When creating a marketing strategy for your business, sometimes it can be difficult to know where to start. At GetCrisp we’ve worked alongside many businesses on their B2B marketing, covering everything from traditional forms of marketing to social media, PayPerClick Campaigns, video case studies and digital advertising.
After years of experience and research, we’ve found that certain strategies are highly effective across all industries. Once implemented, these help you to create a cohesive and appealing brand identity that can create leads and add value. Today we wanted to share those with you. Here are our top 11 tips for effective B2B marketing.
Know your audience
Let’s start with the basics. Identifying your target audience means that you can better understand the needs of each customer. Once you’ve done this, you can tailor your advertising to demonstrate how your service and expertise addresses these needs.
Whether you’re basing your advertising around your existing customer audience, or trying to attract a new demographic, your target market should be at the forefront of your strategy.
Ask yourself questions about your target audience. What type of companies are the best fit for your services? What are their biggest concerns? Where can you help them the most? How can you relate to their challenges? How do they communicate? What language resonates with their company culture?
Until you understand your audience inside out, you won’t be able to effectively market your services to them.
Know your enemy
In B2B marketing, there are often fewer differentiators between you and your competitors that will be immediately obvious to customers. You need to understand the other businesses in your area that offer a similar service to yours, and find ways that you can stand out. To make this process more thorough, we recommend undertaking SWOT analysis of both your business and your competitors.
S – Strengths: What unique selling points does your business have compared to your competitors? This includes operational benefits such as a great support service or the ability to dedicate more sales resources to each customer.
W – Weaknesses: Where your offering might fall short, and where you potentially can’t match your competitors. If they have 100 salespeople and you have 5, then this needs to be recognised and can inform your strategy moving forward.
O – Opportunities: Are there any areas in your industry that no other team has capitalised on yet? Perhaps a new target audience or online service.
T – Threats: If a business were to adopt a certain strategy, could it threaten your service? Pricing needs to be considered here, but so do external threats. Could a change in regulations hurt your business? What about a global pandemic?
Armed with this analysis, you’ll be able to make more reasoned decisions about B2B marketing.
Targeted marketing
We recommend targeting the way that you market to specific niches within your audience to show how your unique expertise stands above your competitors. Your marketing should demonstrate that your business is relatable, honest and can provide examples of how your service genuinely benefits your target audience.
We’ve seen this working especially well in email marketing, where it can be very effective to demonstrate how specific features of your service can help different industries.
Update your website
Did you know that 80% of prospects will browse your website before making a buying decision? Your website should be visually appealing, up to date, engaging and informative. It should guide your target audience through to your team by showing information relevant to them and providing a good representation of your company’s identity.
If your site features an overload of information, it might be time for a second look. We also recommend regularly updating with blog content or news about your team.
Technical SEO
Optimising your website isn’t just about content and design – it’s also about making sure everything is technically sound. Technical errors stop Google from promoting your site. You can have a great looking website but it needs to be built on a good foundation of reliable, well-written, up to date code.
Optimising your SEO not only means that there is less chance that potential customers have an interrupted user experience, but it also means your business will appear higher in search results.
Brand continuity
A memorable brand identity is a consistent one. Make sure you carry the same tone and visual style across all your marketing. Your brand should be instantly recognisable by both prospects and existing customers alike.
Your brand needs to be consistent across all your marketing materials. We know that many businesses have turned towards a remote sales strategy in the past two years. Are your remote staff equipped with marketing content that follows your brand and look professional?
Social Media
Social media has quickly become one of the most important aspects of any good marketing campaign and can’t be ignored. 60% of buyers will now view a company’s socials before deciding on them.
Make sure you update your social media regularly, providing informative posts, maintaining a consistent brand identity and giving a glimpse about who you are. Don’t just sell, make your content relatable. Remember, people buy from people!
Create, test, analyse, repeat
Developing your marketing strategy is an iterative process. If you notice a particular social media, email or advertising campaign is working effectively, test variations on it to see what works and what doesn’t. Your marketing should constantly be evolving while staying authentic to your brand and USP.
Cater for a longer sales cycle
It’s easier than ever for prospects to carry out research on your offering alongside that of your competitors to come to a more informed decision. Patience is important and you should be prepared for a longer sales process.
This may inform how you choose to market. It’s often worth tailoring multiple marketing campaigns to the same prospects so you’re always at the front of their mind throughout their buying process. Customers will check your website and social media. They may also look for any special offers or promotions that you may have ongoing. It’s important that you are always addressing these key touchpoints.
Add value
Customers want to work with people who can demonstrate that they are experts in their field. Your marketing should accommodate this. Make sure your marketing activity directly demonstrates how your service can benefit their business. A perfect way to illustrate this is by using case studies to show customers how you’ve helped teams just like them.
Embrace video
Video is the most popular way for people to consume content, so it’s crucial that your team can exploit this for your marketing. Did you know, video content on LinkedIn receives 3 times more engagement than text-based posts?
You should aim to use video across all your marketing channels. The most obvious is social media, with video case studies and infographics being great ways to demonstrate value. We also recommend adding video content to your websites and email marketing where appropriate.
We hope that these tips can give you some ideas on how you can improve your B2B marketing plans moving forward.
Over the years, we’ve used these techniques to deliver measurable benefits to countless businesses in many different sectors. If you’d like to refine your own marketing plan, or restart from scratch, don’t hesitate to get in touch! You can reach us at info@getcrisp.co.uk.