What is B2B marketing?
Implementing marketing strategies is a difficult task, and marketers always have to deal with many problems to formulate their marketing strategies. Audiences also play an important role in effective marketing, so if you do not target the customer’s persona properly, the sound of your ads will not reach the intended audience. While most companies focus on individuals as customers, others serve other organizations and companies, so marketing is completely different from marketing for the consumer. And this has led to a different marketing method called B2B. In this article, we will review the B2B marketing method and introduce the related strategies to you, so stay tuned until the end of this article.
What is B2B Marketing?
Any advertising strategy and content intended to attract an organization or business are called B2B marketing or Business-to-Business. Every company that offers its services or products to other businesses or organizations uses a B2B marketing strategy. Hubspot, for example, uses a B2B marketing strategy; In other words, it can be said that other companies and organizations are the target audience of Hubspot.
The difference between B2B and B2C marketing
B2B and B2C marketing, or Business-to-Consumer, are very different in terms of related strategies and programs and audience and how they interact with them. Which type of marketing you use depends entirely on your business model. B2B marketing targets the needs, interests, and challenges of the people who buy from you on behalf of an organization. So it turns an organization into your customer.
Here are some companies that use B2B marketing:
- Companies like WeWork leases offices to freelancers.
- Some companies do the work of tracking orders, warehousing, and printing designs on goods.
- Companies like Hubspot offer marketing and social media management tools to other companies.
B2C marketing targets the needs, interests, and challenges of individual customers. Here are some companies that use B2C marketing:
- Appointment platforms allow people to book a doctor, hairdresser, and… 2 appointments.
- Music platforms such as Spotify provide users with artists’ audio content for a fee.
Benefits of B2B Marketing
1- Sales volume in B2B marketing is much higher than in B2C marketing.
2- B2B marketing has lower costs for implementation than B2C marketing due to the limited size of the audience.
3- B2B marketing is implemented in a shorter time and with wider dimensions.
4- Reducing marketing expenses due to its automation
5. B2B marketing helps you find new markets and expand your business.
6- B2B marketing allows you to predict the market situation.
7- The possibility of cooperation and long-term transactions and receiving fixed orders in this type of marketing
8- B2B marketing has high revenue stability due to its corporate nature and contract.
B2B marketing implementation strategies
As mentioned earlier, marketing depends on the type of audience. Although B2B and B2C marketing are different in terms of audience type, different types of B2B marketing are not completely similar. This section will introduce you to different B2B marketing strategies that you can use to attract the target audience for your business.
1- B2B Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most tried and tested methods for reaching individual consumers and businesses. That’s why 93% of B2B marketers use an email marketing strategy, and you have to use that strategy to turn your audience into a lead and then a real buyer.
Unlike B2C marketing audiences who respond positively to emotions and entertainment, B2B customers are more likely to seek positive logic and ROI. Other companies are asking themselves if your products and services help their business. For this reason, the email marketing strategy should target other companies in an integrated manner, and your main focus should be on the factors that companies want, such as time, capital, and resources.
Email marketing strategy is also a powerful tool for sharing your brand content. 83% of B2B companies use email newsletters as their marketing program. 40% of B2B marketers believe that email newsletters are the key to success in content marketing.
Important points regarding email marketing
Write the Subject section interestingly
The Subject section acts like a movie trailer. If you can not get your audience to pay attention to your email, you should not expect to open or read the email. Therefore, it is recommended that you focus more on the email’s subject.
Include a CTA button in each email
Some emails include 2 or 3 and sometimes up to 10 action call buttons. But you should not confuse customers by making this mistake so that they do not understand what they should click on first. In fact, by inserting a CTA button in each email, you allow the recipient to focus on the content of the email first and then take action.
Categorize your emails
Sometimes your emails may be inappropriate for some people. In other words, some followers may be at a different stage of the Buyers Journey, so they have different needs compared to other audiences. So you have to categorize your emails according to the type of recipient. Keep in mind that customers usually prefer email quality over its quantity.
Your email should be compatible with different devices
More than 80% of email users use mobile phones to access their messages, and if your email is not displayed properly on mobile devices, users will quickly delete it. So your emails must be responsive.
2- Digital B2B marketing
All B2B and B2C companies must be present in the digital space through paid advertising, SEO, ad reporting. Here are some practical techniques for enhancing digital B2B marketing strategies:
1. Define your target audience
A successful digital marketing strategy is formed by identifying the target audience and the customer persona. This demographic and psychological information affects all future marketing activities, and you make sure that your content is delivered to the right audience.
2- Develop your website
Implementing digital marketing strategies is not possible without having an attractive and practical website. Research has shown that 80% of buyers have visited the company’s website before purchasing. In addition, influencers can easily and directly share information about your products and services on the website with their followers.
3- Optimize your presence in the digital market
Despite your attractiveness, your website should also rank well in search engines. You can improve your website ranking in search engine results pages by using SEO-on-Page and Technical SEO tricks that include tips on Alt attributes, meta descriptions, data structure, and website speed.
SEO-off-Page also plays an important role in this regard, through which it is possible to place external links and share on social networks.
4. Implement click-through (PPC) campaigns
PPC or Pay-Per-Click campaigns also make it possible to be seen in search engines and other websites so that your organization’s brand and content are exposed to a huge number of new audiences. Our suggestion is to increase your investment in click-through advertising and display items such as brand personality, news magazine, social media content, and advertising slogan.
3- B2B content marketing
As mentioned earlier, B2B customers focus more on logic, expertise, and willingness to learn. Content Marketing is the best tool to meet the needs of B2B customers. Traditional marketing strategies such as public relations (PR) only expose ads to consumers daily. Content marketing strategies also add valuable and ancillary information. Keep in mind that content marketing supports SEO practices. They include predicting the keyword audience wants to find your website and turning them into real customers.
80% of managers prefer to get the information they need from articles and do not care much about published ads, so you should consider ad reporting in your content marketing because buyer’s journey in B2B marketing is different from B2C marketing. Its content is also different from content produced exclusively for the consumer.
4- B2B social media marketing
Did you know that 75% of buyers and 84% of corporate executives in the B2B business model go to social networks for shopping? Social media marketing is not just about attracting individual customers. It also has many applications in B2B strategies. Of course, many organizations have difficulty implementing their social marketing strategy because interacting with other brands in cyberspace is very difficult.
Social marketing in B2B businesses does not bring many customers. It is a powerful tool to increase brand awareness (Brand Awareness) that creates a human personality for your company in customers’ minds. In addition, like email marketing, you can use this channel to share your content.
