Looking to create the perfect B2B marketing strategy?
This in-depth guide will walk you through the key steps and help you create a B2B marketing strategy to grow your business.
Creating Your B2B Marketing Plan
We’re going to look at some B2B marketing strategies a bit further on in the article, but before we get there, it’s important to talk about planning.
If you jump straight into your B2B marketing, then you’re going to miss some important steps that will hold you back. So, what should you know about planning your B2B growth strategies?
Develop Your Brand Identify
There’s a ton of competition in B2B marketing, and you’re going to have to find a way to stand out from the crowd. To do that, you’ve got to look within and discover what makes your brand special.
Every business is unique, and most of them have inspiring stories their followers love, so what’s yours?
Take your story, your mission, and everything you stand for and find ways to incorporate it into your marketing. Create a brand positioning statement and decide how you want to portray your business in your marketing campaigns.
With a clear identity, you’ll be able to keep things consistent and maximize your appeal to your target audience.
Discover Your Target Audience
You can reach millions of businesses with your messages, but if you’re not reaching the right ones, then you’re not going to see success.
Before you start with B2B marketing, you’ve got to have a clear picture of what your target audience looks like. Remember that the people who make decisions in businesses are people, so build out detailed buyer personas!
B2B marketing is a little bit more tricky than B2C marketing in this sense because there tend to be lots of people involved in the buying process. You’ll have to factor this in though and understand who you’re trying to appeal to at each stage of the B2B marketing funnel.
Use your knowledge and the data available to your to paint a complete picture of what your potential customers look like.
Competitor Analysis
Check out what other B2B companies are doing with their marketing and find out what you can learn from the best B2B marketing examples.
Even better, see what your competitors are up to. What are they doing well that you can replicate, and what areas can you improve on?
Running a competitor analysis will give you some immediate clues as to what might work well in your B2B marketing strategy. You can refine that information by targeting it to your audience and incorporating your brand identity.
For B2B marketing strategies like content marketing, software like Ahrefs that allows you to see detailed information on the keywords your competitors are ranking for can give you a host of great ideas.
6 B2B Marketing Strategies to Try
Now that you’ve spent time understanding your brand, its target audience, and what your competitors are up to, let’s look at some strategies you can use to boost your sales and marketing efforts.
1. Content Marketing
We’ve put content marketing first because it provides a platform to launch all your other marketing.
B2B buyers want in-depth information to help them understand:
- What your products or services are
- How they solve a pain point
- What other businesses have had success using them (case studies)
As you’re the experts in what you do, you’re perfectly positioned to give people this information! You’ll also find that all the work you’ve put into understanding your brand identity and target audience is going to pay off here.
Just be careful that you don’t get too focused on the top of the funnel (the discovery phase) and are devoting content to the bottom of the funnel (the action phase) as well. This is where you’re going to influence purchasing decisions and generate sales.
2. Email Marketing
Your content marketing is going to help you bring traffic to your website and generate leads. There’s no point just collecting email addresses though; you’ve got to use them.
Email marketing is one of the best B2B marketing tools you have available to you, so make sure you’re using it.
Segment your email list and create automated email series that engage your leads. The best thing about this is it can work on autopilot!
Also, remember that email marketing can be a way to generate leads itself. Good email outreach is a hugely effective way of generating leads and bringing prospects to your sales team.
3. Direct Mail
Online marketing dominates in today’s world, but that doesn’t mean B2B marketing strategies like direct mail are dead.
In fact, the fact that many businesses neglect them makes them a big opportunity for you.
You don’t have to limit yourself to a tatty old flyer either. Go big if you want to - send awesome brochures, cool branded gift boxes, sample products - there’s no limit to how creative you can be.
Direct mail is all about grabbing a potential buyer’s attention and it’s extremely effective.
4. Pay-Per-Click Advertising
If you want immediate access to your target audience, then there are few better B2B marketing strategies than pay-per-click advertising.
You can set up ads on search engines or social media platforms in minutes and start delivering your message to a very targeted audience. The great thing about PPC is its immediacy, but of course, it has its drawbacks.
The difficulty with pay-per-click advertising is that you pay for every click, regardless of whether it results in a conversion (sale or lead generation). This means you’ve got to make sure your landing pages are fully optimized, otherwise you’re going to be spending a lot of money for nothing.
5. Social Media Marketing
Businesses are run by humans and humans hang out on social media. This means that social media marketing is a legitimate B2B marketing strategy you should pursue.
The key is understanding where your target audience hangs out, which isn’t as black and white as it used to be. A great business-focused social media platform to focus on is LinkedIn, but you might find your target audience is hanging out on other social platforms you didn’t expect them to be on.
Being open to growing your presence on different platforms can give you an advantage over your competitors so take the time to understand where your audience hangs out.
6. Cold Calling
Cold calling might not sound super trendy, but it is incredibly effective. There’s no substitute for engaging people in a conversation and that’s what cold calling is all about.
The difficulty with cold calling is you’ve got to put a team together that understands how to generate leads and convert sales, which isn’t straightforward. That’s why many businesses find the best option is to outsource their cold calling to the experts at Saleshive.
It’s another way of putting your B2B marketing on autopilot while generating immediate results.
FAQs: B2B Marketing Strategies
- How do you structure a B2B marketing strategy?
You should structure a B2B marketing strategy by first looking at key elements like how you want to develop your brand identity, understanding your target audience, and doing competitor analysis. This will give you a good starting point from which to start planning your strategies. - How do you set up a B2B marketing campaign?
You can set up a B2B marketing campaign using lots of different mediums. These include content marketing, email marketing, direct mail, cold calling, social media, and many more. - What is a B2B marketing example?
A good example of B2B marking is Google. Its main products all cater to businesses - think Google Ads and Google Workspace. All of Google’s marketing materials are set up to help sell these products to businesses.
Get A Head Start with Your B2B Marketing Strategy
It’s not that easy to jump straight into your B2B marketing strategy. It takes time to build up a team and perfect your marketing processes.
This is why many B2B businesses choose to cut their learning curve by working with a top B2B sales agency like Saleshive.
Our team has spent years perfecting its B2B marketing strategies so that when we start working with you, you’ll see almost immediate results. We’ll work with you to set out your strategy and then leverage our expertise to maximize results.
You’re just a few steps away from perfecting your B2B marketing strategy!
