Marketing B2B solutions for enterprises is a difficult job. You can’t just think of one tool that will be useful for everybody. In the B2B industry, many different solutions and methods should be considered to reach the best results possible. If we start with digital marketing tools we’ll need different approaches than we used back in the days, and if we count out the professional, discipline and narrow minded approach we’ll need by using old-school marketing strategies, we’ll make it much harder to reach our goals.
Marketing and selling to business to business (B2B) companies and organizations is a complex process, and one that demands certain personalities and experts to conquer it. Plain and simple, we help you acquire B2B leads. A mix of keyword research, on-page optimization for your Web site, social media marketing on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+, video marketing, SEO content development and optimization, blogging, e-zine publishing, Web seminars and more.
Research
Research is the bedrock of any modern marketing effort. From marketplace research to brand research, detailed scientific studies will help you make more informed decisions. They’ll give you an objective basis for your marketing and provide you valuable baselines for measuring your results.
By conducting research, you’ll know your clients better — which puts you in a position to serve them better. Market research also gives you insight into how your processes are performing. You’ll know which aspects of your firm are performing most successfully and develop a better understanding of which services you should offer.
The impact of research is clear. Our own studies on the impact of research have shown that firms that conduct systematic research on their prospects and clients grow three to ten times faster and are up to two times more profitable than peers that don’t pursue research.
Niche-driven Strategy
One of your most important business considerations – period – is specialization and niche targeting. Our research has repeatedly shown that the fastest-growing firms tend to be specialists in a carefully targeted niche. This should be an area of the industry that you understand thoroughly, a space in which you can become an undisputable expert and leader.
Specialization makes all of your marketing efforts easier, because it tends to define exactly what you do and immediately distinguish you from the competition. A specialization is a differentiator that proves itself.
A High Performance Website
In today’s professional services marketplace, your firm’s website is one of your most crucial assets. It is much more than a digital billboard or brochure, as some firms believed in the past. A successful website is the hub of a firm’s online presence and an information-rich projection of its expertise into the marketplace.
Your website is a critical tool for building visibility. Potential clients search online to find service providers, and they need to be able to find your firm’s website in order for you to have a chance at winning their business. Plus, your website enables you to demonstrate your firm’s expertise and become well-known throughout the marketplace.
Our research paints a clear picture of the importance of a professional services firm’s website. In fact, 80% of people look at website when checking out service providers – the most commonly used information source by far.
And as new visitors reach your site, robust educational content and carefully targeted offers can drive leads to closer and closer engagements, eventually bringing qualified leads straight to you. This process of nurturing leads through content is illustrated below:
A second component of your website you need to consider is design. Web and graphic design can influence your audience’s perceptions, aid recall, and swiftly and intuitively differentiate a business.
The power of design to engage audiences is often under appreciated — which means it offers a tremendous opportunity to set firms apart and convey the credibility firms needs to thrive.
Finally, another increasingly essential consideration for your website is its usability across a wide range of devices, including mobile. Responsive design, which allows your website to adapt to suit a user’s device, has become a key feature as more people use mobile devices to do business.
B2B Digital Marketing
Every business, whether B2B or B2C should have a digital presence — which is comprised of paid ads, search engine optimization, a website, and any other place your B2B company is active online. Let’s walk through a handful of tactics that can strengthen your B2B digital marketing strategy.
Define your target audience
A strong B2B digital marketing strategy starts with defining your target audience, or buyer persona. This demographic and psychographic information will inform almost every other marketing activity thereafter, ensuring your content and digital material is absorbed by the right eyes and ears (and that no resources go to waste on your end).
Create your website
Secondly, digital marketing can’t quite function without an informative, engaging website. Over 80% of buyers visit a website before making a purchase. Moreover, since the typical 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.
Research Customer Pain Points
Successful B2B marketing starts by researching what your customers need. Just because you’re offering a product or service doesn’t mean customers will come running. Find out what drives the demand for your product/service, and how you can stand apart from the competition.
One way to better identify your customer needs is to form customer user groups. Similar to focus groups for a new product, customer user groups leverage the people that are already benefiting from your offerings. For example, after interviewing your customer user group, you may find that marketing for IT companies is more effective when you focus on the pain point of cloud security. Identifying these pain points can go a long way when tailoring your marketing message.
User groups can be conducted in person, or you can build surveys that uncover the unique pain points that customers experience before searching for your solution.
Other research methods include doing keyword research to discover organic search demand or leveraging existing data about your industry.
Conclusion
When marketing to B2B, you need to understand that the relationship between your business and your customer is a long term one. In fact, for some industries it’s more of a partnership. It’s very important that you keep this in mind when you’re designing marketing strategies and tactics because it will ensure that you build a strong base and maintain a good reputation.