Marketing has evolved over time. The way we did things before is less relevant today. The marketing channels have changed too for both B2B and B2C.
Having effective marketing strategies can be one hell of a task. In a digital era, there may be more demands on creating creative content which attracts an audience, there is also a limitation in budgets while there are different platforms one can promote and marketers have a hard time coming up with a marketing strategy. Especially, digital marketing for B2B companies can be a little difficult to come up with but with good strategy, digital marketing in B2B businesses can do wonders.
What is B2B marketing?
Business to Business (B2B) companies marketing refers to the selling of products and services to other organizations or businesses. B2B’s marketing target audience is an individual who makes purchases on behalf of their organization which makes an organization the customer.
Ways to do Digital Marketing for B2B companies
Website
Having a website is an important tool to have for any digital marketing campaign. The reason is, a website is the first thing your customer wants to visit to know more about your business. A website work as a portfolio for a business. About 81% of consumers do online research before purchasing any product. In terms of B2B, there are many people involved before making any purchase, thus websites can be easy to learn and share information about the products and services an organization provides.
Search Engine Optimization
Gone are the days when websites used to be static and nowhere near engaging. Today, a website needs to be dynamic and engaging and at the same time be discoverable on search engines through proper optimization techniques also known as search engine optimization. On-page SEO, Off-Page SEO, and technical SEO when done right can give a lot of value to your business. These include meta tags, keyword optimization, alt texts, backlink strategies, sitemaps, and so much more. Tools like SEMrush, ahrefs, Moz, Ubersuggest, etc can help you identify your SEO potential.
Paid Advertising
Running Paid Ads or PPC campaigns can bring the businesses in front of the new audience through search engines and different social media or advertising platforms. PPC should not be about advertising just your products and services but also the contents that are important to the business. The best way to do paid advertising is to pay to the relevant category in your brand and promote your products and services to the targeted group of customers.
Content Marketing
I have seen B2B businesses struggling with content marketing. However, there is a lot of valuable information you can give to your customers through content marketing. Thus, B2B marketers should really look on to creating insightful content for their customers. Content Marketing is directly linked with search engine optimization and should be looked into an opportunity to help the audiences discover your business.
Social Media Marketing
If you think that B2B customers are not on social media, then you are wrong. In a survey by IDC, they concluded that 75% of the B2B buyers and 84% of the C-level executives use social media to support their purchase decisions.
Social Media might not be an ideal place for B2B businesses because there is a lengthier process involved to make any sales. However, it should not be ignored because of that one reason itself. Social Media is a great tool for brand awareness and creating an online personality and engaging with your audience. If you need a quick response, social media is always on your service.
All the social media platforms may not be for every business. Try out which platform works best for you and focus on that. If you are performing well on LinkedIn and Twitter make use of it the most, if Facebook works for others, that is also fine. One should not focus on one social media just because it has worked for someone else.
Tip: Figure out which social media is giving your business the best return and stick to it, and there is no harm in trying out different options either but you have to give good content everywhere.
Email Marketing
Email Marketing might look like a spamming tool and not many open the emails and the bounce rates are very high. But it is one of the oldest and the best methods to reach out to potential clients. Email Marketing leads to a good engagement rate which turns them into subscribers and eventually a customer. B2B audience is very quick in replying if they see value in you and you can offer a good deal for them unlike B2C customers, who have a higher chance of ignoring your emails if it doesn’t provide them any entertainment.
B2B marketers should curate their newsletter to share the brand content that is useful for the customers and gives value to them. It is very crucial to send out an email newsletter that is effective for the success of marketing.
