Are you satisfied with your B2B marketing strategies?
Is it helping achieve all the success and goals you have set out for your business?
In order for a business to excel it constantly needs to evolve. It needs to continue to adapt to the industry requirement and trends to ensure it provides the latest solutions.
Similar to solutions, marketing is one aspect of the business that remains fluid. B2B marketing strategies are evolving and changing constantly. If a business wishes to get the most out of them, they need to stay on top of the latest trends and incorporate them into their business. It may not be easy to always be informed of the latest trends and how to implement them. But we have you covered with our list of 10 B2B marketing strategies for business growth in 2019.
It’s no secret that your business performance relies heavily on your marketing techniques. In order to generate quality leads, a business has to ensure it employs tactics that target the right audience and entices them.
Digital marketing has drastically changed how marketing is done. With most businesses looking to do business online, they need to be aware of the most effective trends in B2B marketing strategies.
Success will only be achieved once these strategies are properly adopted and implemented. Your quest to success starts with:
B2B Marketing Strategies 1: Research
Research sets the foundation for all B2B marketing strategies. Think of research like a flashlight and the market and consumers as a dark valley. A flashlight, research, helps guide you through the dark, the market. You need to know how the market is before you attempt to infiltrate it. Both market and brand research can help you devise the right strategy.
Research helps you understand the market and your clients in a more efficient way. It presents you with details that can help you craft your solution in a specific manner to appeal to clients. It doesn’t only inform you about the market but how processes in-house are doing.
Through market research, you can gauge how your solutions are fairing and which services or process you may need to change to improve the solution’s performance.
A business has to constantly perform research to get fresh data to evaluate performance. So don’t set your business out to possibly fall into a ditch for going out into the dark without a flashlight. Research can help your business achieve the success you have envisioned for it.
B2B Marketing Strategies 2: High-Performance Website
The website was viewed as an online brochure in the past. You know just to provide information to those interested in finding out more about specific services a business offers. However, today, the website has drastically transformed to much more.
While it still serves as a way for a business to relay information to clients. It also serves as the hub of the business for the firm which integrates different channels, such as social media. Furthermore, it presents a chance for the firm to highlight their expertise within the industry through blog articles.
It can now even be a marketplace for the firm, with e-commerce they can sell solutions online. In 2017, e-commerce sales totalled $2.3 trillion that was up from $1.3 trillion in 2014. This shows that the trend is picking up as more business integrate the functionality into their website.
The website is one of the first interactions a prospect has with your business. So you want to make sure it is of high-quality and delivers the information they are after.
If you make sure your content is informative and engaging, it can generate qualified leads for you and do most the hard work. So you want to make sure of the following on your website:
- Fast page load time to enhance user’s experience
- Simple design, no flash
- Responsive design so it loads easily on mobile devices
B2B Marketing Strategies 3: SEO Strategy
You will need to pair your high-performance website with a proper SEO strategy. Only then will you be able to reach a wider audience. The online world is filled with competition so you want to make sure you rank on top of search engines, the best way to do that is through SEO. Most B2B marketers will tell you that SEO is the most effective way to ensure you are on top of searches.
SEO is one aspect of digital marketing that is always evolving. Google is constantly changing its parameters for ranking to provide its searchers with the best results. So businesses need to stay up to date with the latest trends to ensure they remain on top. The two components of SEO they should focus on are:
- On-site: this type of SEO consists of all the techniques you employ on the website. With an emphasis on the keyword phrases and the content. Through the content, you communicate not just to your prospects but also to the search engine of the services and knowledge you have. This allows you to rank it in comparison with your competition.
- Off-site: this type of SEO relies on external links directed towards your website. It counts how many external websites, articles, publications, and so on link to yours. The more high quality DO Follow links directing to your website the better. These links serve to inform search engines of the credibility of your website, prompting them to rank it higher.
B2B Marketing Strategies 4: Advocacy Programs
Advocacy programs help you interact and engage with your audience in a more meaningful way. Social advocacy is a program that empowers a group of people to share your content so that it reaches a wider audience. You can hire a team to do this or keep it in-house with your own employees.
Before your social advocacy program kicks off, be sure to have the right tools in place. Since your business will be associated with each post, you need to make sure content that is relevant and not insensitive in any way to any group, culture, religion and so on.
B2B Marketing Strategies 5: Utilizing Facebook Live
The Facebook Live feature was introduced in 2016 and since then it has been a great way to engage with audiences. Users are 10 times more likely to comment on a Facebook Live video than on regular posts which makes it a great tool for engagement.
However, you need to stream the right content to get engagement, these include:
- Tips for your solutions along with FAQs
- Interview with influencers from the industry
- Team member interviews so prospects are better acquainted with your team
- Livestream of business and industry events
- Webinars
- Tutorials
During the stream, you need to make sure your tone is conversational. You can even reply to comments during the stream, but don’t get too caught up in that. It can lead to diversion from the topic at hand. Be sure to make the content creative and don’t keep the stream too long unless it is an event coverage.
B2B Marketing Strategies 6: The Use of Facebook Groups
Groups on Facebook are a great way to engage with an audience. You will need to identify groups related to your industry where you can facilitate discussion and participate in others. You want to establish your presence in the group as someone that adds value to the conversation. Answer questions and help members who can potentially become customers.
Once you have developed a rapport in a few groups, you can even consider making your own. You can advertise it in the various groups to attract members. Having your own group will allow you to be in more control of discussions and the ongoings within the group.
B2B Marketing Strategies 7: Personal Branding
While businesses still heavily focus on the company’s brand, it is important that your top executives also create a personal brand. If a business wants to be successful, it needs the top executives to be thought of as “thought leaders” of the industry. They need to have the latest insights of the industry and relay that to prospects through mediums such as external events, blog articles, and social media channels.
Creating a personal brand helps individuals connect with the audience. It also puts faces and voices behind the firm. The content shared needs to be insightful and add value to the client’s business.
As long as the two are covered it won’t be long until your team and business turn into “thought leaders” of the industry.
B2B Marketing Strategies 8: Referral Program
Who better to talk up your service than happy customers? Your existing clients can be one of the greatest marketing tools, you have yet to tap into. They have experience with your service and can provide prospects with insights into it.
That is exactly why a referral program is important for B2B companies.
To make it worthwhile for your existing customers, you can offer them an incentive. Be it a free add-on service or discount on future purchase for each referral.
By incentivizing it, you will give them a reason to refer. They will certainly have contacts within their own industries that can also benefit from your service. The program allows you to reach them with the help of your existing customers.
B2B Marketing Strategies 9: Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has really picked up steam as an effective B2B marketing strategy in the past few years. The important part of it is selecting the right influencer. You want to make sure that the individual or group has a stronghold of knowledge of the industry. Their audience should consist of the market you want to target.
To help you find the perfect influencer there are tools online such as Buzzsumo. These will allow you to search and browse through various influencers based on the industry.
Within influencer marketing, micro-influencers have also garnered attention lately. They have a smaller audience between 1K to 50K followers but they still have the power to influence their audience, motivating them to buy your solution. The reason why micro-influencers have become popular is that while their audience may be smaller, they have a more meaningful connection with them, and sometimes the engagement ratio is far higher.
This helps when they promote products and solutions as their audience is more likely to listen to their opinion, than a brand.
B2B Marketing Strategies 10: Testimonial Videos
Another smart way to involve your customers in your marketing strategy is to ask them to send testimonials. But not just written testimonials, ask for videos. While written testimonials are great, they aren’t as convincing when you put a face behind who wrote those words. Through a video, you can do just that.
Videos are also more engaging than reading words.
Why are testimonials important?
53% of B2B buyers go on recommendations from their peers when it comes to purchasing solutions.
Be sure to highlight the video testimonials in all your platforms from the website to social media. If your clients don’t bite on sending in video testimonials, try offering them an incentive for it.
It will be worth it in the long run.
If you weren’t aware of any or most of these strategies, then chances are you are probably overwhelmed. If you should have learned anything from our guide it is that static B2B marketing strategies will not lead to success for any business. By following these b2b marketing strategies, within several months to a year, you are likely to have a marketing plan that will be in full steam, generating qualified leads, and bringing success to your business.
