Mastering B2B marketing can be a challenge.
We're used to being marketed to as consumers, but try to turn the tables and market to an entire board of decision-makers... 😨 Let's not even mention the red tape and all those pain points that need solutions!
But where there's a business, there's a way to market to them.
In this guide we're covering everything you need to know for business to business marketing success, including:
Definition | Difference between B2C and B2B | Best practices for record breaking marketing | Creating a strategy | Successful B2B marketing examples | B2B marketing trends for 2022 | Better marketing with tech
But first, let's define what B2B marketing means 👇
The meaning of B2B (business-to-business) marketing is any marketing strategy or content used by one business to target and sell to another business. For instance, companies that sell services, products or SaaS to other companies or organisations typically use B2B marketing.
A good example of B2B marketing is Monday.com on LinkedIn or, a more out of the box example is the Gong superbowl adverts. Companies like these sell solutions to help businesses automate or enhance their processes.
There are many key differences between B2B and B2C marketing, starting with who they target.
👉 B2C marketing targets the needs, interest and challenges of everyday consumers. The individual often buys on a desire or whim and for themselves rather than facts or an expected ROI for a business. Examples of B2C products are anything from toothpaste to t-shirts.
👉 B2B marketing sells to individuals or groups of individuals who are looking to solve a pain point at their company. Examples of B2B products are anything that provides a solution to a challenge such as sales automation software to make B2B prospecting easier. The sales funnel will be a lot longer for B2B as there are more people involved in the final decision.
Here are five major differences between business to consumer and business to business marketing:
It makes sense that the tone, targeting and style of B2C and B2B marketing are quite different and demand generation strategies that work for B2B don’t always work for B2C, and vice-versa.
🎧 Listen to this episode of Revenue Champions to discover how Udi Ledergor, CMO at Gong, uses B2C tactics for better B2B advertising 👇
B2B marketers need two things to be able to run successful revenue-generating campaigns, and they are:
By following best practices, you can ensure your B2B strategy fits your sales goals for a united, more streamlined B2B company.
Here are our 6 best practices for B2B marketing:
All good marketing starts with a plan. First, decide on your goal for each campaign. Then research your target audience before strategising your way forward.
Once you know what you want to achieve, set B2B marketing KPIs to ensure you stay on the right track. Periodically review your plan against your KPIs. If it’s not working, don’t be afraid to change it.
Good quality GDPR compliant data is going to do wonders for your campaigns.
Firstly, you’ll have access to the right contact information for your prospects, and your B2B marketing campaigns will be more personalised and effective.
Secondly, by using intent data, you’ll be speaking to people who are actually in the market to buy while following your local privacy laws.
Even better, a data-driven marketing campaign helps you make faster and better decisions, reducing spend and lost customers.
No one wants to read a blog that’s just long paragraphs of words. Business to business content marketing doesn’t need to be boring!
Spice up your blogs, website and marketing campaigns with visual assets like videos, GIFs, infographics and high-quality images.
Visual content encourages engagement with your buyers and strengthens your brand image.
Speaking of your brand’s image, the best thing you can do for your company is agree and stick to a brand persona.
Brainstorm how you want to be perceived, your values, your tone of voice and visual identity.
Customers remain loyal to consistent and transparent brands, so building a brand and creating awareness around it will only increase your position in the B2B market.
When you know who your customers are, you’re better able to add value to their day-to-day lives.
Buyers no longer want to be sold to; they want to be offered something that can help them solve ongoing frustrations. Swoop in with the perfect answer to their problems and the best B2B marketing solution, and you’ll be their go-to provider of choice for years to come.
At Cognism, we’ve learned that the perfect B2B marketing strategy doesn’t exist.
Hard work, perseverance, A/B testing and experimentation are the tools that will help you thrive in the B2B space.
Another thing to bear in mind is that the marketing industry is constantly evolving; you need to stay updated on the latest innovations and trends.
Foster an experimental, scientific mindset in your team. Run weekly sprints to launch campaigns quickly and acquire some initial learning for your best chance at record breaking marketing revenue.
🎧 Francesca Rock, CMO at Kleene.ai, talks marketing best practices, prioritising channels for distribution, measuring content success and more in this episode of Revenue Champions 👇
The B2B buyer's journey is unique in that you’re not selling to an individual but to an entire team or group of people, all of whom might have a say in the purchasing decision.
And the journey is no longer simply about prospecting, demoing and closing. It’s about educating, offering value and solving pain points.
According to a study done by Forrester on the Three Myths of the “67 Percent” Statistic, 67% of a buyer’s journey is now being done digitally. Your prospects can easily collect information and find what they’re looking for making it ten times harder for your outbound sales reps to influence their decisions.
But here’s the thing:
Your customers are struggling to make these purchases.
This is because there are so many solutions, new technologies, suppliers and services to consider.
So before you can get started on strategising your B2B marketing plan, you need to first understand the buyer journey:
A B2B buyer’s journey is the process buyers go through before deciding to buy a new product or service. Their journey will usually consist of three main touchpoints - awareness, consideration and decision.
At Cognism, we’ve developed our own process for marketing to B2B that’s based on our customers’ journeys.
It’s a process that’s been highly effective in generating quality leads and improving their overall experience.
A huge bonus - it creates brand loyalty at the same time! And that’s an incredibly valuable attribute you want going forward.
There are 4 steps to our B2B marketing process:
Improve your win rates by right clicking and saving this informative B2B marketing process template 👇.
Once you’ve got your process down it will be easy to implement an inbound and outbound marketing strategy.
Here are 5 B2B marketing strategies for the business to business market:
Start off by outlining a basic guideline of your perfect buyer persona or TAM. This is an essential part of B2B product marketing and ensures you’re only targeting the right leads for your business.
💡 Tip: If you need help calculating your Total Addressable Market, try our TAM calculator.
Secondly, set actionable goals for each member of your team. You can stay on top of and optimise your team's performance by tracking B2B marketing metrics and KPIS.
Consider what you can offer prospects that your competitors can’t? Then, decide on your messaging and value-drivers for each target audience.
Take everything you’ve learned from the above steps and plan your outreach content to drive revenue.
Start creating content that drives demand, adds value and builds brand awareness.
🎬Now that you’ve got your B2B marketing strategy down, here are some tips on closing deals with B2B content 👇
There are many different channels and strategies when it comes to marketing for B2B, all requiring varied skillsets and attributes.
Here are five examples of the most important business marketing strategies that have been proven to assist in the revenue growth for B2B companies.
Campaign marketing plays a significant role when marketing to B2B organisations.
It takes a lot of planning before you can execute a campaign selling your product or service. It's typically conducted by email, and analytics are drawn from the results to measure each campaign's effectiveness.
Here's are four of Cognism's best b2b marketing campaigns.
Once you’ve had a look at those examples you’ll want to start planning your campaigns with a template.
B2B content is arguably the most important step of a businesses marketing strategy.
Online and offline content aids in attracting, converting and retaining buyers. It typically consists of video, audio and written content published on an organisation's blog and then shared across its social media for more organic traffic.
Organic traffic is a crucial part of a B2B content marketing strategy. You’ll want to invest in hiring a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) expert to get the top result for your product or service when buyers search online. If you don’t already have an SEO expert then have a look online for some beginners guides for SEO.
Whatever you do, just be sure your content stays valuable, informative and relevant to your audience.
Here's an example of how Cognism creates content worth $88,270 in annual revenue.
Also known as B2B online marketing, digital marketing helps promote your brand so you can better connect with prospects.
Email, social media, paid channels like Google ads, text messages and influencer marketing all play a part in the digital side of your strategy.
B2B marketers understand that social media is no longer an option. Instead, it's expected brands create a social presence. If a customer can't find you on social media, it will result in a lack of trust. That's why B2B branding is so important.
Many brands are looking to influencer marketing for a brand boost, while others are experimenting with Instagram and TikTok.
For Cognism, LinkedIn has created the best opportunities. Here are five examples of the most effective LinkedIn ads.
Relating to digital marketing, performance marketing combines digital channels with paid advertising such as Google ads and brand marketing across channels.
Performance marketing allows you to manage your company's digital advertising spend, generate targeted leads through ads and build brand engagement.
The major platforms used in B2B are Google, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Here's a guide that explains how to create powerful Google Ad campaigns for your B2B products.
Generates awareness of a B2B service or product and promotes it at scale. Product marketers are responsible for a product or services' positioning, messaging and value proposition.
Customer case studies, webinars and sales collateral are all content that plays a vital part in product marketing.
To achieve the best results in product marketing, you need to first research your customer's needs. Then, discover their pain points and create messaging that resonates and offers a solution.
Here's an example of eight common B2B customer pain points and the messaging Cognism uses to sell a solution.
🎧 Mark Huber, Director of Growth at metadata.io, knows how to make a brand stand out. Listen to this episode of Revenue Champions, where he breaks down his most successful marketing strategies 👇
B2B advertising is constantly evolving - from direct mail and trade catalogue ''industrial marketing”, as it was called in 1929, to the launch of smart data, search and social media. New products and innovative technologies are revolutionising the way we do business.
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated specific trends, and many thought leaders are looking for new ways of doing digital marketing.
The latest changes to the industry include hybrid working models. virtual events and the rise of video marketing. The dark funnel and Web.30 has also risen up along with the value of jumping on underpriced attention.
These evolutions will require marketers to become more agile and react more quickly to a changing world and industry. In turn, tracking B2B data will be more important than ever.
🔮 Cognism asked marketing leaders about their 2022 marketing predictions. Watch this video to find out their answers 👇
B2B marketing solutions have only gotten smarter and more efficient over the years.
Making it even easier than ever before to save time on tasks that used to take hours and hours to do.
One such tool is Cognism, a sales intelligence solution that brings you more quality marketing data - meaning better relationships and more revenue!
And that’s what’s most important, right?
Want to learn more?
Book a screenshare today 👇
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