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Companies that directly do business with other businesses and not consumers (B2B) have unique challenges. While consumer tastes and trends can be fickle and ever-changing, many factors can impact how and with whom companies do business. The bottom line is – Don’t’ grow comfortable! Like climbing up a muddy bank, even staying still results in a downward slide. To remain competitive, use these proven business to business marketing tips for B2B companies.
Know the Competitive Landscape
The old adage in warfare – know thine enemy – is applicable in B2B marketing. Just as knowing more about your adversary can contribute to defeating him, knowing much about your competitors is essential to creating effective marketing campaigns that position you more handsomely in the competitive landscape. This is perhaps the bedrock of all business to business marketing tips.
- Marketplace research provides insight into what you are doing now and what is or isn’t working well.
- Client research helps you know your potential clients’ needs better – so you can better meet them.
- Brand research reveals how your products/services build your brand above other brands.
Knowledge is power; within each of the types of research above lies the power to improve and magnify your efforts for greater marketing success.
Become the Expert in Your Niche
A niche-driven strategy is almost essential, and is among the prize business to business marketing tips. Specialization allows you to obtain robust knowledge and experience on a narrow specialty that serves a unique need. Many of the fastest-growing companies in the world are specialists in some area of their industry. No person or company can become an expert at everything.
Plus, specialization makes your B2B marketing much easier. You can easily define exactly what you do, how it benefits your potential clients, and how you do it better/leaner/faster than your competitors. A specialization is a differentiator par-excellence that proves itself.
Invest in a High-Performance Website
While you may not use your company website for direct sales like most B2C companies, in today’s professional services marketplace, your website is a crucial asset. This vital component to your success is where you project your expertise to the entire global range of potential clients. It is the information hub, the very central location of your online presence, that displays your specialized expertise to the online marketplace.
Today more than ever, potential clients search online first to locate service providers. Your impressive and fully accessible website is key to winning their business. By providing high-quality information for users, targeted offers, and opportunities for more personal service interactions online, you can effectively raise your value above other competitors. Your website should be the industry hub for your niche online.
Of course, design and SEO are essential, vital, critical (I cannot stress these elements enough!) to your website’s success. Engagement and retention are your main goals – that means hooking potential clients and keeping them hooked long enough to reel them in as confirmed clients. In today’s B2B marketplace, that means responsive design that adapts to various mobile devices, localized and voice-sensitive SEO, easy accessibility, and top-tier content that attracts users and keeps them returning for more.
Keep Plenty of Hooks in the Water
Among the most effective business to business marketing tips is this old adage from sport fishing: keep plenty of hooks in the water. It’s simple math – one hook has the possibility to catch a single fish at a time; many hooks offer more chances to catch more fish. We’re using this adage in marketing to say your company should be using as many means as possible to position your business favorably before the masses.
This means using the most popular methods of advertising and digital marketing, and targeting them to where the fish hang out most. In today’s world, that means the internet. Where do your potential clients spend time and look for services/products? Establish a quality presence there to keep top-of-mind while dangling attractive offers and sharing usable information bits.
- Social Media
- Testimonials & Referrals
- Search Engine Marketing
- Retargeting
- Targeted Emails
- Chat-Bots
Stay Organized
Of course, maintaining a high-touch, repetitive, and engaged presence online is a full-time job in itself – that’s where Marketing Automation comes in. This practice simply uses technology solutions to manage your “hooks,” centralizing them into a single system for easy creating, managing, and measuring your marketing efforts and their effectiveness.
An essential component of this is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System. Many companies now use a CRM to track and organize opportunities and client information. Basically, a CRM will help you stay organized and connected, no matter how sophisticated your marketing and lead-nurturing operations grow.
And, don’t neglect analyzing and reporting on what you are doing and its effectiveness. Many marketing automation services provide for detailed reporting so you can keep a close weather-eye on how efforts are working or not working; many even offer A/B testing options so you can delve deeper into what works and why it works.
If all this sounds like lots of work, that’s because it is lots of work. Just like successful companies specialize in a niche for better effectiveness, you should contract with digital marketing specialists who specialize in all this for companies just like yours.
1-FIND SERVICES can provide the marketing expertise you need in Northeast Tennessee and beyond. Contact us today for more information.
