Digital Marketing Guide for B2B

What is B2B Digital Marketing?

B2B (also known as business-to-business) marketing refers to various marketing strategies that are tailored towards a business or an organization. Any company that sells products/services or does business with other businesses or organizations typically fall in the B2B segment.

Difference between B2B and B2C digital marketing

Both B2B and B2C (business-to-consumer) are two different business segments with different target audiences and how your sales pitch is crafted also differs. B2C is when your marketing strategies are targeted directly to the end consumer.
Below is a distinguishing table that answers some questions keeping in mind B2B and B2C businesses. You will be astonished by the contrasting answers.

As much as they differ, B2B and B2C also have some joint elements. You may have come across companies that serve/sell to both organizations and well as individuals. For example, if a Digitial marketing agency serves companies by satisfying their digital marketing needs and also delivers similar services to individuals. Hence, a blend of both B2C and B2B digital marketing strategies (Hybrid Digital marketing strategies) needs to be adopted by such organizations.

Digital marketing techniques for B2B:

Let’s look at some effective digital marketing techniques for B2B businesses, which aids businesses to reach their targeted audience.

1. Email Marketing for B2B:
Did you know, 93% of B2B marketers use email for lead generation purposes? Are you one of them? After reading this statistic don’t you think you should be one of them?. Emails foster engagement which is responsible to make a subscriber into a lead and then eventually your customer. Email Marketing is a tried and tested medium to reach not only business customers but also individual customers.
The difference between a B2C and B2B mail would be what is communicated. For example, a B2C Email will focus on entertainment and emotions whereas, a B2B Email shall focus on value and logic. With the continuous inflow of email, you as a brand must ensure your Email stands out and communicates its products and services efficiently.
Below are a few B2B email writing best practices you can consider while drafting your B2B Email content.

a. Craft a catchy headline:
Think about your email subject lines as a trailer of any movie— If a trailer didn’t manage to hook you, you will not but tickets for that film. if you can’t hook your audience in the very first Email line, don’t expect them to open the mail. We suggest spending maximum time crafting a catchy headline to your Email.

b. Restrict yourself to one Call-to-action (CTA) per Email:
Have you ever been in a situation where you have 2 many options and hence land up doing absolutely nothing in this confusion? As an Email Marketer, we recommend you avoid this mistake where the reader will be confused about which button to click first and finally they will delete your Email. With one CTA the reader is completed to focus on a specific piece of content and ultimately one CTA button.

c. Target your Emails to the most relevant audience segment:
Your buyers may be at various buying stages and hence you must consider having an updated list of each buyer and where he is currently on the buyer’s map. Imagine an Email: 50% off on our new machine is shot to a customer who already purchased the product yesterday at full price. To avoid such blunders, make customer segments and craft different emails to each segment. This mail should ideally reach the customer who probably is at the consideration stage on the buying map. This offer will influence his decision for good.

d. Ensure your Email are Mobile, Tablet and Desktop friendly (responsive):
In the current mobile situation, most of the customers tend to access their email over the mobile phone. If your Email isn’t responsive to various screen sizes, your email is going to be trashed.

e. Be comfortable with cold emailing:
As uncomfortable it sounds, it is known to impact lead generation numbers for good.

What we believe: In case you’re wondering about how to grow your email list, you can start simply by opt-in forms on your website’s home, blog or contact us page. If you do not have a website yet, try exploring other platforms where your business is active.

 2. Digital Marketing for B2B:
The universe is swiftly changing to online dependency for most of its requirements and hence, advertising/marketing online is vital. People now spend more time on their mobile phones, tablets or laptops than ever before! The youth has grown up in the heavy digital era bagged with the skill to use modern devices with ease. Embracing digital marketing at a much faster pace! Shall bring you positive business results. We recommend you have an online presence, you being in the B2B or B2C segment. Let’s take you through a handful of strategies that can reinforce your B2B digital marketing plans.

a. Define Target audience:
Why waste your ads on an audience who is not even looking for your service or products. We suggest you must ponder upon this vital element before moving ahead. However brilliant your digital marketing plan/strategy is, if it ain’t reaching the right audience, it all goes in vain. You must spend the maximum time defining your target audience for a higher probability of conversion. Targeting it to the right audience will ensure it reaches the eyes and ears of the right people.

b. Create a website:
The second point is, a Digital Marketing plan cannot take a leap if you do not share information. Information on your brand, products, services, values, etc. needs to be communicated. The best place to host this kind of information is your website. Did you know? More than 80% of prospective buyers prefer to visit the company’s website before making a purchase decision. Moreover, as mentioned above in the distinction, the B2B sales cycle often involves many key players (such as gatekeepers, decision-makers, and other folks who have to buy into a purchase), websites are easy, straightforward ways for influencers to share information about your product or service.

c. Optimize Digital Presence with SEO:
Just having a website and the target audience in place has only got you halfway through. SEO also known as Search Engine Marketing, is a tool used by most B2B brands to boost their business online presence, you can use Off-page as well as on-page SEO tactics to fulfill this need. In off-page SEO you can consider building backlinks through relevant other business. In on-page SEO you should start with key-word search and then incorporate them seamlessly into your website content, social media post content, blog, etc. You must have a look at some SEO myths and Facts before you take a leap towards getting your SEO in place.

d. Run PPC advertising campaigns:
You will join all the loose dots in your digital marketing plan by running some PPC campaigns for your brand. This not only allows you to get your content and brand information visible to new audiences via search engines but also gets you an edge over your competitors. The optimum way to calculate an ROI from your paid ads is by incorporating your buyer persona data and boosting content that they can relate to.
For example, it’s highly unlikely a brand new consumer who’s never heard of you is searching for your exact product. They may be searching for a location-based solution or specific product feature. To reach a higher number of potential customers, pay your search engine to target relevant search queries towards your brand website.

3. Online Content Marketing for B2B:
Earlier in this blog, we have mentioned how B2B customers are fascinated with expertise-driven knowledge and logic. B2B content is the only marketing tool you can nurture to satisfy these needs of your clients. A content marketing strategy aims to add valuable information and informs the consumer, which is exactly what B2B customers are urging for. Content marketing not only informs your customers with product information but also is the backbone for your SEO efforts. This involves anticipating what your audience is searching for, helping them find your website with respect to their requirement and lastly converting them to customers.
Did you know, 80% of business decision-makers choose to get information from an article than an advertisement? Knowing this fact, we recommend you should be putting in more resources and efforts into your content marketing team compared to traditional advertising strategies. The B2B buyer’s journey is quite different than the B2C buyer’s journey the content you develop for your B2B content marketing strategy is an amalgamation of aesthetic graphics along with information. Refer to the illustration below which distinct the Buyer’s journey between a B2B and a B2C business.

Before you start creating your B2B content, we recommend creating a business blog. Your blog page or blog platform will house all the content you create and serve as a one-stop read for readers to visit and subscribe.

4. B2B – Social Media Marketing:
Are you aware that 75% of B2B buyers and 84% of executives use social media before making a purchase decision? Social media marketing isn’t just for brands that target individual consumers but also for other businesses. Many B2B companies today are struggling with their social media marketing strategy. It can be a tedious job to arrive at a conversion via social media marketing because there’s typically a lengthier sales cycle and longer chain of command. Bluntly putting it, B2B social media marketing is not meant for direct conversions but as seen in the buyer’s journey illustration above, you can get the customer till the consideration stage.
Social media has been a proven robust tool for building brand awareness, bestowing your company an online personality, and portraying a brand personality. These are all very vital factors that a digital marketing person needs to keep in mind when it comes to marketing and connecting with potential customers. Similar to email marketing, social media is a highly effective medium for sharing information.

What we believe: Content shared by your company employees generates over eight times more engagement than content shared by brands. So, we recommend you involve your employees in your B2B social media marketing strategy. Motivate them to create their own social media channels and share about life at your company.

Marketing isn’t fruitful without keeping in mind your target audience and no other audience is as volatile as business customers. Your Digital marketing strategy must focus on communicating how your business can solutionize their problems/challenges. If it doesn’t, you may have to reconsider your strategy, ideally, you may not be marketing at all. Ponder on the above-mentioned tips and strategies to understand your B2B audience and effectively put into action B2B marketing strategies that reach them. Invest in B2B Marketing and Reach Your Business Customers.

Ref:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/b2b-marketing