Marketing to consumers is going to be far different than marketing to other businesses/organizations. Budgets might be similar but usually, B2B marketing is more targeted.
A company offering corporate accounting services does not have to reach a large demographic. What they do have to do is reach businesses that are in need of their services. The cost per client acquisition is going to be higher as landing clients will be far more profitable than landing an individual consumer.
B2B digital marketing is going to take dedication to quality and avoidance of spam. A negative thing that can occur is potential clients marking your website’s URL as spam. Avoid sending out too many emails or promotions as annoying a client is a quick way to be considered a spammer. Traditional B2B marketing tactics still do work but these have to be combined with new-age digital marketing.
The following are tactics that can deliver a decent ROI on your B2B marketing approach.
Quality Content Marketing
Content marketing has changed immensely from the beginning of digital marketing. Consumers and businesses are more discerning with the content they spend their time consuming.
Publishing an informative and interesting piece on a relevant publication can drive leads to the website. The added bonus is that this will also help with search engine rankings.
Do not just produce written content as this will only reach the demographic that likes written content. Podcasting can be another way to market expertise and inform listeners.
Establishing a startup as a thought leader on a niche topic can be the perfect way to grow the startup organically.
Conference Attendance with Cool Promotional Items
Conference attendance can be a great way to help with your brand’s marketing. Recognition in an industry can be tough to attain simply through digital marketing. Showing up to a conference with a demo of a product/service that amazes attendees can work wonders for the brand.
Getting people to the booth at the conference is going to be the challenge. Conference attendees are like anyone else in the fact that they want the coolest free promotional items on the conference floor. Custom backpacks, promotional discount mugs, t-shirts, and everything in between can drive traffic to your startup’s booth. After you have found free swag that attendees will love, it is to perfect the product/service demo. A large group is not one you want to send away disappointed so rehearsing this is imperative.
Education of Potential Clients
The creation of a client education course can allow a client to truly see the value that a startup could bring to their business. The bonus aspect of this is that educated clients are far easier to deal with. Not all clients or prospects will utilize this but the ones that do will be a joy to work with.
The creation of this should be handled by someone that specializes in educational content. Throwing something together can do more harm than good if it confuses those that view it rather than informing them.
Tailored Email Marketing
Email marketing can be done on a massive scale but this doesn’t mean the emails shouldn’t be tailored. There are a number of email outreach platforms that can integrate the names of recipients easily.
Tracking clicks on these emails can allow a company to see what interested the potential client. A lack of clicks on a specific link indicates that it isn’t interesting to a bulk of recipients.
Manual outreach can be done for clients that could change the trajectory of a business. Do not ever be afraid to cold pitch a sales prospect but make sure the subject line catches their eye.
The email should have a link to a client questionnaire as this can provide valuable information. A client that fills out one of these in detail allows the sales team to customize their pitches.
Covering services/products that a prospect has no interest in can lead to disinterest on a call. The customized pitch will allow the prospect to feel valued which is extremely important.
Startups have the advantage of being able to easily shift their services to fit their client’s needs. Larger companies might have to go through a plethora of approvals to do this if they can do it at all. Hiring a master email marketer can provide a great ROI as these people understand how to have their emails opened and replied to.
Takeaway
B2B marketing needs to be done with tact rather than throwing a bunch of low-quality tactics at the wall to see what sticks. Entrepreneurs need to be using data to help shape these marketing ploys as seeing the ROI on a tactic can allow for modification of strategy.