For B2B marketers, one of the most challenging tasks is to forge a powerful and rewarding B2B marketing strategy.
Developing a B2B marketing strategy is a trial and error method- you test several tips and tricks until you discover the ones that ensure a positive business ROI.
However, one aspect that remains the same is that every B2B marketing strategy is created keeping your specific customers in mind. A marketer needs to consider the business genre, its positioning and unique value proposition in the market, and the resources available for marketing before finalizing on a full-proof marketing plan.
That said, the right B2B marketing strategy can make a massive difference to your market reputation, customer base, profit margins, future ROI projections, and competitive edge.
Defining B2B marketing and B2B marketing strategy
B2B marketing refers to the marketing efforts, tactics, or strategies directed at marketing your business to other businesses or organizations. It means a company sells products or services to other companies requiring such products or services to run their daily operations or resell to other customers. A B2B marketer entertains business executives, procurement officers, or other professionals that make purchasing decisions on behalf of an organization.
However, constraints like creative demands, budget limits, and channel decisions make it difficult to effectively execute a B2B marketing strategy. Moreover, even Google and Facebook don’t always provide profitable lead connections.
So, what should marketers do in such scenarios?
You create a B2B marketing strategy that fulfills your business goals and accelerates revenue growth. A B2B marketing strategy is more like a plan that lays out your goals for marketing, how you measure success, the customers you target, how and where you target them.
Directing your efforts to understand your customers, keeping tabs on new trends, implementing modern technologies, and considering B2B marketing to be more than a form of transactional analysis are just a few bullets that will help you kickstart your B2B marketing strategies.
The top B2B marketing strategies for 2024
In this article, we’ve compiled the most effective, conversion-oriented, and up-to-date B2B marketing strategies that will definitely boost your sales and ROIs.
Strategy #1: Replace the funnel with the flywheel marketing approach
For quite some time now, marketers have been obsessed with the marketing funnel concept that includes the AIDA model (awareness, interest, desire, and action). However, experts at HubSpot found several inconsistencies with the funnel model. Although it served its purpose during the traditional B2B marketing schemes, it was no longer fit to support modern consumer demands.
Enter the flywheel model.
This approach helps marketers move beyond the traditional sales funnel that considers a purchase to be the end of the process. Instead, the flywheel model treats customers as potential marketers holding lifetime value. It embraces the underlying truth behind every brand formation- the initial purchase should be the beginning of a lifelong customer-brand relationship.
With the flywheel approach, you don’t just forget about a customer after purchase; you keep them close, attend to their needs, and ensure they never go to your competitors. After all, keeping existing customers is seven times cheaper than getting new ones. So, position your marketing strategies around the flywheel model.
Strategy #2: Content is King, even in the B2B market
We know that B2B clients are focused on expertise, logic and hold a strong desire for informative articles. What better medium to satiate their needs than high-quality content!
One of the most popular yet under-priced B2B marketing strategies- content influences 80% of decisions made by B2B professionals.
Unlike customers who are new to a trend, experts have a gist about it and would only value content that persuades them into reading the entire piece. Therefore, you don’t have to educate them about their own company, product, or service. Rather, tailor your content around the tips and tricks that solve their bottleneck issues.
Consider a B2B buyer’s journey and pitch them with content that solves their needs and fulfills their requirements. Include content pieces like checklists, eBooks, whitepapers, industry reports, solution-oriented blogs, etc., to your B2B marketing strategy.
Strategy #3: Get really good, really fast at email marketing
Do you know, every $1 spent on email marketing results in $38 in revenue?
Email marketing isn’t the same cold technique that lost all its importance with time. Instead, this new revamped form has garnered some tangible results, especially in the B2B arenas.
However, there is one trick to writing focus-driven and clickable emails- how your business can help other companies grow. Till the time your products keep solving those issues and your emails keep on presenting them as trophies, your B2B email marketing strategies will keep on accomplishing your revenue goals.
Stick to writing eye-catching subject lines, an indirect but direct CTA (one that talks about your services without actually talking about it!), and incorporate responsive and intuitive designs. Also, remember to segment your emails to the most relevant audience group, unless you want to send a digital commerce email to a product engineering client only to lose them in the process.
Strategy #4: Socialize at the right platform
True that social media is more focused on B2C brands; you can still connect with your B2B clients on social media if you employ the right platform. Keep in mind that 75% of B2B buyers and 84% of C-Suite executives research your business on social media before finalizing a purchase.
Social platforms like LinkedIn can help you generate leads, connect with prospective clients, and pitch your services in the best light. But how can you use LinkedIn for lead generation or boost sales, revenue, or conversions of your B2B business?
Establish a prominent brand voice, highlight your employees and appreciate their hard work, maintain consistency, post about events, experiment with content and posting times, keep an eye on competitors, and post content that adds value to a reader’s life- all of this and more will help you ace B2B marketing strategies via social media.
Strategy #5: Ride the B2B mobile marketing wave
With over 5 billion mobile users contributing to more than half of the world’s web traffic, you throw away at least 50% of potential leads if you ignore mobile marketing. In addition, mobile is the primary channel for content consumption in the modern age, and businesses must take advantage of it to boost traffic rates and gather more customer data.
To ride the B2B mobile marketing wave, you need to make sure that your content is mobile-responsive. Make your website accessible via any device, platform, or channel and optimize it for big screens and small ones too. You can also enable voice search and mobile search for your B2B consumers.
Strategy #6: Give Account-based marketing a try
Account-based marketing involves scripting sales and marketing strategies for a particular account and not several at the same time, leading to a considerable ROI surge. ABM doesn’t care much for the followers or likes; it focuses more on closing the deal.
Account-based marketers work upon lead quality than quantity. They narrow down their focus and marketing efforts to target the best accounts with better conversion chances than the others.
As per a report, over 42% of marketers have employed the ABM model and reaped splendid benefits from it. It is why you should give ABM a try and see how it impacts your B2B marketing goals.
Strategy #7: Embrace Martech tools and automation
Several technologies and innovations have evolved and simplified the B2B marketing conduct, making it easier for marketers to reach prospects and personalize communications. One such boon for the B2B marketing world is the Martech (marketing automation) tools. These tools boost your B2B marketing strategies, taking care of the mundane tasks that cost more in the long run so that you can ideate more engaging and ROI-driven campaigns.
So, review all the marketing technologies you employ, especially for categories like marketing experiences, marketing operations, marketing middleware, marketing backbone platforms, infrastructure services, and internet services. Then, explore the Martech tools that can automate repetitive marketing tasks and add efficiency to the process.
Strategy #8: Script visually appealing content
Videos and images have a long-lasting impact on the human brain. We tend to remember only 10% of the audio information; however, with photos, the retaining capacity grows to 65%. So, add more images and videos to promote content intended for brand awareness.
Use compelling pictures consistent with your brand across all platforms. Design it in a way to make it easy on the eyes. Use the white space to your advantage. Don’t add too much content or too many pictures. Aim for visual quality over quantity. For statistical data, create graphs and charts for better illustration. Customize them for branding and relevance purposes.
For B2B video marketing, experiment with short and engaging videos with creative graphics and easy-to-understand background sounds.
Strategy #9: Use Big Data to your advantage
Big data algorithms combined with advanced data analytics have revolutionized B2B marketing strategies. Big data allows you to compile essential data, understand your visitors, target them effectively, and indulge in personalized communications. In the long run, it enhances lead quality, improves customer experiences at every touchpoint, and helps B2B companies make sound business decisions. When you have better information about your leads, you can optimize your marketing campaigns to receive maximum traction. And big data can help you do it.
Apart from campaign quality, big data forge successful customer relationships. With big data, you know where your customers are, how you can target them, and when you can connect with them. So, align your B2B marketing strategies with the extensive data framework. Analyze data at every possible point in your sales and lead generation process.
Strategy #10: Practice omnichannel marketing
B2B clients aren’t just limited to one channel. They explore their purchase options on the web as well as social media. The idea is- represent your brand where your clients are and practice omnichannel marketing.
However, to find out the most profitable business channel, you need to know your buyers and how they consume their content. And then, you need to ensure that your content is visible on these channels. Mix and match on all media simultaneously and explore more opportunities than web, social, and emails. Think of rendering an omnichannel experience to your B2B prospects and script content accordingly.
Tailor your approach to B2B marketing strategies
To be honest, there is no one perfect marketing strategy that’ll help serve your business goals.
As trends and technology change, so do marketing strategies. Therefore, to stay competitive, you need to constantly assess your B2B marketing strategies and see if it still delivers your desired business goals. True that online marketing is evolving quickly; however, firms that stay on top of these trends and adopt solutions that fulfill customer demands are situated to win.
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