Before jumping into the essence of the article, let’s see what a B2B best digital marketing strategy is. It is any type of marketing content that is generated for a business or organisation. These strategies are typically used by business organisations that sell their products and services to other organisations. They target the needs, wants, and interests of the organisation, which leads the organisation to make their customer. Therefore, in B2B, the organisation is equivalent to the customer.
To make it simpler, let’s see some examples of B2B business types.
- A company rendering staffing services to an MNC.
- A manufacturing organisation selling vehicle parts to an automobile company.
- A company providing SEO, writing, and lead generation solutions to another company.
Marketing explicitly depends upon the audience. It majorly depends upon the type of audience it has. Marketing gets boggled between being creative, lacking budget, and time constraints, which eventually make the product look less effective among the audience.
The marketing done for the AUDIENCE is entirely different from that done for the BUSINESS. The latter is known as B2B Marketing. It is done to make other businesses aware of your products, services, and company and to make your company a BRAND. It helps you to gain multiple customers and establish goodwill in the market.
In this article, you will learn about the drill that goes behind building a B2B digital marketing strategy. But, before diving into it, it is essential to learn about the B2B Buyer’s journey and the different stages they go through. Let’s get into that first!
Stages of Buyer’s Journey
1. Awareness Stage
In this stage, the problem is aroused, and it is felt by the buyer. The prospect will do some research to get a clear understanding of the problem and will get a name of the problem through continuous research. For instance: A B2B company notices that they are not getting enough traffic and views on their website. They realise that their company is facing this problem.
2. Consideration Stage
At this phase, the prospect has identified and named the problem. He will continue his research to see available approaches to solve the problem. For instance: The B2B company is searching for available approaches to increase its website traffic.
3. Decision stage
The prospect has settled on a number of SEO firms that can handle and solve their problem. For instance: The B2B company came up with a consultancy named XYZ that can generate and maximise traffic on their website by providing digital marketing services to them.
These are the stages that a buyer goes through before buying any product or service. Various B2B marketing strategies can induce the buyer to buy your product. But the question remains, “how do you decide on these strategies?”
Well, multiple factors go behind implementing a particular marketing technique. Let’s put some light on it!
10 Factors to Consider for Building Your B2B Digital Marketing Strategy
1. Know your customer.
You cannot decide on a marketing technique if you don’t know your customer. Knowing your target audience well is essential to chalk out plans and strategies for them. If we don’t know our market and audience well, which we are aiming at, we will boggle at the end. Designing and creating products will be easier if we know the public well. So, the fundamental search while considering any marketing strategy is to know your potential public by conducting surveys, interviews, and by making a marketing study.
This step is not a one-time or temporary process but should be done now and then because the market keeps changing, and customers’ tastes and preferences will not always be the same.
2. Be creative with your ideas.
Marketing can make or break your product. The organisation should be certain whether the strategy they are considering adopting is creative, unique, and authentic or not. Unique marketing ideas get stitched into the target audience’s minds, making the product a big hit in the market.
One of the examples of a unique and creative marketing strategy could be the “Men Dishwash”, recently launched by Vim – a dishwashing segment named “Vim Black.” This product has been a trap for various controversies, but its marketing technique is worth applauding. This product is explicitly created for men and gives viewers a lesson to share domestic chores.
3. Use SWOT Analysis.
SWOT stands for – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It is a complete analysis of determining the SWOT of a company to see where they stand in the market as compared to its competitors. We know our customers, but that’s not enough to design a unique marketing strategy.
When considering a B2B marketing strategy, it is crucial to determine the SWOT before implementing it. This is because it tells us where we stand right now and how far we have to reach after the marketing is done. Marketing without SWOT is like a path without a direction board. In simpler words, it won’t let us know where we are lacking and thus can misguide us.
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4. Verify whether the strategy is SMART.
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Sensitive. The marketing technique that fulfils the above measurement is definitely worth implementing. SMART is a measure to check whether a company or a plan is fulfilling these measures or not. If yes, you are sorted! But if not, the focus should be on attaining and working on SMART goals.
Implementing a SMART marketing strategy is a prerequisite for every organisation because only such techniques will prove to be a boon in the market. Every marketing plan is created to fulfil some goals, and the best way to measure it is by verifying whether they approve the SMART system or not.
5. Find the right marketing channel.
It is imperative to market your product or service through the right channel. The channel can be through TV, E-mail, social media, or newspapers, but determining the correct channel is crucial. This is the step where you can expand your marketing portfolio and reach out to many businesses. The right medium in B2B marketing depends upon the other organisations (your potential customers), your competitors, and your budget allowance.
The different modes of marketing channels are as follows:
6. Brand positioning
Brand positioning refers to having a full-fledged clear chit of your brand from the customer’s point of view. In simpler words, it refers to having an understanding of what your audience perceives from your brand.
Before jumping into a specific marketing strategy, one should always consider the brand positioning and where they stand in people’s eyes. It helps to take a further step because now you have clarity of who, when, why, and how of your brand through the customer’s perspective. It helps to make the marketing a massive success because it is now done with a non-obscure understanding.
7. Build relationships and community
Data suggests that Facebook and Twitter are top-tier platforms for B2B marketers. Using such techniques that allow us to bud relationships and have a resonated community will be a win-win.
Any business is a game of reference and having connections in the market is of no harm. It will increase our reach, make us reputed, have a back in the market, and allow us to interact with prospects. Having a community also helps us take notes of recent market trends, customer preferences, and taste shifts.
8. Use nurture campaigns.
Nurture campaigns are time-based emails sent to prospects to inform them about deals, offers, and mega offers to induce them to take advantage of these offers. These campaigns are one of the most crucial marketing strategies because they make the consumers aware of the important dates to shop, which they might not know.
Nurture campaigns are one of the most effective marketing strategies because they make consumers aware, provide them with personalised content, and enhance the customer-brand relationship.
9. Utilise SEO in your strategies
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has proved to be a winning streak in B2B companies. Generating content with a pinch of SEO is the cherry on the cake. Managers will always approve of such content marketing strategies that are SEO applied because that will generate traffic and views on the website. SEO has always been a guiding light that has successfully captivated the target audience to understand your product better and convert them into customers.
10. Attention to the conversion funnel
Your marketing strategy will be intact in a customer’s mind forever. If it is content marketing, it will be visible on your website for a considerable period, and that’s why it becomes important to implement such strategies which pay utmost attention to the conversion rates. It must add value to the potential customer, convert it into a deal, and make the customer re-visit your product.
Final Verdict
Marketing is an art; if done well, you can ace your game. One considers several factors while implementing a particular strategy, which should always remain a deciding factor in approving these strategies. One keeps check of these factors before executing a strategy because it costs a heavy charge on the company if the marketing can’t induce the expected rate of customers.
