The 6 Most Effective B2B Marketing Strategies
B2B marketing, or business-to-business marketing, refers to the marketing of products, services, and solutions to other businesses. Unlike business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, which is directed toward individual consumers, B2B marketing aligns around the ROI that a specific product or service brings to an organization.
It’s no secret that the most successful companies worldwide are pouring all their efforts into building great content marketing strategies.
Instead of simply churning out content and hoping to see their sales skyrocket, top performers spend a lot of time crafting content that not only aligns with their mission but is also what their audience is looking for. They understand that creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content is what can ultimately drive profitable customer action.
Interested in learning more about content marketing strategies in specific verticals? Check out our articles on fintech marketing, financial services marketing and healthcare marketing.
Align your content marketing with your sales goals for higher customer retention. One of the first mistakes companies make is not aligning content with sales activities. In reality, your sales target sets the tone for the content creation process.
Here’s why it’s important. Many B2B buyers tend to be wary of sales representatives. B2B buyers won’t take a cold call and often prefer to do their own research online than talk to a salesperson.
The knowledge possessed by sales, however, can be harnessed by marketing departments and transformed into the valuable content clients are looking for. We’re talking about pricing and technical support, case studies, white papers, articles, and blog posts.
Understanding customer behavior through the lens of both marketing and sales is a worthwhile effort. It can lead to higher customer retention rates and higher sales win rates.
We're the top B2B Content Marketing Agency in America. Watch the video below to learn why.
B2B Marketing Statistics
Most B2B content marketers are committed to content marketing, but unfortunately, many companies struggle to find the right balance. In other words, many companies are stepping into the new year with a super solid plan that they have full confidence in. If you are one of the companies unsure about the right strategy, don’t despair – we gathered a list of practical steps to get you well-versed and prepared to execute a content marketing strategy in time for the new year.
Align your content marketing with your sales goals for higher customer retention. One of the first mistakes companies make is not aligning content with sales activities. In reality, your sales target sets the tone for the content creation process.
Why B2B Marketing Is Important
Most B2B buyers tend to be wary of sales representatives. In a white paper called, Content Marketing: Unlocking Sales and Marketing Performance, Robert Rose, CMI’s chief strategy advisor, pointed out that 90% of B2B buyers won’t take a cold call, and more than 50% would rather do their own research online than talk to a salesperson.
The knowledge possessed by sales, however, can be harnessed by marketing departments and transformed into the valuable content clients are looking for. We’re talking about pricing and technical support, case studies, white papers, articles, and blog posts.
Understanding customer behavior through the lens of both marketing and sales is a worthwhile effort, often leading to higher customer retention rates and higher sales win rates.
Now let's talk about the most effective B2B marketing strategies:
1. Document Your Content Marketing Strategy
Even the best content strategy can turn into a failure if your team members are in the dark about what everyone else is doing. Without a documented content marketing strategy, resources go to waste, results stall, and employees lose steam.
A road map is fairly easy to put together, and it can give your staff a full picture of your goals, the steps needed to achieve them, and how much it might cost. Make sure to include an editorial calendar, a tool used by many successful companies.
Use research to identify major B2B marketing trends and create a roadmap around them for the coming year. You should be looking for "tried-and-true" techniques marketing managers around the world are investing in. Documenting which of these strategies you plan to leverage next year is the first step toward being successful and showing a clear marketing ROI.
Writing down goals is a research-proven psychological practice for achieving those goals faster, and it’s equally applicable to business. If you need more convincing, here’s the bottom line: Successful marketers are more likely to use a documented content marketing strategy than their less successful peers. Writing down goals is a research-proven psychological practice for achieving those goals faster, and it’s equally applicable to business.
2. Create Content Based on the Sales Funnel (But Educate First)
Most successful B2B content marketers prioritize their audience’s informational needs over their sales and promotional message. What does this mean?
The simple explanation: your blog posts and case studies should be less about “Me, me, me” and more about “You, you, you.” The elaborate answer: customers can smell a sales pitch wrapped in a blog post from a mile away. Instead, use content to educate and solve your audience’s problems and meet their specific needs. Top B2B companies craft content based on specific stages of the buyer’s journey.
This is where the sales team comes into play. Your marketing strategy should include a good mix of content for people in all three stages of the sales funnel. Buyers at the “awareness” stage, for instance, are usually looking for educational content like blog posts, social content, courses, and eBooks.
Because they’re usually less likely to make a purchase, many companies don’t think the “awareness” group is worth their content marketing efforts. This couldn't be further from the truth. Marketing expert Andrew Raso from Hubspot wrote about how interesting content helps move people along the funnel.
People in the middle of the funnel or the “evaluation” stage, on the other hand, are seeking white papers and webinars — things that position you as an authority in the industry. Lastly, according to Raso, the most effective types of content in the “purchase” stage tend to be case studies, trial offers, demos, and product literature.
3. Utilize the Right Content Marketing Tools
There’s no point in pouring your resources into creating great content if you’re not going to use the right tools to distribute, promote, and measure its impact.
There are a plethora of technologies that could boost your content marketing efforts, but only three really matter:
- Social media analytics;
- Email marketing software; and
- Google Analytics.
These tried-and-tested methods help organizations get better insights into how content is performing and make it easier to repurpose content. For instance, if an article written two years ago by one of your staffers is still generating traffic, update it and promote it again or post more similar pieces.
Some new analytic tools you should consider:
- Buzzsumo: looks at how content from your website performs on social media
- Board: for forecasting and scenarios analysis
- Dundas BI: provides real-time visuals and analytics of user data
Companies are also using chatbots and artificial intelligence to measure how their content is performing.
4. Be Willing To Allocate a Generous Budget
The saying “put your money where your mouth is” applies perfectly to content marketing.
The most successful content marketers said they spent more on content creation than on other areas of content marketing in the last 12 months. A little over 70% of companies hired more marketing specialists, 38% hired business strategists, and 33% hired journalists. What’s more, a majority of companies plan to increase their content marketing budget in the coming year.
For cash-strapped startups, content marketing is the smartest investment you can make. Content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing, but it’s three times as effective in generating leads.
Do the math and figure out how much you’re willing to invest in blogs, social media, and how-to videos. That investment could be directly proportional to your traffic growth and loyalty metrics.
5. Set Clear Goals and Use Metrics To Track Your Success
Speaking of growth, many B2B content marketing strategies report that businesses that get content marketing right have a clear set of goals.
Maybe you want to increase brand awareness or maybe you want to educate audiences. Maybe you simply want to build credibility and generate leads. Whatever your objectives are, make sure to choose metrics that might yield the most meaningful insights based on your goals. When it comes to measurement, there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy.
The whole point of having a content marketing strategy is to drive profitable customer action. How do you measure that?
Sales numbers, customer retention, click-through rates (CTR), and email subscribers are good indicators of how much progress you’re making. It’s no surprise that the most successful B2B organizations measure content marketing ROI, but not all are proficient in using such metrics.
Don’t throw in the towel just because your staff isn’t used to metrics. Offer them training and you’ll start seeing results in six to 12 months. You can also reach out for help: a fractional CMO can come on board and train your team (including hiring and scaling, when needed).
6. Seize the Day
Get clear about your objectives, invite both sales and marketing to the table, design a plan, and take swift action.
If you still find all this overwhelming, hire outside talent. You and your team should have more time to focus on developing better products and services, while someone else can stay on top of content creation, social media marketing, and digital advertising.
If you still find all this overwhelming, hire outside talent. You and your team will have more time to focus on developing better products and services, while someone else can stay on top of content creation, social media marketing, and digital advertising.
Top Tip: Ask for Help With B2B Marketing Strategies
Our Chicago Content Marketing Agency has a proven system of crafting a digital content marketing strategy that perfectly matches your specific goals. Whether it's user experience, analytics, client development, or even software development, we have the tools and the expertise to get your content marketing off its feet, or to turbocharge what you already have in place.
For a limited time, Digital Authority Partners is offering a FREE content & SEO audit to fintech companies interested in assessing their current brand in order to build a robust content marketing plan for 2022. Interested? Drop us a note at hello@digitalauthority.me or call us at 312-820-9893 for details.
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