B2B Digital Marketing Strategies that Businesses are missing

 

In recent times, we see that Digital has changed the way we as Individuals think, learn and behave. This is no different for Businesses. If these businesses do not realise this at an early stage then they are up for serious beating from competitors who have understood the same. When it comes to the B2B segment, there are multiple competitors competing to sell a product or service to another business. The most successful B2B brands have embraced the digital transformation, and the very best of them are thriving. But there are certain brands in the market that have ancient Marketing strategies.

From a marketers point of view, there is a common misconception that if a person is good at B2B marketing then B2C marketing is a cakewalk. My question to them is " If you are good at math does that make you good at English?’

Now that I have established that the 2 are different ball games, the marketer working on achieving B2B leads needs to equip himself in skills that are not used B2C marketing.

Yes, you can use a SOSTAC - Situational Objective Strategy Tactics Action Control to build a marketing strategy for both. Yes, you can adopt a RACE - Reach Attract Convert Engage framework to plan your digital marketing practices for both. Yes, you can adopt the various Marketing mix theories like 4Ps, 5Ps, 6Ps, 7Ps, 8Ps and so many more undiscovered factors for both. But if the core business is not understood by the marketer, these theories don’t add value even at the cognitive level while designing a marketing plan.

Lets now look at the best practices of B2B marketing,

SEO

This blog being a personal hobby, I make sure that perform SEO to the maximum extent with keywords, metatags, alt tags, etc. SEO compliant website is equivalent to a well-groomed person.

A great website

As more and more people use their mobile phones to access the Internet, creating a mobile-optimized website has become a necessity.

The first step is to check how your existing website appears on mobile. You can use Google mobile site tester to find this out. If your website cannot currently be accessed on mobile, you can create a mobile version of your website for free with the help of web-based mobile website builders.

How information is organised and presented on your website is vital for good usability. However, this is neglected. It has become even more important today as websites to offer a wide range of information and resources to attract their target market. Plan your website sections and categories carefully and present information in a way that it is easy for users to find.

The average Internet user skims through the content on a web page instead of reading each and every word from top to down. Users tend to scan through key parts of the page quickly to determine if it is relevant to their needs.

It is important to format your content with this in mind. Correct use of headings, sub-headings, paragraphs, bullets or lists helps to break up the text, making it easy for readers to scan.

Good navigation is one of the most important aspects of website usability. Simple HTML or JavaScript menus tend to work best and appear consistent on all browsers and platforms.

It is equally important for the navigation to be clutter-free. Try to limit the number of menu items as far as possible.

The right contrast between the background of the website and content is one of the most basic yet most important web design principles that should never be overlooked. Good contrast between background and text e.g. black text on a white background makes your content legible and easy to read.

SEM Rush is a brilliant tool to analyse your website's performance. Click here to check the product.

Video Marketing

70% of B2B buyers and researchers watch videos on their path to purchase. Business decision-makers love online videos because they’re the fastest, easiest way to get information.

Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10%when reading it in a text.

Some of the persuasion technique that can be used are

Contextual Advertising

What is contextual advertising?

It is the kind of advertising that is highly relevant to the free content consumed on that page or video.

For Example, Placing an ad for a Project Management product on a page or video that is talking about a Management topic.

Contextual advertising can be done in the form of

Social Media Marketing

Each social media platforms attract different minds.

For Example, Instagram cannot be used to advertise or post content about Cloud Computing(At least for now). Whereas the same could be done on Quora.

As per today's (2019) usage and audience in the platform,

If you liked this article please do check out my other ones as well.

Personal Suggestion: You need to know the science of Instagram stories to make them work