both exist side by side. In fact, when used together, they can make your B2B Marketing more powerful than ever before. Here are 2 ways you can use technology for B2B Marketing.

1. Marketing Automation. A number of software platforms are available to automate routine marketing tasks. Do your research and select the one that works best for you. Not only can you reduce costs and improve marketing effectiveness, you will also be able to focus on more strategic, customer-oriented, higher-ROI tasks.

2. CRM. With a good CRM solution like Salesforce, you can grab more opportunities, systematically organise client information, track interactions and devise effective action plans. This information can be accessed by different departments, helping you synchronise your B2B Marketing efforts firm-wide.

Final thoughts…

The most important thing to remember is that businesses and clients are constantly evolving. Therefore, your B2B Marketing efforts must reflect this reality. First, know who you’re devising your strategies for. Then, regularly assess your strategies and find ways to improve. Finally, remember that in today’s world, only those who provide value get the customers, while those who look only for profits eventually fade away.

Cynergi provides marketing and media services to help businesses gain knowledge and skills for growth and progress. Our services include Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, video creation and corporate gifting. To know more, contact us today.