The best B2B Marketing Strategies

When considering your marketing strategy and seeking ways to improve, you may find yourself focused more on business to consumer (B2C) marketing and many companies fail to recognise the importance of business to business (B2B). Digital marketing audit services can help you fully assess your marketing efforts and identify where you can improve in both B2C and B2B, making it as easy as possible to reach your goals. But first identify what kinds of marketing strategies you have in place and see what our top picks for B2B marketing are.

1. Content Marketing – this strategy is all about creating and distributing information to attract those most likely to purchase rather than simply trying to sell to everyone in hopes that somewhere it might stick. This can include blog posts, podcasts, videos, webinars, or eBooks.
2. Industry Events – trade shows or conferencing gather companies within a specific industry in one place where they can demonstrate their most recent products or services. They are not usually open to the public and can be an excellent opportunity to develop or maintain relationships with industry partners and identify market trends. You can get a good idea of your competition whilst also acquiring new customers.
3. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) – SEO is about increasing awareness and traffic to a company website by making sure it appears at the top of relevant search results on sites like Google and Bing. This is achieved organically through a variety of digital marketing methods whilst SEM achieves this through paid online advertising. A company buys or “sponsors” a link to appear as an ad in search results when keywords related to their business are searched for. 
4. Earned Media or PR – earned media is exactly as it sounds. It is advertising that is earned through actions as opposed to being paid for. This can be through word of mouth, testimonials, television or radio mentions, blog posts etc. The genuineness and reliability of this form of marketing makes it one of the most effective methods – customers and businesses trust their peers more so than the company trying to sell their products.
5. Referral Programs – unlike earned media, in this strategy a company will actively try to incentivise people to recommend and talk about their products rather than letting it happen organically. Specific affiliate programs or customer referral and partner programs are meant to offer the instant credibility of existing customers to grow a customer base.
6. Conversational Marketing – another self-evident marketing strategy, conversational marketing is a conversation. This can be through interaction via chat bot or live chat with customer services to help get information out to prospective customers. Follow up questions and further enquiry is dealt with instantly and massively improves the consumer experience. You can establish a relationship and ease the potential customer into purchasing the product or service without hesitation. 

Inbound marketing is probably the most effective form of B2B marketing because it leverages the strengths of many other strategies to draw customers on to the company website through the creation of meaning and relevant content. This encompasses some of the most successful strategies such as SEO, SEM, content marketing, earned media and social media marketing.