Last week we covered 5 B2B Digital Marketing Strategies
1. Responsive website
2. A Mobile-Friendly website
3. Clear Call to Action
4. A Strong Social Media presence
5. Pop-ups to collect subscribers or Leads.
This week we will cover 5 more B2B Digital Marketing strategies which are simple to implement & are effective as well.
5 B2B Digital Marketing Strategies that make marketing easier for Business to Business companies in today’s digital world.
6. Create a Powerful Business Blog
Source: answerafrica.com
In the past centuries “Marketing” was supposed to be a synonym for “Sales”. All Marketing efforts taken up by a company are always geared up towards sales, Marketing in the digital age is all about creating a “Pull” rather than a “Push”
In Push marketing, the marketing is “Sale-centric” and works towards pushing audiences to make the sale at whatever cost it is.
In the digital age though this is difficult as
1. Your prospective clients have more information available on their tips thanks to the internet,
2. Open information regarding the company’s history,
3. Access to your customer reviews, thanks to social media &
4. Lots of options given that goods or services can be shipped across the world.
So there is no opportunity for a “Push marketing” until you cater to products to services that are unique & have no other competitors in the space which is highly unlikely.
The opposite of “Push marketing” is “Pull marketing” where you are encouraging your prospective clients to:
1. Get to know about your company
2. Proactively share your customer reviews with them
3. Educate them regarding the business domain that they are interested in
4. Let them experience your product or service in their own leisurely way & time
One aspect of a “Pull marketing” is to have a Business Blog which can cover topics related to:
1. Your Company
2. Your Customer Success stories
3. Background of your Team
4. Educate Prospective clients regarding Industry related topics, How your company can help them etc.
So be sure to maintain a dynamic, powerful business blog to make your marketing “Pull” rather than “Push”.
Your Blog should be:
1. Should be consistent – You can publish a blog every week as we do at Branding by Pixels or you can publish once every month but whatever time schedule you decide on be Consistent as that is the key to manage your prospective client’s expectations
2. Decide on a Tone – Whether you want to be funny or serious decide on a tone for the blog at the start & stick to it.
3. Add Value to your Subscribers – Some businesses maintain the blog for the sake of having it & the articles don’t add any value to their subscribers as they have nothing new to share. If your blog is not interesting then your prospective customers won’t come back to read more & eventually they will forget about your company.
4. Ask for Comments – It’s great to have a consistent blog but its always better to get people involved in the blog so ask your readers to leave comments on your blogs. 5. Have Social Media Icons on the Blog – Writing a blog is not easy it generally takes anywhere from an hour to 3 for you to research the content & then come up with a topic of your own to make it easy for your readers to share your blog by including social media icons on your blog.
If you as a business owner are too busy & cannot spend the time to write a blog then you can always hire freelancers who can create blog content for you for a price.
7. Showcase your Blog to the World
source: webtrucks.info
Your Prospective clients are out there on the internet, they may not know about your company & definitely not about your Powerful Business Blog. So its time to showcase your Blog.
You would have spent anywhere from an hour or three to write an impactful blog regarding latest trends of your industry or the recent success story of a client that you have served but if you don’t announce it to the world all that effort has gone to waste.
Social Media platforms are the best ways to announce your latest blog in the world. Depending on your business domain & your comfort with the social media platform you can choose social media platforms like:
1. Facebook
2. Instagram
3. LinkedIn
4. Twitter or
5. Pinterest
If you like Twitter and are active on it then you can share your blog as soon as it is upon the website but also don’t forget to share the blog again multiple times in the coming days as Twitter’s newsfeed is very dynamic & refreshes every hour. So your blog might get amiss in all that chaos.
If you like to use Facebook then you can the link to your blog on your Business Page if you have one or on your Personal Profile & then share it with “Public”.
Instagram is a platform which is more responsive to videos & stories. If you cant create a video don’t worry you can also create a story with an image appropriate to your blog & share it with your followers.
8. Voice is Taking Over
Source – com.com.au
Given that Google World from Google & Alexa from Amazon is being welcomed into homes with open arms voice is becoming increasingly important in the digital age.
People are accustomed to watching videos or listening to music so this new advent of voice has been in the making since a few years now.
Videos made a huge dent in the space of books or reading as it is easy to consume quick videos where both your senses of seeing & listening are activated.
The next wave though is going to be in the space of Voice in the form of Podcasts – wherein you can either choose the format of:
1. Video podcast or
2. Only Audio podcast
Given that our commute times to work or school or anywhere worth going are getting longer due to the increase in traffic & is not expected to go down anytime in the near future we spend a lot of time on the road either driving alone or in the backseat.
One way to tackle the boredom during these times is to either listen to a Radio broadcast or listen to personal devices.
If you go on a drive today you would find many people listening into their personal devices & given that podcasts are easily accessible on apps like “iTunes” on apple or “Google podcast” on Android this is one of the better ways to reaching out to newer audiences out there.
Some of the Podcast channels which are very popular are:
1. iTunes from Apple
2. Google Podcast from Google which is only available on Android devices
3. Spotify &
4. Radio Public
We ourselves have started a podcast a few months ago under the name of “School of Marketing for Small & Medium Businesses” & you can listen to our podcast episodes here:
Itunes
NOTE: Google Podcasts are currently available only on Android devices
Spotify
Breaker
Castbox
Overcast
RadioPublic
Pocket Casts
Please do listen to our episodes & let us know your comments there. You can also subscribe to the podcast which will notify the new episodes as soon as they are LIVE.
9. Detail Customer Success Stories
Most B2B companies have had helped many of their Customers with:
1. A Quality Product
2. Technical Expertise in providing solutions
3. Superb Service support
4. Timely Delivery etc
But most of them don’t include any stories on their websites. Some of them showcase their client logos in their footer where a chance website visitor might not even scroll down to or they don’t even showcase any client logos.
These companies became your customers for a reason & they might have been lifelong customers since the first order you delivered then why not showcase your value addition to this client in the form of a story?
Some of you might say, “Well, my competitor may steal my client if I name them”.
Not every customer is easily stolen by your competitor. I am sure you have some loyal customers who would stick with you in thick & thin, at least showcase their story then.
1. Client’s Name
2. A little introduction regarding them
3. Their Requirement
4. How you have successfully helped them by solving their requirement
You can check out our Customer Success Stories to learn how you can put it up on your websites too.
Customer Success Stories add:
1. Credentials to your company’s history
2. The credibility of your expertise
3. Create greater confidence when peers of your clients read through them
4. Enhances your chances of getting relevant referrals from similar clients in the same business domain
Go Ahead create a separate page if you have not already & show the world your Customer Success Stories, trust us this will add to your businesses’ success.
10. Paid Media
In the digital age of 2018, it is very difficult to get any leads using organic means. In the 1990s it was very easy to rank well in Google & also generate business leads by organic methods like:
1. Having a Meaningful Website
2. Maintaining a presence on Social Media
3. Posting Randomly on Social Media
But by 2018, Google & Social Media has become a lot cluttered.
Google still believes in Organic search results to a certain extent by means of Search Engine Optimisation & rewards companies accordingly if they manage white hat techniques but given that Google’s algorithm keeps changing maintaining a position on the first page of Google is very difficult & a continuous process.
What other methods can we use to stay relevant to our Potential Customers who are constantly searching for our products or services on the internet? Well, the answer is “Paid Media”.
Paid Media can include:
1. Ads on Google using Google Adwords.
2. Facebook Ads either to increase Brand Awareness, Reach or Sales.
3. Lead Generation ads on Facebook
4. Instagram Ads on Instagram to drive sales for E-Commerce
5. LinkedIn ads for Reach or Lead Generation
At this point of time in the history, the rates for Ads placed on Google or on Social Media Platforms like Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn are very less when compared to the ROI that is being generated.
In the next 2 – 5 years though when many other businesses realise this, the price of placing ads will go up by anywhere from 500% – 1000%.
So this would be one place to start TODAY.
We ourselves have run effective ads on Facebook & Instagram with ROI’s ranging from 600% – 1600% for our Lifestyle & Fashion Clients. Contact us on sirisha@brandingbypixels.com or 9515110449 if you want to give it a try.
While placing ads on these platforms may seem like a child’s play it is very important to get the targeting right as it is very easy to lose money without any benefits if done wrong.
You should be aware of these points before you start on the journey of Paid Media:
1. Appropriate Keywords to target for ads on Google.
2. Relevant Ad copy as this affects your quality score on google.
3. Targeting options to be precise as per your ideal potential customer who has the highest probability to buy from you.
4. Your CPC this again depends on the above factors
A Professional Digital Marketing agency can place relevant ads for your company with lower CPC rates & higher ROI returns than you can do it by yourself so don’t be hesitant in approaching a Digital Marketing agency like Branding by Pixels.
Conclusion
The Top 10 B2B Digital Marketing strategies that you can start using in your Marketing TODAY are:
1. Responsive website
2. A Mobile-Friendly website
3. Clear Call to Action
4. A Strong Social Media presence
5. Pop-ups to collect subscribers or Leads.
6. Create a Powerful Business Blog
7. Showcase your Blog to the world
8. Voice is Taking Over
9. Detail Customer Success Stories &
10. Paid Media
Hope you found this blog interesting we will talk about other interesting topics for B2B Marketing in the coming weeks.
Please do leave us your comments if you like what you read & also leave us a comment if you want us to share insights on any specific topic regarding Marketing or Digital Marketing, we would love to cover it for you.
So Stay Tuned & reach out to us at sirisha@brandingbypixels.com to get a Digital Strategy crafted for your Brand.
Have a great week ahead.
Happy Marketing,
Sirisha Varma,
Founder, Head – Marketing,
sirisha@brandingbypixels.com
brandingbypixels.com
