If you want to improve your digital marketing strategy for B2B clients, you’re in for a treat. This comprehensive guide to B2B digital marketing will provide you with all the necessary knowledge to effectively market to other businesses. By learning essential strategies and exploring real-world B2B digital marketing illustrations, you’ll be well-equipped to create successful B2B marketing campaigns swiftly.
B2B Marketing
The term “B2B marketing” refers to the act of providing goods or services to other businesses rather than to individual consumers.
B2B digital marketing involves companies that operate as suppliers, manufacturers, service providers, or content creators, who specifically target B2B audiences. To illustrate, if a SaaS (software as a service) company offers cloud computing solutions to other businesses, they actively participate in B2B digital marketing.
The objectives of B2B digital marketing include:
- Introduce your brand to other companies,
- Promote your product or service to them,
- Demonstrate how it will benefit their business, and
- Convert them into paying customers or clients.
Put simply, the primary objective of a B2B digital marketing strategy is to foster the growth of your own business through facilitating the growth of other businesses.
B2B Digital Marketing Strategies
Begin by acquainting yourself with these nine B2B-specific digital marketing strategies and practices, which will help you get started.
1. Determine your brand positioning
In order to begin marketing, establish a brand identity that effectively communicates a message that connects with your intended audience. What is the story behind your brand? What sets it apart from other brands within the same industry? And how does it address the challenges faced by your potential customers? Effectively conveying your unique selling proposition (USP) is the initial stage in increasing brand recognition within the B2B sector.
2. Identify your target audience
After understanding your brand’s story, the next step is to determine the audience who will be most receptive to it. Essentially, who is your target audience?
To effectively engage B2B digital marketing target audiences, it is crucial to comprehend the needs and concerns of decision-makers and influencers in various industries, including business owners, executives, and senior managers. Crafting content that directly addresses these aspects is paramount in establishing connections with them.
3. Segment your market
In order to maximize your marketing efforts, it is necessary to segment B2B markets that are not uniform. By segmenting, you can customize your content and messages to accommodate the unique needs and expectations of each group. Segmentation can be based on factors such as industry, size, or location. Alternatively, you can utilize demographic information to develop buyer personas for every segment.
4. Run a competitor analysis
In order to create a successful B2B digital marketing plan, it is essential to have knowledge about your competitors’ activities. Conducting a competitor analysis will help you determine the strategies and tools they employ, as well as their level of success.
By monitoring their website and social media channels, you can observe the trends they are adopting and gain insights from both their achievements and blunders. Conducting research on competitors helps you recognize market voids and uncover advantageous prospects to exploit.
5. Create a USP for each target market
Having already discussed your brand’s unique selling proposition, it is equally important for every target market to possess its own distinctive selling point. This entails crafting custom messages that cater to the specific needs and expectations of each segment, such as emphasizing the benefits of your offering for a particular industry or sub-industry. By doing so, you increase the likelihood of engaging diverse audiences.
6. Explore different marketing channels
There is a wide range of digital marketing channels to choose from, including email, SEO, social media, and content creation. Each channel possesses its own effectiveness, hence it is crucial to test various strategies in order to determine the most suitable one for your needs.
In a B2B context, the following is a concise overview of the most favored digital marketing channels worth exploring.
Content marketing
This entails producing extensive content like blog posts focused on the industry, white papers, and case studies to educate potential customers about the advantages of your B2B service. It is a form of inbound marketing that leverages thought leadership to attract and involve potential customers in an informative manner rather than a sales-oriented approach.
Social media marketing
Utilize popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to effectively connect with a vast audience of potential customers for your B2B business. Leverage these platforms to share valuable content and real-time updates, interact with followers, and foster relationships with prospective clients. Being consistent in posting informative material is crucial in maintaining prominence among your specific target market.
Email marketing
Even though email marketing is a long-standing digital marketing channel, it remains impactful for B2B companies as it enables the communication with multiple potential clients and timely distribution of updates regarding products or services. By utilizing segmentation, you can guarantee the relevance of the content sent to each specific target market.
Video marketing
B2B video marketing involves a broad array of tactics, including live streaming, webinars, and brief promotional videos. Videos are utilized for various purposes such as educational materials, launching products, sharing customer testimonials, and more. It’s worth noting that the current trend focuses on concise video content, such as Instagram stories, YouTube tutorials, and other easily digestible forms of content.
PPC advertising
PPC advertising, also known as pay-per-click advertising, enables purchasing ads on search engines or other platforms for reaching desired customers. Utilizing paid search, display ads, remarketing campaigns, and social media ads can help in targeting an audience already interested in your offering. This proves especially beneficial in catching the attention of potential customers who are in later stages of their buyer’s journey.
Affiliate marketing
To generate website traffic and leads, this marketing strategy incorporates collaborating with influencers, affiliates, or other businesses in your field using paid or organic methods. For a mutually advantageous association between your company and the affiliate, it is crucial to establish efficient affiliate programs and allocate profitable commissions based on their performance.
7. Use search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO is a crucial digital marketing strategy for B2B that should not be overlooked. It entails enhancing your website to achieve higher rankings in natural search results, which is achievable by employing various practices such as technical optimization, content creation, and link building. SEO is a strategy that requires a long-term commitment and encompasses a diverse array of techniques.
B2B Marketing Trends to Watch in 2023
In 2023, the Blog team at HubSpot conducted research to identify the primary concerns, possibilities, and endeavors that B2B marketers are concentrating on.
1. Generating leads and traffic is the top challenge for marketers
Generating more traffic is the primary concern for everyone in the upcoming year. According to our 2023 Industry Trends Report, marketers ranked lead and traffic generation as their most significant obstacle, with hiring skilled professionals and adjusting their marketing strategy following closely as the second and third top concerns, respectively.
In light of upcoming changes and the possibility of an economic downturn, it comes as no shock that 17% of marketers are anxious about adapting their marketing approach. When combined with rising competition and financial limitations, it is evident that marketers will face significant challenges in 2023.
2. Marketers anticipate struggling to keep up with trends in 2023
The pace at which marketing trends evolve is rapid, hence it is understandable that the surveyed marketers expressed their top concern for 2023 as keeping up with these trends. Alongside dealing with intensified competition, harnessing the potential of CRM systems, and the necessity to adapt marketing strategies were also listed as imminent concerns for marketers.
3. Social media marketers report ‘creating engaging content’ will be their number one challenge in 2023
In 2023, “creating engaging content” is considered the top challenge by 22% of social media marketers.
As social media becomes increasingly popular among businesses, the competition for customer attention has become intense. In order to differentiate themselves and effectively attract potential customers, businesses have had to assess their unique qualities and find ways to engage with their target audience more effectively. In the next section, we will explore the different formats that marketers have been using to enhance their marketing strategies.
4. Marketers leverage video the most
Video is the top choice for 50% of marketers when it comes to marketing formats, closely followed by images, which are favored by 47% of marketers. Among various formats such as images, blog posts, podcasts, and case studies, video stands out as the most effective in terms of providing ROI.
The popularity of video is projected to continue growing, with 1 in 3 new users planning to utilize this format in the coming year of 2023.
5. Influencer marketing was the trend leveraged most this year
Due to the pandemic, there has been a significant change in consumer shopping behavior, with a majority of people now preferring online shopping, particularly on social media platforms. Consequently, B2B marketers aim to establish influencer partnerships to ensure their products or services are prominently featured on social channels.
By the end of this year, the influencer marketing industry is expected to reach a value of $13.8 billion, and there are no indications of it losing momentum. A significant 71% of B2B marketers intended to allocate more resources to influencer marketing in the current year, a decision that appears wise considering its anticipated growth in 2023.
Nevertheless, it is important to exercise caution when selecting partnerships. Even though it may be enticing to collaborate with influencers who have a large following, numerous companies have discovered that working with micro-influencers yields better outcomes. Hence, it is imperative to thoroughly investigate and identify which influencers possess genuine rapport with your target audience.
6. Facebook leads in ROI, but other platforms are gaining popularity
According to our 2023 Trends Report, Facebook emerged as the top marketing platform in terms of both popularity and return on investment (ROI). From the marketers surveyed, 18% expressed their intention to prioritize investments in Facebook, closely followed by TikTok and YouTube, both receiving 16% of the respondents’ interest.
Although Facebook remains the top provider of ROI, there is an increasing trend in investing on other platforms. Marketers anticipate significant growth on YouTube by 2023, as 91% of those utilizing it plan to boost their investments.
Some activities are simpler to measure the ROI of than others. For example, tracking the ROI of a social media advertising campaign becomes easy when monitoring sales generated from a Facebook ad. Since sales are a measurable outcome, Facebook’s Ad Manager provides a convenient way to track the ROI accurately.
7. The number one goal for marketers in 2023 is increasing revenue
Knowing the objectives of other B2B marketers is crucial in formulating a successful marketing strategy for 2023. To gain insight, it is important to understand that the primary focus for B2B marketers in the upcoming year will be enhancing revenue and sales, whereas increasing brand awareness, which was previously a high priority, will now be ranked third.
The main objectives of marketing:
- Increase revenue
- Improve customer experience
- Increase brand awareness
- Increase engagement
- Improve brand loyalty
In 2022, approximately 50% of B2B marketers emphasized the importance of ‘enhancing brand awareness’ as their top priority. This focus on brand awareness is essential as it plays a crucial role in establishing trust, fostering long-lasting customer loyalty, and building brand equity. Consequently, numerous marketers perceive it as an indispensable factor for achieving enduring success.
8. This year marketers stopped leveraging podcasts and audio content, while others stopped implementing VR and AR
It is equally important to understand what marketers do not intend to do as it is to understand their plans. This can assist in establishing guidelines for oneself and ensuring the adoption of effective marketing strategies instead of investing time and resources on all potential options.
According to HubSpot’s Blog Research, a quarter of marketers are planning to cease using podcasts and audio content, closely followed by 23% who have intentions to stop utilizing VR and AR.
While these activities may not necessarily be inefficient, they do indicate that some survey participants deemed the time, effort, and resources invested in them as not worthwhile. Ultimately, the value of these endeavors depends on the preferences of your target audience.
