When it comes to B2B marketing, the multiple avenues available can make the task quite overwhelming. Whatever the approach, a B2B marketing strategy has to be both persuasive and compelling. The marketing effort has to survive often the long-drawn stages of building up product awareness, product consideration, and ultimately beat stiff competition to go past the decision-making stage successfully. At each stage, the marketing should appear responsive and keep the audience engaged.
The thought process and action cycle of B2B buyers have been gradually evolving over the years. Instead of relying on personal references and direct approaches, consumers today prefer to carry out a smart self-evaluation of vendors over Google. A detailed feature by feature comparison and product cost evaluation is a mandatory prerequisite before finalizing vendors for a quotation. New age marketing strategists have responded to the changes in buying patterns with gusto and have evolved accordingly to stay ahead of the competition. Let’s have a look at the major steps to be taken to flourish your B2B marketing strategies in 2020.
- Research
Modern marketing efforts flourish ineffective and scientific research. Market research can be categorized into three specific categories- opportunity research, brand research, and client research. In the current age of search engine query-driven consumerism, the clients themselves are pretty well researched.
Opportunity research delivers a clear idea of the major industry segments in which a company product is generating the highest queries within particular price brackets. This helps the business to position itself as the most attractive proposition before targeted client segments. Effective brand research is the bedrock for all marketing efforts. Building up brand perception is where marketers can seldom afford to go wrong as it creates an instant connection with the target audience. Systemic client research helps in understanding the clients and their business requirements much better, resulting in higher targeted conversions.
- Creation of niche-driven strategies
One of the major considerations before any business today is specialization in its segment of operation. It always pays to position your business as an industry leader in a niche area of operation rather than being just another addition in a long queue of business listings. Being an undisputed leader in a specialized service area makes the outreach and marketing efforts much easier in B2B dealings. Instead of hard-selling products through the product awareness and consideration stage, you can prepare your business better for receiving client queries directly in the decision-making stage. This positions your business much closer to successful conversion with every query received.
- A conversion-driven website
High impact visibility is crucial for business success. When decision-makers at different levels in a business setup browse through a vendor’s website, it has to offer something for everyone in terms of product information, uniqueness, and comparative pricing.
Client reviews and testimonials in a website go a long way in building up the client’s trust and confidence in your product and the services offered. The 3Rs highly influence major business orders- Ratings, Reviews and Rankings. Marketing strategists should have all ends covered when it comes to preparing and maintaining a business website.
A perfectly conversion-driven website wows a client on the very first impression. It then gradually takes the client across various product listings, information, and specifications backed by authentic user reviews. After product awareness and confidence building, subtle nudges take the clients directly to the ‘place your order’ page without much fuss. Marketers with a keen eye to website building make it a win-win situation for business people on both sides of the B2B spectrum.
- Digital Marketing
For a business to sell, it has to be seen. Marketing efforts for all businesses invariably start with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which brings a website to the numero uno position in significant search engine rankings. Whenever a business setup looks to place a high-value purchase order, it looks up over Google for top-ranked vendors through various service queries. A properly done SEO ensures that a particular business name turns up among the top few results in search engines for all related product queries. Coupled with a strong social media presence, Digital Marketing ensures all-round online visibility for a brand.
- Advertising
Reaching out to target audiences has become much easier with digital advertising. Smartly setup Social Media and Search Engine Marketing campaigns ensure that your business is advertised there where your clients are. Cookie-based retargeting ensures that your ads silently follow interested users across all platforms. Visibility across social media platforms like Facebook and Linkedin allows businesses to target appropriate industry audiences, leading to higher click-through rates and higher conversions.
In order to remain competitive, businesses need to constantly evolve and adapt B2B marketing strategies according to market requirements and performance analysis. A flexible and intelligent marketing strategy is ideal for B2B companies to flourish.
Tags: Advertising, B2B, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Research, Website