DIGITAL MARKETING IN B2B: BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

B2B or Business to Business marketing is marketing & transactions of products or services to other businesses. There are a few things you need to understand before you create strategies:

• Understand the requirements of buyers & where they are focusing.
• Can you provide or fulfill the exact product or services they are seeking?
• Customers are focused on ROI, expertise & efficiency.
• Customers are logical & look for cost-effective services.
• B2B customers seek more detailed information such as education about products, technology, expertise to deliver services.
• There are many stakeholders or decision-makers involved in a purchase decision
• There are higher risks involved.
• 1:1 relation with the customer, lengthy purchase cycle
• Bulk purchase

As you see list revolves around the customer, marketing depends on its audience.

There are four stages in which our strategies will work successfully.

1. Analyze: analyze market, needs, customers, competition, position, budget & how you will execute your plan.
2. Awareness: when a customer is analyzing, be clear, direct about your product & services & how you can solve their problems. Be educational.
3. Consideration: when customers have specific problems give them all available options, convince them what is best for them. Don’t push hard, just give your advice.
4. Decision: whether the customer is convinced by your information or not

E-MAIL MARKETING:

E-Mail marketing is a tried & true method of reaching both individual consumers & business consumers. It helps to build a relationship with customers. E-mails lead to engagement which turns subscribers into a lead and then a loyal customer. That’s why email marketing must consistently resonate with your business customers & focus on what matters to them.

With the constant barrage of email flooding in the inbox nowadays, it is more important than ever to create & send effective emails.

BEST PRACTICES:

1. Define objective: Determine the nature of your campaign. Make it simple & easy. Use your resources properly.
2. Content:

• Subject line: Make it self-explanatory. Think of them as a trailer of your email.
• Email address: To & from in your email plays an important role. Make them authoritative but personalized.
• Content: Make your content relevant to your subject line. Make it conversational, educational. Attach your website's landing page for more information.
• Call to Action: Add relevant call to actions like buying here, read more. Use only one. You can add offers, coupons, promo codes.
• Segmenting: Not every mail is appropriate for everyone on your list. It helps to personalize with your audience according to their buying journey. Welcome them, educate them.
• Theme: Make it interactive, refreshing, easy to read the content. It helps people to recognize your brand & can help drive the conversation. Make it mobile-friendly.
• Analysis: Analyse every report e.g open rate, bounce rate, click-through rate & much more.

3. Run A/B testing for different elements, see what performs well, and use it for the next email.

4. Use automation for a personalized experience.

5. Use services like Mailchimp, drip, for the best user experience.

WEBSITE:

Digital marketing can’t quite function without a discoverable website. Your website should be a resource that engages clients & provides them with an informative & entertaining experience. Make sure it’s showcasing areas of your expertise while providing solutions to potential clients. It should provide you leads on your customer’s data to give benefits of your services.

BEST PRACTISES:

1. Make your website mobile-friendly.
2. SEO is important to make your site discoverable.
3. Keep your experience simple & interactive, educational.
4. Add call to action in the scannable area. Offer free PDF, informative video, or free trial of your product or services.
5. Follow F flow, Z flow, or Inverted pyramid flow in your content to gain customer's attention.
6. Your content must be relevant to customer’s problems, be direct, give them a hook to spend more time on your website. Make sure they won’t leave your site empty hand.
7. Improve your loading speed.
8. Make sure your site is secured by SSL certification.
9. Feature all your social media pages.
10. Showcase up-to-date testimonials.
11. Use services like WordPress, Wix, or any site that provides you the features you need.

Your website will make the discovery process easy by outlining how you can resolve pain points better than the competition.

SEO & CONTENT:

1. Without SEO you cant grow your business. It is difficult to get new viewers if you are not SEO-focused. But the most important thing is to write for customers, not for search engines. SEO is complicated so a better way is to hire someone who will help you to improve your SEO. They will help you & provide you effective phrases and keywords to help search engines to find you.
2. Creating blogs for your website is not only helps you in improving SEO but as an industry thought leader. If you can lure your clients back to your site with strong content, you are more likely to forge trust, which can, in turn, lead them to the end of the conversion funnel.
3. Engage in the guest blogging. it can help you in improving backlinks, website traffic. It is an effective way to create awareness in your niche.
4. Video is another important aspect of the content. It is now proven, people engage more with visual content. Use it as a weapon as people react positively. It helps in your branding.
5. You can even include E-Books, Infographics, case studies in your content.

SOCIAL MEDIA:

Social media is now an important part of people’s life. It gives marketers a great advantage to connect with customers in an engaging & direct way. Many new platforms are coming. Leverage your blog content on social media. Provide information with SEO assistance. Cross-promote your content across all your social media platforms.

Social media gives you good visual social engaging.

You can use social media for

• Industry tips
• News in your niche
• Pain points solutions
• Upcoming launch, merge, updates
• Happy customer videos
• Instruction videos
• Backstage pictures
• Link to educational video
• Promotion ads

Instagram is a very fresh and popular platform nowadays.

Facebook is an old but still popular platform to convey your products & services. You can run objective-based campaigns.

Twitter is a good platform to connect via tweets, retweets,& even for the latest updates, to find influencers.

LinkedIn is a professional platform to create connections and drive more traffic within your niche.

CONCLUSION:

To create a strategy make a list of all your digital appearance websites, blogs, social media pages. Schedule your post. Create different posts for different platforms according to their nature & customer interactivity.

Many platforms are waiting for you, but decide what is best for you, where your potential customers are, Which features do you require, who can provide you those features & only then invest in that platform. They’re always gonna be new updates, features and changes upgrade yourself but pick wisely.

Analytics is a major part. If you have access to analytics use them to understand your former clients, their click rates, shares, visits, demographics, behaviors. That will guide you on what is best for you. Use them to create your strategy.

Keep testing your content, & see what is working and what needs to change.

Consider your budget & decide where you wish to invest money, refer to your analyst where you are most likely to see the best ROI. If your budget allows, run PPC pay-per-click campaigns.

Take help from every department in your organization, connect with them. Your teamwork plays an important role.

Create a content calendar, so you have a plan in place.