“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat,” the great strategic theorist Sun Tzu had said.
And it is true that, in a battle, in order to save the prospect of victory, evolution may force tactical moves, which will only be of value if they serve a strategy.
So, in today’s digital world, characterized by the rapid evolution of new technology, it is very important for a business that wants to win the market to be able to keep up with trends.
This means, on the one hand, that it generally needs to adopt a more fluid approach and, on the other hand, to be flexible enough to meet the demands of its customers. Therefore, it will need to make some changes to its digital marketing strategies to ensure that it communicates with its customers in a way that meets their expectations.
What is B2B Marketing
As the name suggests, Business to Business Marketing refers to the promotion of products and services intended for other businesses and organizations (e.g. building software for product management or advertising) and differs significantly from the corresponding B2C, which is consumer-oriented.
B2B marketing covers a very large proportion of the global advertising industry. Its role is important, as it informs companies about the existence of the business and the availability of products and services that can benefit them.
B2B products and services, moreover, tend to be more expensive and more complex than those intended for consumers (B2C). Thus, the development of long-term business-to-business (B2B) relationships is essential.
At the same time, B2B strategies include both online and offline channels, and different combinations of promotion that can guarantee success.
Below, we list 5 practical online strategies that you can incorporate into your digital marketing plan for your B2B business:
1st: Rank your website at the top of search engines with SEO
It is important to note that businesses, before they buy a product, do extensive research online. So, the chances of them ending up with the company they are going to do business with increases dramatically if it appears in the top positions of organic search engine results.
This is where SEO makes a difference.
Search Engine Optimization is the process of ranking your website at the top of the search engines and is one of the most powerful weapons in B2B marketing.
Quite simply, without SEO, it is impossible to acquire new customers.
Your expertise here, of course, can provide great value to existing customers and also help you attract new ones to your website.
So, you’ll also want to implement some marketing tactics to improve the strategy.
- With on-page SEO you will improve the effectiveness of a website in terms of content, structure, design, and technical implementation. This includes images, titles, meta-descriptions and technical issues such as loading speed, to result in an attractive site that offers the best user experience.
- With off-page SEO you will implement off-page practices that will primarily relate to how “relevant” and “trustworthy” it is considered by a search engine. This will enhance the authority of your website, which is a key factor in search engine ranking. This is done by creating backlinks from authority sites combined with content marketing.
2nd: Run PPC campaigns
In the world of digital marketing, Pay Per Click advertising is the process in which a company or brand pays the search engine to appear for specific words and phrases.
You can thus promote your business in search results, on websites, and even on social media platforms. PPC ads can feature text, images, and even video.
Running a PPC campaign gives you significant advantages such as:
- Appearing above organic results in searches
- Choose the spending you want
- Access to important targeting options
- Reliable audience and campaign data
- Real-time campaign performance insights
With paid search, then, you can improve your digital presence and attract new customers who may not have otherwise found your site through organic searches.
Unlike SEO, PPC campaigns are set up to produce results quickly. For example, while a business must wait months to build a strong organic SEO, PPC can show results within a specific time frame.
3rd: Enter the world of Social Media Marketing
The proliferation of social media now dictates a different lifestyle for consumers, who have clearly changed the way they listen to their needs and make purchasing decisions.
Social networks, in essence, provide an opportunity for businesses that leverage them, through their social media marketing strategy, to reach potential customers where they spend most of their time.
The goal is to boost traffic to your business’s website, which is achieved through the creation of content that responds to the style of each medium. For example, Facebook users may prefer content in video format, as opposed to those who use Twitter.
At the same time, in order to attract prospective customers with your content and get them to interact with it, you need to have a good understanding of who you are targeting, what their needs are and what their pain points are.
With this strategy, you will build brand awareness and create a business profile that is always next to its target group.
4th: Implement E-mail Marketing
Although, as we have seen, social media has recently made a strong entry into the digital marketing space, email marketing remains a widespread channel with many possibilities and low costs.
E-mail marketing can be divided into the following types:
- Newsletters: a familiar practice and one of the most effective marketing channels. They are informative e-mails sent to subscribers who have requested to receive them and are usually aimed at brand awareness.
- Transactional or transactional e-mails: sent following specific customer actions (e.g. to confirm a transaction). However, because they have a high Open Rate, marketers often exploit them to drive sales.
- Direct e-mails or direct e-mails: used to inform customers or potential customers about new products and special offers.
In order to increase your earnings through this promotional channel, you should make sure that the title of the e-mail arouses interest in the recipient and is personal (e.g. includes the name of the customer). Even the content of the e-mail should be coherent, as well as relevant to his interests.
Grouping your list is also a smart way to target a specific audience. In order to group your list, you should, in addition to the interests of the recipient, take into account his demographic characteristics, region, and behavior.
5th: Leverage Content Marketing
Although it may sound like a new strategy, the truth is that content marketing is a proven method that has remained unchanged over time. In essence, this is not a separate channel, but a tool that can be used in all the above strategies.
It works so well, so many years, precisely because it is not related to selling products to people.
Rather, it’s about storytelling, and that’s something people have known how to do, all along. Of course, our attention is focused on the best storytellers.
Please note that:
- Every company’s content strategy should be different and consist of different types of content.
- To achieve the desired results, you need to provide the right content at each stage of the sales cycle—awareness, thinking down to the final decision.
- By using content marketing consistently, you will cultivate relationships with your prospective and existing customers. The goal is to show your audience that you are there for them in their problems and that you can provide them with the solutions they are looking for.
- We recommend creating a blog on your website and a YouTube channel to promote this content to increase the influence of your content marketing strategy.
In a highly competitive digital environment, with tools and platforms constantly changing, all businesses will have to make fast, smart and drastic decisions every day.
B2B marketing is extremely demanding, because quite simply the potential customer is a business. Therefore, any digital marketing strategy should be built with very good research and careful targeting of the audience.
At any time, your business can start using the right digital marketing tactics… and this strategic knowledge is the first step in creating a B2B marketing strategy that will lead to success.