Digital marketing has changed the way the B2B industry has worked. With various B2B businesses joining the digital world and users’ preferences leaning on online purchases, this has been a given. For small B2B entities, this can directly affect standard operations for the better or worse. But there’s nothing to worry about! Proweaver has compiled a list of B2B digital marketing strategies that may effectively shape the way you do business in the present.
We hope you’ve buckled your seats because you are in for a long ride. Here are the most effective digital marketing tactics and methods fit for B2B transactions in 2022:
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Choose Building and Linking
Create a solid digital presence with a unique website that links all your social media together.
Just like B2C marketing, a website is still one of the most highly effective digital marketing strategies for B2B businesses. A well-grounded online presence can never be complete without a running website that presents your brand to the public. This is the platform that potential clients prefer to work with to get to know your offers and benefits. A website can also contain your future goals and visions, which are key elements that clients look for in their business-to-business transactions.
Similarly, multiple social media platforms can boost your connections and make you available for communication. Clients may not make an effort to contact you if you only have limited social media platforms, and that can be bad for business. So, a rule of thumb: have two or more current social media accounts that are easily accessible by viewers.
When these two are brought together, your B2B business can flourish digitally. But the effective execution of this strategy also relies heavily on your channel connections. This means both must be linked to each other at all times, providing easy passage between content consumption on these platforms.
What Statistics Say: 86% of B2B entities have a launched website that they think tops their lead generation statistics. 83% use social media, and a generous 66% think these social networks help generate more leads.
Give This Strategy an Upgrade: By having any website or content updates posted on your social media with a direct link to its web pages. Constantly updating your website and having your social media following know of this piques public interest.
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Stories Still Stand Out
Tell a story that emphasizes your journey, struggles, and turning points.
Everyone has a story to tell, even your B2B business. Storytelling is one of the oldest marketing tactics that B2B and B2C businesses have been using to relate to their target audience. Even with the shift to digital promotions, the B2B storytelling tactic remains a relevant and powerful audience engagement tool.
In part, this could be explained by the emotional and personal value that a good story can convey to your audience. When you appeal to your client’s feelings, they feel more compelled to learn more about your pursuits. Stories instigate connections and follow a structured timeline that viewers get excited over. Use this to your advantage by emphasizing integral parts of your business journey: your challenges, your opportunities, and the turning point of it all.
It might be tricky to manage but when you pull the right strings, your story can also build integrity and loyalty from your audience.
What Statistics Say: Research suggests that 50% of B2B clients are more likely to make a purchase when they feel emotionally invested. This makes the storytelling strategy a highly important but challenging task for marketers. Now, they’re not only enticing audiences with data; they’re also competing for their brand’s emotional impact.
Give This Strategy an Upgrade: By addressing real-world issues and highlighting your business’ efforts in solving them. This shows your initiative and involvement in your audience’s struggles, which can shed a positive light on you and your business.
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Credibility in Bylines
Write bylined articles, blog posts, and other forms of content that introduce your business to clients.
To start off, what is a bylined article? Bylined articles are articles published in publication sites and written by contributing authors not necessarily working for that site. “Byline” is the part of the written content that contains the author’s name, hence the term, “bylined articles”.
In the B2B marketing world, bylined articles offer a fresh, informative take on promotions and campaigns. B2B marketers often use bylined articles in marketing to not talk about marketing! Often, bylined articles are news-based, offering B2B companies the chance to showcase thought leadership and credibility. On top of that, it also gives your business the freedom to discuss your expertise in a particular business niche without overtly promoting your services or products.
What Statistics Say: Many (80% of) B2B clients prefer getting information from an article rather than an ad. This implies a preference for content marketing over traditional ad marketing. If done right, using bylined articles can rack in potential buyers and partners for your B2B business.
Give This Strategy an Upgrade: By touching on difficult or not-usually-talked-about topics. Don’t be afraid to tackle controversial issues and form strong opinions on them. This paints your business as one that’s open to anything but firm in your beliefs. But be sure it’s within the guidelines of your partnered publication site, too!
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Experience Equals Curiosity
Take your clients with you on your campaign ride with experiential marketing.
Experiential marketing or “engagement marketing” has been one of the most widely used marketing tactics for B2C businesses. Up until recently, this marketing tactic has also found its appeal in the B2B industry, and we see why. Experiential marketing takes customers along this stimulating journey with the business, offering direct opportunities to experience the business’ products or services. They come in the form of media promotions (like live events), product sampling, AR, and other stimulating endorsements.
This form of marketing is a great way for B2B businesses to interact with clients and receive real-time responses. Moreover, it’s also great for word-of-mouth marketing as an addition to online advertising and other gimmicks. We can see the potential for success of experiential marketing in B2B businesses all over the world, and we hope you do too.
What Statistics Say: According to HubSpot, experiential marketing has climbed to the top five most effective digital campaigns that B2B entities leverage. And not surprisingly, 81% of marketers believe live events are vital to marketing success.
Give This Strategy an Upgrade By live-tweeting your event and using unique hashtags to promote it on your social media. Include your programs, surprise guests, and gifts (if there are any) in your social media shoutouts. This way, you attract more participants, specifically those within the vicinity of your venue.
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Be Significantly Represented
Collaborate with an influencer with an engaged following to secure brand trust and viewability.
When it comes to trust, buyers prefer to hear about brands from their well-loved or admired influencers. Hence, we believe B2B influencer marketing deserves a spot on this list.
During B2B marketing planning, most marketers fail to realize the importance of brand awareness through influencer promotions. Because of the bad rep it has taken from B2C marketing results, B2B marketers may tend to stray from this kind of marketing tactic. But with the right plan set in place, B2B businesses can thrive with collaborations and partnerships by their side.
Through authentic endorsements, B2B businesses establish support from their influencers’ followers, which only strengthens through time. This is why choosing the right influencer is vital during the data gathering process. Another huge advantage of influencer marketing is the huge improvement in ROIs. With higher online clicks, conversions, and sales, influencers have proven to be a dependable marketing tool both in the present and for years to come.
What Statistics Say: Influencer marketing has helped 84% of B2B businesses in their digital and brand awareness journey. Instagram is the preferred application choice for this type of marketing with 79% of marketers backing up this claim.
Give This Strategy an Upgrade: By finding current advocates who don’t necessarily have large followings but have strong engagement rates. Choosing the right influencer, whether a brand or an individual, can take time, so never skip out on your research.
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Design As a Form of Professionalism
Practice consistency, straightforwardness, and brand embodiment through your marketing designs.Your website’s design plays a huge part in the professional look you are going for your brand. Even B2B web design experts know the importance of using non-distracting colors, classy fonts, and mobile-friendly content in website development. Your web design sets the tone for your brand, your vision, and how you’d like to be perceived. Consistency and straightforwardness are the features that should be present in your web design. It’s safe to say, then, that every aspect of your web pages should be well-thought of and thoroughly researched.
To ensure that your branding shines through your web design elements, go for a customized site! If you aren’t sure where to start or simply don’t have time to work everything out yourself, Proweaver has your back. We offer custom web development and design that keeps your business running for eventual success and increased revenue. To know where to contact us, read on.
What Statistics Say: 75% of website credibility comes from the overall design. On a similar note, 94% of users form their first impression of a website through its design.
Give This Strategy an Upgrade: By making your website design and promotional materials consistent. And we don’t mean to make it repetitive! Use a trademark design that you think works best with your branding and apply it to all your visual marketing ads and materials. This way, you leave a mark on viewers, consciously and subconsciously.
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Audio vs Video: What Works?
Leverage your audio or video marketing content with research and user statistics.
Audio and video content are a given in most marketing processes, and we’ll tell you why. Video and audio content can effortlessly get your client’s attention by appealing to their senses: visual and auditory. Both can also congest all the information you want to share in a few minutes.
But the trick here is in finding what works for your business. While some B2B entities work well with audio marketing, others may not. However, video content can also be tricky to facilitate because it can be time-consuming and can affect web loading time.
To figure out what kind of content you should utilize, allocate time for your user statistics and analytics. Your measurement tools can get you all the information you need to either upgrade your current marketing content or drop it altogether.
For your video content, be sure to watch out for these metrics:
- Impressions
- Views
- View Length
- Demographics
- Play Rate
For your audio content, these metrics are crucial:
- Subscriptions
- Backlinks
- Demographics
- Downloads
- Listening Time
What Statistics Say: An estimate of 75% B2B marketers proclaim that video content in marketing improves their ROI, with 83% saying it improves lead generation. 80% of marketers using audio content plan to invest the same budget amount for this digital marketing strategy in 2022. YouTube and Spotify are the leading sites for these content strategies respectively.
Give This Strategy an Upgrade: By going all out for the aesthetics of your marketing material. Whether you’ve chosen audio or video content or both to represent your brand to the public, try to work around colors and themes that stand out. Why not try a short film or a podcast to introduce your business? Remember, aesthetics don’t only pertain to visual effects but the auditory aspect too.
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Look at the Speed and the Stats
Ensure an increase in conversion rates with improved website load speed and related measurements.
Your site’s load time is one of the vital factors for viewer retention and conversion rates. This may sound basic but investing time in your site’s load speed can greatly change your digital marketing game. How else can your viewers know and interact with your business if they cannot access your site immediately?
Also, your site load speed contributes to your SEO, so your visibility online is at stake. Tools like Tools.Pingdom and PageSpeed Insights help you analyze your website’s load speed metric. More than that, it also gives you an insight into other relevant data that contributes to your website performance. No matter what B2B industry you may be in, your site’s load speed can make all the difference in your marketing plan and execution.
What Statistics Say: Generally, 83% of users expect a 3-second website loading speed for B2B businesses. This makes load time highly critical to marketers locally and internationally. Moreover, 61% of B2B marketers admit they track their mobile and web analytics, and 65% regularly measure their sales effectiveness.
Give This Strategy an Upgrade: By having your clients bring you feedback. The rawest form of marketing measurement is your clients’ reviews, so be sure to ask for one!
What Are the Takeaways?
In this article, we’ve learned that:
- Building a website, making multiple social media accounts, and linking both provide easy passage for content consumption.
- Stories instigate connections and provide emotional and personal value, so storytelling is highly effective in marketing.
- Bylined articles offer a fresh, informative take on promotions and campaigns by taking the marketing out of the marketing.
- Experiential marketing is a great way for B2B businesses to interact with clients and receive real-time responses.
- Influencer marketing offers improved ROI and establishes heavy support from followings and word-of-mouth.
- Practice consistency and straightforwardness in your web design to maintain a professional look.
- Allocate time for your user statistics and analytics in improving your audio and video content marketing posts.
- Your site’s load speed affects your SEO, website performance, viewer retention, and conversion rates.
That being said, we can conclude that your digital marketing strategy impacts the entirety of your business – from your daily operations to your future business goals. Thus, employing the right marketing strategy for your B2B business directs how your business sails on in the near future.
The right question to ask then is: what’s your move? What digital marketing strategy are you eyeing for your business?
Contact Us
Proweaver is ready to help you build your website from the ground up. Reach out to us through the following numbers:
+1-877-216-0852;
+1-877-300-6564;
or +1 (866) 777-8315.