When we come across the word “business”, an instinctive image is formed in our minds. An image of a formal corporate set up with people dressed in suits and ties. There is a certain conventional and impersonal resonance in the entirety. It’s time to change this image as the businesses around the world are evolving from being conventional to humanitarian. There is a more comfortable, casual yet integrated approach to the way of working nowadays.
Marketing is about innovative ideas to strike a chord with the buyer or seller. Marketing from business to consumer (B2C) involves creating an emotional connection to understand the requirements and demands of the target audience. Similarly, there is a need to establish a marketing affinity in a B2B setup as well. Online business has grown multifold since its inception. The B2C has generated multi-million dollars in the past year, B2B marketing has also grown gradually.
Websites like IndiaMart and Alibaba provide seller information, location, products sold and price quotations, thereby rendering an easy approach to industrial buyers globally.
Let’s first get to the roots of Business-to-business trading and analyze the crux of it. B2B economics depend on buying or selling, goods and services to commercial organizations, non-profit companies, and government bodies. They generally use it for further production or facilitating their operations.
Also Read: What Is ABM – A Quick Handbook You Wouldn’t Wanna Miss
The majority of B2B operations stem from derived or joint demand which influences the marketing strategies at large. Even for B2B marketing, the ultimate determinant is the consumer.
As more information and access have become easily available to B2B buyers, before indulging in a purchase decision they study every aspect online to make the most profitable investment.
Here are 7 ways to make the B2B marketing attractive!
1. Recognize the commonality of B2B and B2C goals
Every business deal is ultimately between people and not robots. The B2B marketing agenda is to convince and compel the business team for making buying or selling decisions. This technique is no different than seeking the attention of the consumers in the B2C case.
It’s important to understand the psychology of the decision-makers, as to which sentiment will work best to establish a beneficial bond for both parties.
Most B2C campaigns speak in a human tone to connect with their audience at large. B2B marketing campaigns are growing more personalized, but definitely not speaking to their target prospects as a crowd. The similarity is in the way both are trying to be more human-like to convey messages to their customers.
Building brand awareness and generating more revenue are prerogatives of marketing. This remains a hardcore fact for big business houses to e-commerce startups.
Content marketing is seen as a major influencer for B2B brand marketing online. With the internet user base scaling up, content marketing will play a significant role in B2B marketing.
2. Apply traditional marketing tactics with the modern for substantial impact
Social media, digital advertising, email newsletters are modern tools for marketing. But old methods are not outdated yet. The presentation has changed for upgraded versions of the old ways, to keep up with the new-age trends.
For example, seminars have been updated with webinars, brochures and research papers are having their digitized versions in Slideshares now. Now guess what’s the virtual version of trade exhibitions? It’s social media, providing a platform for buyers and sellers to establish an easy connection from around the world.
The best B2B marketing strategy is to use both traditional and modern methods to build and maintain a strong commercial network. The impact of a one-on-one meeting with the client cannot be replaced with any digital communication, but none-the-less the digital correspondence is beneficial for smooth operations on every level.
Drift is the perfect example of a B2B company that uses blog content, webinars, videos, and social media communities to propagate its brand mission, influence trading audacity, and presence online.
Always keep in mind that age-old practices are long-established and will continue to produce the result as long as you keep upgrading the quality of content and adopt the modern systems with changing times.
3. Use Social Media dynamics for B2B marketing dominance
Social media keeps your company alive. Everything related to your brand is reflected in social media. Brand awareness, experience, and identity help create your brand image on social media. The potential trading companies view your online profile thoroughly before making the final call. Similar to B2C marketing, B2B marketing also relies on social media exposure of their business for higher lead generation and better ranking. This facilitates a better chance of grabbing an opportunity whenever it strikes.
You may think industrialists and other B2B clients don’t use social media for business reasons. Yet 90% of all marketers indicate that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses.
Social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter have been the most important ones for B2B companies. You might not generate direct sales from these channels, but they are awesome for engaging with your leads and customers.
4. Make B2B marketing enjoyable and less formal
Being professional doesn’t always have to be boring and formal. B2B marketers are taking up a fun way instead of going by the rule book. Adding an edge or some funny elements to marketing style can give an image makeover to organizations.
The brand recognition becomes easier and the business connects follow suit. New ways of lateral thinking are appreciated in the business world.
Google offices across the globe speak volumes about their unique work environment and the power of an unusual atmosphere opening doors to limitless possibilities.
Your brand becomes more approachable and relatable with creative initiatives compared to the ones following a restricted campaign strategy.
If you can provide useful information in a way that excites, compels or entertains, then you can surely win.
5. Build Personalized communications with business clients
Marketing personnel cannot be present all the time online to facilitate personalized interactions. So, computer engineers and marketers are out with an alternative solution.
Chatbots are an innovative way to interact in the modern digital world. Handling multiple real-time queries simultaneously giving a feeling of being available round the clock. Moreover, there is no bias involved in this kind of transmission.
Chatbots prove to be more economical than employing humans for this work. Moreover, it is beyond human capacity to handle multiple leads in a single stance. Since it is only possible to answer one person at a time.
Most business websites have chatbots installed to provide uninterrupted communication. The website visitors feel a special connect if an immediate response is received for a query. Also, there is no wait time involved in terms of office timings or phone calls. This ensures proper assistance for every prospect.
The benefits of this technology for B2B marketing are set to grow in the coming years.
Read in detail – 12 Benefits of Account Based Marketing That’ll Push You To Get Started
6. Bank on user-generated content (UGC) in your B2B campaigns
User-generated content is a type of publicity through users of your business goods or services. The majority of the transaction decisions are made after reading the reviews and feedbacks of past and current customers. These may also be in the form of videos, blog posts, and images.
Remember the Apple campaign of showcasing original videos captured by users in their ads? People trust fellow users’ opinions more than just brand claims.
IBM is another B2B brand that uses user-generated content such as images, videos, and blogs to leverage its marketing.
Numerous other brands post testimonials and reviews generated by their customers regularly as the time of the review also matters. There is a possibility of relying more on a review posted one minute ago rather than on comment posted a year back.
User-generated content is the new face of brand loyalty. Appreciating such content gives a sense of satisfaction to the consumer. There is another form of showcasing your gratitude towards users. It is by providing an incentive for featuring your brand in their created content.
This improves site ranking, reach to a larger audience as well as gives a better understanding of the consumer sentiment.
7. Create an exclusive department for online B2B marketing in your company
All business entities have a focused marketing plan in place. But in order to keep pace with modern marketing tactics, it’s crucial to deal with online B2B marketing in an appropriate manner. The nature of online marketing is extremely dynamic and extensive.
A team comprising of technical, creative and marketing experts should be appointed to increase the reach, maximize lead generation and ultimately ensuring conversation into a favorable deal.
This team would also facilitate control mechanisms by processing review and feedback data as it would be in direct link with the rating process.
This integrated marketing plan would guarantee no business opportunity is lost due to the lack of modern marketing resources.
Hiring in-house can be a daunting task, but you can still go for it. Else, you can hire a B2B marketing agency and outsource the major activities and responsibilities. It would also save you a huge cost and other resources that you spend on having a full in-house team.
Also read – Reason Why Account Based Marketing (ABM) Is Highly Rewarding For B2B
Conclusion
Adopting new means of marketing is essential in order to stay ahead of the competition. Forecasting the future B2B marketing trends, staying updated technically and seizing the right opportunity at the right time will always help you succeed.
Here are a few upcoming B2B marketing trends:
Visual Search
Like the google lens, Pinterest has also launched the Pinterest lens, an image search feature. It enables us to view or shop for related pictures of the same theme or object. Similarly, companies would be adding this feature to their websites in order to facilitate ease of search to the leads and prospects. They can directly upload the image of a product required and acquire information. With call-to-action features in place, you can simply redirect them to a product purchase or sale page.
Omni-Marketing
Omni marketing is making your brand available on all channels of marketing with integrated networking. It’s possible with uniformly projecting content on each platform. The customer is assured seamless experience for dealing with your brand irrespective of the channel used. The customer never feels cheated this way and your presence on every channel accelerates your trade transactions.
Predictive Analytics
An analysis is made by churning history to predict future commercial behavior of prospects. The trail of sites visited by them remains online, but unless advanced analytics are applied to it after mining it, the data becomes redundant. The predictive analytics will use this for future forecasting of demand and supply patterns. In marketing, predictive analytics is useful for forming fragments, better lead scoring and to create an accurate forecast of lead conduct.
Simply keep customer service at the heart of your strategies. Be a human, not a robot, while speaking or writing. Try innovative ways and explore new possibilities for an attractive B2B marketing drive.
Looking to get started with ABM? Learn More.