Go Beyond Deals by B2B Marketing Channels & Trends

These days, in the business world, B2B marketing focuses on the sale of inter-organizational products and services and plays a vital role in the growth and development of companies.

When the competition in B2B markets is increasing, planning and using the right B2B marketing strategies, the latest trends, and the best tools can be the determining factor in successful businesses.

So, if you want to learn more about B2B marketing, don’t miss this guide. We’ll cover everything you need to know, from B2B marketing definition and channels to how to create a B2B marketing plan and many other things.

Let’s explore them!

What Is a B2B Marketing Strategy?

B2B or Business-to-Business marketing means attracting customers for products or services between companies.

In this method of marketing, companies are connected with each other as buyers or sellers, and business interactions take place between them.

B2B marketing examines the needs, pain points, preferences, and limitations of companies and tries to present their products and services in an appropriate way for other companies.

Well, now you may ask what is meant by B2B marketing strategy?

A B2B marketing strategy is a set of actions and approaches that a company takes to promote, sell, and distribute its products or services to companies and organizations.

Industrial marketing strategy should be planned in order to attract and keep customers, increase sales, improve business relations, and increase company share.

In fact, the marketing strategy is the plan that we follow to achieve our goals in the sales and marketing funnel. In other words, to achieve marketing purposes, we must use some planned and targeted tactics in traditional or digital marketing, which are called B2B marketing strategies.

The Objective of B2B Marketing Strategy

Before getting acquainted with B2B marketing strategies, you need to consider two points: brand positioning and customer journey. They build the foundation of your marketing strategy.

1. Brand Positioning:

To create an effective strategy, you need to understand your brand positioning. It’s very important to understand the position of your brand in the market and among the target audience.

Doing so also provides an accurate description of how the customer perceives your brand. This can include answering basic questions about your brand identity.

2. Customer Journey:

The B2B Customer journey is a process that buyers go through in different stages, from familiarization with the brand to purchase.

Understanding the stages and preferences of customers can help you make your marketing strategies more effective.

Why Are B2B Marketing Strategies Important for B2B Businesses?

Do you know why B2B marketing matters for businesses? Now that you’re familiar with the basic nature of B2B marketing, it’s better to have information about its benefits and why such a market is worth investing in.

1. More Sales Volume in B2B Businesses

The most considerable advantage of B2B marketing compared to B2C marketing is the high volume of buying and selling.

If you can sell your products or services in bulk to another company, your sales and profits will be higher than if you are going to convince several thousand end customers to buy.

In fact, a corporate customer can replace several thousand retail customers by winning big contact.

2. Convenience in Trading, Buying & Selling

When both sides of a business are companies, transactions go more smoothly. Because you can convince a business with less time and energy compared to thousands of consumers to buy a specific product or service.

Furthermore, the high volume of purchases in the transaction between companies makes the marketing process with less advertising cost in real-time.

3. Opportunity to Enter New Markets

B2B marketing and sales efforts to corporate clients help you work with other small and large brands over time.

As a matter of fact, the opportunity to enter new and untouched markets with B2B business is much easier than selling a product or service to customers.

By establishing a communication chain, customers bring new customers and introduce your brand to other companies.

4. More Security and Monitoring

Since B2B contracts are made between businesses, there is more security and peace of mind for both buyers and sellers. Because there is less concern about the parties not fulfilling their promises.

On top of that, commercial sales contracts are usually digitally tracked and consequently, B2B sellers can monitor their financial results.

B2B Marketing vs. B2C Marketing: What Are the Differences?

In the world of marketing, you must have heard something about B2C marketing in addition to marketing B2B.

The main difference between B2B and B2C marketing is in their target audience’s community. The target audience of B2B marketing is companies and businesses, while in B2C marketing, the target audience is the final consumers. B2C is short for business to consumer.

To better understand the difference between B2B and B2C marketing, take a look at the table below.

	B2B Marketing	B2C Marketing
Goal	Customers focus on ROI, efficiency, and expertise.	Customers focus on a deal.
Purchase motivation	Customers are driven by logic & financial motivation.	Customers are driven by emotions.
Education	Customers want to be educated.	Customers appreciate education but don’t always need it to make a purchase decision.
Purchase process	Customers love working with marketers, account managers, and sellers.	Customers love to buy directly.
People involved in the purchase	Customers often need to consult with their company managers and sales & marketing teams before making purchase decisions.	Customers rarely need to consult with others before making a purchase decision.
Prices	B2C products & services are sold at lower prices.	B2B products & services are sold at higher prices.
Purpose of purchase	Customers make purchases for long-term solutions, resulting in longer sales cycles, longer contracts, and more stable relationships with companies.	Customers are not necessarily looking for long-term solutions or long-term relationships.
Brand value proposition	Brand identity is created through personal experiences & relationships, and long-term sales.	Brand identity is created through advertising campaigns and social media.

Effective Channels for B2B Marketing

To reach a wide range of B2B buyers, whether large, medium, or small businesses, you need to use B2B enterprise marketing tactics. This gives you the confidence to deliver your marketing message directly to key decision makers in your target companies.

However, there are many B2B marketing solutions and strategies that businesses can take advantage of. However, the common question is: Which are the most effective B2B marketing channels?

In this section, we’ll discuss some of the most significant and common B2B marketing channels to target your B2B customers:

1. Email Campaigns:

One question: Is email marketing still effective?

Since many professionals in various businesses still use email for their business communication, email marketing efforts can be an effective way to reach these contacts.

Sent emails must contain facts about your product or company and also talk about the benefits it brings to the buyer’s company.

2. Social Media Campaign:

Considering that many potential buyers research their vendors and business partners through social media, these platforms are an efficient way to reach them.

You can do this through various paid campaigns or regular sharing of organic posts related to the needs of your audience.

3. Content Marketing:

Many B2C customers prefer entertaining marketing strategies over informative ones. However, B2B customers are looking for content that has educational tips and creates value.

As such, you can make the most of content marketing. So, create high-quality and informative content for your target audience via white papers, e-books, newsletters, infographics, podcasts, social media posts, blog posts, etc.

4. Google Ads Campaigns:

While producing digital marketing content for your audience, you must make sure that you target the right content. You can do this by using paid-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns.

These Google ads marketing campaigns are actually advertisements that are displayed on the computer or mobile screen of your potential customer. In this way, your target audience can find your products and brand very quickly and easily.

5. SEO Marketing:

Search engine optimization (SEO) marketing is a great way to identify and attract B2B audiences through website optimization for the Google search engine. SEO marketing has many benefits for businesses.

It’s a low-cost advertising method. SEO has a very high rate of return on investment (ROI) compared to other strategies that bring targeted traffic to your website.

According to the latest SEO trends, you can create internal and external links, use keywords in posts, and write clear meta descriptions.

6. Video Marketing Campaigns:

A large portion of your audience consumes video content online.

Therefore, having the right video content can significantly help in attracting your audience. There are many benefits to video content, but in today’s landscape, fast and instant video content is actually rising and growing. Audiences prefer to watch everything in real time rather than waiting for it.

Overall, video marketing campaigns can be very effective for B2B contacts who don’t have enough time to read long content.

There are many B2B video marketing tricks that will help you create persuasive and effective videos.

It’s recommended that you introduce your product in a short video and share it on popular social media. Also, for long blog posts, you can produce an additional video that helps you understand the text better and easily.

7. Business Events:

In order to establish direct communication and interaction with target customers, participation in business events is important.

These events can be exhibitions, conferences, and industrial seminars. Participating in and hosting events gives you the opportunity to connect with potential customers & competitors and enhance your business and marketing relationships.

8. Public Relations:

Public relations can play a positive and constructive role in B2B marketing. Effective communication with social media, writing ad reports, doing TV or podcast interviews, etc., can help promote your brand and create awareness in the market.

9. Account Based Marketing (ABM):

ABM marketing is a strategic approach for sellers and marketers. This utilizes highly targeted and personalized relationships to win new business from a specific company (or account).

In fact, instead of launching marketing campaigns with thousands of prospects that try to express their needs and interests to a few, we target specific companies to connect with the ultimate decision-makers.

How to Create a B2B Marketing Plan?

Creating a targeted B2B marketing plan can help attract more potential customers and retain more loyal customers. Are you curious to know how to create a B2B marketing strategy? You’re in the right place. In this section, we’ll guide you step by step to create a B2B marketing plan or strategy.

1. Analyzing Target Market

First, you need to determine your main goal for the B2B market. For example, check which industries, companies, or customers need your products or services.

By examining the market, competitors, and key trends in your industry, you can tailor your marketing strategy in the best possible way.

2. Determining Competitive Advantage

At this stage, you need to review how your products or services are differentiated from competitors and what benefits they provide to customers.

These benefits include price, quality, innovation, customer service, etc. Differentiate your business by identifying your strengths and using them in your marketing plan.

3. Determining Marketing Goals

Your marketing purposes must be measurable and attainable. You can use criteria such as generating revenue, increasing the number of customers, driving the percentage of advertising efficiency, etc.

Overall, marketing objectives should be in line with your overall business plan.

4. Identifying the Target Group

Identify your target groups based on your products or services. Target groups in B2B marketing can include specific industries, specific companies, marketing managers, or decision makers within companies.

What you need to do is determine what specific needs & preferences these groups have and how you can respond to them.

5. Developing a Marketing Strategy

By reviewing the information you’ve collected so far, you can choose and then formulate the right B2B marketing strategy for your company.

These B2B strategies can include B2B content marketing, B2B email marketing, B2B telemarketing, influencer marketing, re-marketing, referrals, social media marketing, SEO, etc.

6. Setting up an Action plan

After determining the strategy, you need to prepare an action marketing plan to implement it. This plan comprises scheduling, resource allocation, budgeting, measuring, and monitoring strategy performance.

7. Implementing and Evaluating

After you’ve implemented your marketing strategy, you need to continually evaluate its performance. For example, check whether your chosen strategy has achieved your desired purposes or not.

The Latest B2B Marketing Trends in the Coming Year

We can’t deny the fact that the business world is undergoing a huge digital transformation. Activities that were previously performed offline in traditional ways can now be easily performed online, including sales, marketing, advertising, e-signatures, etc., for a variety of B2B transactions.

On the other hand, since customers’ needs are constantly changing, brands are also constantly looking to be in harmony with these demands.

In this way, the new digital world is an endless loop of growing and evolving needs and trends. Let’s take a closer look at B2B marketing predictions in the coming year.

1. Content Is Always King in B2B Marketing

Every B2B marketing team has a content marketing strategy. No matter how tried and tested these methods or approaches are, the common denominator that all audiences love is clear, informative content that answers their questions.

As mentioned earlier, content marketing includes every marketing channel you can think of: blogs, videos, case studies, white papers, e-books, social media posts, interviews, podcasts, and more. All these channels collectively promote the product without actually advertising the product.

However, aside from advertising, the content marketing strategy still has many benefits. For example, it can help build a brand reputation, attract high-quality leads, and make your brand trending in a specific industry. Most importantly, these strategies can help build valuable relationships with customers.

2. Personalize Your Communication with Customers

Personalization is the key to your B2B digital marketing strategy. For example, you may receive hundreds of emails every day. Which of these emails do you click on? The ones you can relate to. Or at least the ones that address you by your name and have a personalized subject line.

According to SupperOffice research, emails that include the recipient’s name in the subject line increase open rates by 20%. However, this is only one example of personalization. There are many other techniques through which you can connect with your customer on a personal level.

3. Automation Marketing Saves Time

Who wants to spend time on repetitive activities when these tasks can be easily done by automation marketing software? Fortunately, today, there are many marketing automation tools that simplify and accelerate the process of doing many difficult and time-consuming tasks. As a result, you can save your time.

Here are some major reasons why you need to add marketing automation to your business as soon as possible:

• You can react to customer actions at the right time.
• You gain more free time, which allows you to focus on other important areas of your business.
• You can optimize your marketing strategy.
• You can enhance your customer service.
• Human error is less likely, and overall efficiency is improved through marketing automation.

4. Optimize Everything

Optimizing everything seems like an exaggerated cliché. However, you must carefully pay attention to the roadmap for attracting your customers, as well as the vital issue of optimization.

It’s worth mentioning that customer acquisition doesn’t start when customers are introduced to you but starts when they introduce your products.

Logically, we see that every potential customer for online shopping checks these things, which include websites, social media profiles, reviews, product features, etc. This helps them get a better sense of service delivery.

For example, if your website’s loading time is slow or your social media presence is zero, we’d say you’re effectively giving away your business to your competitors.

Accordingly, your active, optimal, and timely presence on the web and social media can be a main and effective step in attracting more customers.

5. Podcasts Have an Effective Presence

If you ask the opinion of e-commerce professionals about podcasts, they consider podcasts to be a successful and popular strategy that can save time, money, and resources.

According to a research report in this field, 54% of consumers are more likely to buy your product if they hear the name of your product on a podcast. Research also shows that the number of podcast listeners has more than doubled in the last few years (and the numbers are constantly increasing).

Do you think we’re exaggerating? The numbers don’t lie: Searches for the best podcasts like “Spotify Podcast” are up over 420%. Therefore, investing in B2B marketing podcasts is worth it.

6. Invest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

Here’s the bottom line: Doesn’t it make sense to also apply the latest B2B technological advances to optimize your B2B marketing efforts? AI can always find out more about your customers (and do it faster), so putting AI/ML to your use can give you a better understanding of what’s going on.

Here’s what these technologies can do for your e-commerce business:

• Allow you to make smarter decisions.
• Help differentiate between potential buyers and visitors.
• Allow optimization of marketing costs.
• Identify B2B buyer trends and choices.
• Increase the efficiency of your B2B business.
• Help create better overall revenue streams.

7. Monetize the Success of Influencers

In today’s age, influencers have the power to influence people very well.

According to a recent e-commerce report, 96% of marketers who used influencer marketing said the strategy helped them make sales. Also, 79% of them believe that this type of influencer marketing will grow more in the coming months and years.

So, our personal suggestion is to get help from influencers with fewer followers, as they have more control over their followers. Hence, you’ll get better engagement results.

Best Practices for Successful B2B Marketing

Among different businesses, the competition to attract prospects and catch their attention is high. Designing B2B marketing strategies that achieve the desired result requires following effective & efficient methods that businesses must do.

Here are some of the best B2B marketing practices that will help you get ahead of the competition in the market:

1. Create a Wider B2B Marketing Structure

Before you start running advertising campaigns and creating a defined marketing strategy, you need to define your business goals that are specific and measurable. Then, create a framework to achieve your business goals with a B2B marketing strategy.

2. Define Your Brand Position

As we mentioned earlier, to prepare a successful strategy for B2B marketing, you need to understand your brand position well. That means you need to know your brand identity well and know how it looks from the customers’ point of view.

Clarify your brand position so that customers can confirm it and trust your brand.

3. Understand Your Target Audience

Identify your B2B target contacts; That is, review who actually shows interest in your product or service, as well as buy them.

The customer’s purchase behavioral data helps you create the right buyer personas and understand how they make purchasing decisions.

4. Conduct a Competitive Analysis

Research the market closely and see what marketing methods other businesses are using to attract their target audience. When reviewing competitors, consider the following points:

• A product offered by competitors
• Competitors’ sales tactics and the results they get
• Marketing content of competitors and their activity on social media

Knowing these factors will allow you to understand your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

5. Explore the Most Effective B2B Marketing Channels

In the competitive analytics, you’ll find out what marketing techniques and channels the competitors are using, which will get a positive and successful result.

Use various B2B marketing methods and tactics to achieve the desired result. Based on competitor and customer analysis, explore different channels, strategies, and tools to optimize the sales funnel for your customers and leads.

6. Create Various Campaigns

Now that you have your marketing plan and know what to do, it’s time to take action.

Use the best practices for your marketing channel. Important elements in the right campaigns include a creative approach, actionable insights, advanced targeting, and a strong call to action (CTA).

7. Measure and Enhance

It’s a continuous process that keeps you on track. Simply put, you want to understand why your business’s content platforms are performing well or poorly. Knowing this, you can invest better and more rationally.

The more accurate you are about analyzing and applying what you learn, the more likely you are to continuously improve your business and achieve your purposes.

Examples of Best B2B Marketing Tools

B2B marketing tools play an important role in helping businesses connect with other B2B companies and increase their growth. They include marketing automation platforms and CRM software, such as HubSpot or Salesforce, sales intelligence software to simplify and personalize B2B marketing campaigns, such as CUFinder, analytical tools to measure B2B marketing campaign performance, etc.

Here, we mention 5 top services that are active in the field of B2B marketing:

1. HubSpot:

Known for its comprehensive inbound marketing platform, HubSpot offers tools for relationship management (CRM), content marketing, email marketing, and social media management. It helps businesses attract, engage, and delight their customers.

2. LinkedIn:

LinkedIn is the largest professional networking website in the world with more than one billion members, and is the most suitable for B2B business networking.

If you own a B2B business, we recommend that you create a page for your company on LinkedIn, which is also free. This page will be the central hub for your brand to become a destination for shopper research.

LinkedIn provides companies with various features for B2B marketing that you can use to reach and interact with members to suit your goals.

3. Google Analytics:

Understanding website traffic and user behavior is essential for B2B marketers. Google marketing analytics provides information about website performance, visitor demographics, and conversion tracking, helping businesses optimize their online presence and marketing strategies.

4. Mailchimp:

Email marketing is the cornerstone of B2B marketing strategies, and Mailchimp simplifies the process with its user-friendly interface and powerful features. It allows businesses to create personalized email campaigns, automate workflows, and analyze campaign performance.

5. CUFinder:

To stand out in a sea of competitors, we suggest you try one of the best B2B marketing and sales intelligence platforms, such as CUFinder for finding prospects’ contact details.

This platform has advanced B2B prospecting and data enrichment services for contacts’ and companies’ data.

What sets CUFinder apart is its over 98% accuracy rate, the largest B2B contact data, advanced search filtering, fast search results, ease of use, and GDPR & CCPA compliance, as well as the fact that all data is completely verified.

But don’t just take our word for it; experience the B2B lead generation and B2B enrichment power of the CUFinder for yourself right now!

A Final Thought

B2B marketing is one type of marketing in which the sale of products and services is done between two businesses or companies. The purpose of this type of marketing is to understand customer journey and brand positioning.

More sales and high profit are very important in company-to-company marketing. In this type of marketing, due to the extensive connections you’ll have with other companies, you can create a very good opportunity to introduce your brand to other businesses.

Convenience in trading and buying & selling, more security and monitoring, and high speed in preparing and sending orders are the other advantages of B2B marketing. Meanwhile, you can also predict the conditions of your business by checking the conditions of other companies and the economic situation of the market.

There are many solutions to promote and introduce your business to other companies; These ways include SEO, content marketing, video marketing, email marketing, using social media, ABM marketing, etc. All these ways are used to attract more customers.

If you know of other B2B marketing aspects, please share them with us.

FAQs

What Does B2B Marketing Mean?

B2B stands for Business to Business and means “business relations between two or more businesses.” In this type of business, goods or services are exchanged between companies rather than consumers.

What Is an Example of B2B Marketing?

Amazon business is a great example of B2B marketing that allows businesses of any size to create a business account on Amazon and offer their business products on Amazon with various discounts.

What Are the Four Types of B2B Marketing?

The four kinds of B2B marketing strategies that work well are account-based marketing (ABM), product marketing, digital marketing, and performance marketing.

What Is B2B vs B2C Marketing Strategy?

B2B marketing usually focuses on the logic and business benefits of the product or service, while B2C marketing may emphasize the emotional and lifestyle aspects of the product or service.

0