Finding the right B2B marketing strategies to connect with, engage, and convert your audience is easier said than done.
Just like B2C consumers, B2B businesses are constantly evolving, embracing new trends and showcasing different priorities. This means business leaders need to be innovative and informed to stay ahead of the game, or they need the assistance of a B2B marketing expert.
While there are countless different ways to promote products and services—from B2B inbound marketing to B2B influencer marketing—not all strategies will pay the same dividends.
Today, we’re going to look at the best B2B marketing strategies companies should be investing in right now, based on the emerging trends of the landscape.
12 B2B Marketing Strategies You Should Use
We chose these 12 B2B marketing strategies based specifically on the buying preferences and trends in the current marketplace. Here are our top strategies for 2024:
1. Create an “Intent Funnel” for Your SEO Keywords
B2B content marketing is one of the top tools businesses use to capture audience attention, boost thought leadership, and increase engagement. Approximately 91% of B2B businesses already use content marketing regularly to connect with their audience.
The great thing about content marketing for B2B brands, is that it allows you to showcase your knowledge of an industry and strengthen your position on the search engines. However, to get the best results, you must ensure you’re using the right keywords. Outsourcing your content marketing to an expert is always an option to focus on core business activities while ensuring your content strategy is in capable hands. Similarly, working with companies that write business plans can enhance your strategic positioning.
Rather than focusing just on the keywords your customers search for when they’re at the end or beginning of their buying journey, the best solution is to target clients at all different states of intent. This means you can effectively guide your customers through the purchasing funnel with your content. For instance, here’s what your strategy might look like:
- Top of the funnel: Tactical and informational keywords, like “How to use a social media marketing platform”. They help customers to research and gain knowledge.
- Middle of the funnel: Terms intended to help customers make the right decision on which products to use, such as “The top 10 social marketing tools”.
- Bottom of the funnel keywords: These keywords focus on converting an engaged customer. For instance, an example might be: “Buy social media tools”.
2. Leverage Emotion in Advertising
While there are some differences between B2B and B2C marketing, a need for emotion isn’t one of them. Many business leaders producing B2B content marketing strategies and campaigns follow the misconception that B2C buyer journeys are emotional, while B2B transactions are logical.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Science tells us that virtually all buyer decisions are connected to emotional elements–even those made by businesses. While your B2B clients might be more interested in case studies, facts, statistics and proof than your B2C audience, they’ll also want to feel an emotional connection to your business.
Adding emotional concepts like storytelling into your B2B campaigns can help you to connect with your audience on a deeper level, increase conversions, and drive loyalty. For instance, take a look at “The Heist: Cautionary Tales” video from BLP.
The video highlights a number of real-life regulatory issues that the company’s target audience could relate to. The engaging, emotional, and interesting video content captured the audience’s attention and forced people to take notice of otherwise “dry” or “boring” topics.
3. Get Dynamic with Personalized Content
Countless analysts, from Gartner and Deloitte to the Salesforce team, have defined “hyper-personalization” as one of the key trends emerging in every landscape during 2022. Every customer, including both B2C and B2B buyers, want more experiences that feel tailored to them.
With this in mind, one of the best ways to improve your B2B marketing strategies is to make them more specific to each user with which you want to connect. While you can’t constantly cater your website to the behaviors of different companies, you can use “dynamic” assets to change the advertising elements your visitors see.
For instance, an app or add-on for your Shopify or WordPress store can allow you to showcase unique pop-ups and offers based on products customers might have purchased in the past. You can create pop-up offers for different customers, which only appear on certain website pages, making them more relevant to the content the client is interested in. This is where partnering with a specialized B2B website design agency can make all the difference.
Other ways to use dynamic content might include:
- Providing different offers based on a user’s location
- Changing ads based on the referral source of the visitor
- Delivering unique messages via pop-ups based on customer intent
The dynamic content you create will help you to create a more engaging and specific experience for your audience through every stage in their purchasing lifecycle.
4. Leverage User-Generated Content and Case Studies
Over 92% of B2B buyers say they’re more likely to make a purchasing decision after they’ve read a trustworthy review. Ultimately, every business buyer wants to see proof that the product or service they’re investing in will deliver results. User-Generated Content (UGC) is the best way to deliver the peace of mind most business leaders seek.
There are various great ways for companies to use UGC as a way of boosting their credibility. They can share simple reviews and testimonials across social channels like LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. While using UGC, you can also rewrite it for better clarity. This can be done manually with a tool that can rewrite text for you. Alternatively, they might post customer video testimonials and interviews on YouTube or publish stories about their successes on their website.
One of the most effective forms of UGC for B2B brands is the case study. Countless B2B brands use case studies to highlight the exact problems they’ve solved for organizations in the past, helping them to connect with their target audience.
RingCentral, a leading communications company, even allows users to search through case studies by industry, allowing for access to more relevant content.
5. Invest in Analytics and Testing
As mentioned above, one of the biggest challenges B2B businesses face today is knowing which B2B marketing strategies they should use. There are countless ways to connect with a potential audience in today’s landscape, from B2B influencer marketing to social media and email marketing. In fact, 37% of brands are already increasing their budget for email marketing. However, different strategies work better for different companies.
The only way to really know whether a B2B campaign is delivering growth is to measure it. Investing in tools for effectively analyzing the results of B2B marketing campaigns can be extremely useful for today’s B2B business leaders. For instance, you can use Google Analytics to track where the majority of your customers come from across different channels.
Companies can also dive into the analytical features offered by social media channels to track things like the level of engagement between different groups from various locations or demographics. You can even A/B test your email campaigns to see which generates the most clicks and opens. And there are certain tools, like Dealfront, that can pull from a wide variety of data to ensure that you’re targeting the right customers from the start.
When it comes to facilitating rapid growth, every B2B business should be focusing on constantly checking, evaluating, and tracking their campaigns. Additionally, partnering with experienced B2B marketing companies gives you access to their specialized skills in developing and executing high-impact B2B content marketing campaigns.
6. Try B2B Influencer Marketing
Working with influencers is often a strategy most people connect with B2C advertising. However, B2B influencer marketing can be extremely valuable too. On average, lead generation campaigns endorsed by micro-influencers on LinkedIn generate a conversion rate up to 20%. What’s more, these strategies are more effective at attracting leads too, particularly if you use a lead management tool like Refrens.
Influencer marketing campaigns are an excellent way for B2B brands to demonstrate their credibility to companies who may not know them yet. Working with a well-known expert from your industry shows you as being more trustworthy and reliable.
Companies considering this strategy also don’t have to spend a fortune on working with major celebrities or CEOs as micro-influencers have proven to be effective.
7. Use a Referral System
One of the best ways to increase the number of leads you collect with your B2B marketing strategies is to have your existing customers do some of the work for you. Around 83% of customers say they’re open to referring a business to another contact after a successful purchase. What’s more, 78% of B2B referrals create viable leads for a business.
Unfortunately, only around 3 in 10 companies in the B2B landscape have their own formalized referral strategy. Building referral strategies into your marketing efforts is a fantastic way to capitalize on the happy customers you already have. However, you may need to look into exciting ways of incentivizing your customers to refer other clients.
Since B2B buyers are often busy people, they need to get genuine value in exchange for using their time and effort to promote your business. For instance, Google’s referral program gives partners up to $23 for every new Google Workspace user referred using a dedicated link.
Even a small gift, like a discount on a subscription renewal or a bonus such as a gift card, can significantly affect how many referred clients you receive for your company.
8. Expand Your Content Marketing Strategy
Countless B2B marketing strategies involve some form of content marketing. After all, around 80% of online customers appreciate the custom content created by a business which helps them learn about products, or fix certain problems.
While a blog with plenty of thought leadership content can be an excellent foundation for your marketing campaign, it’s important to think about more than just written text. In today’s evolving landscape, a B2B content marketing strategy should aim to connect with consumers on multiple different levels. For instance, you can consider:
- Video marketing: You can attract up to 3 times more inbound links to your website, and increase the time visitors spend on your website by 2.6 times just by adding small videos to your blog posts and articles. Simple videos are also relatively easy to create thanks to a host of online creation and animation tools.
- Podcasts: Around 90% of people who listen to a podcast listen to most of an episode, while most people only watch around 12% of videos. Podcasts are an excellent way to reach out to your B2B customers, because they’re easy to consume at any time, even when your clients are driving to work or doing simple tasks like answering emails.
- Interactive content: Engaging your customers with quizzes and interactive campaigns isn’t just a good strategy for B2C marketing, it’s great for B2B audiences too. You can create interactive flipbooks, quizzes and surveys which help your clients choose the right solution for their needs from a range of products you offer.
9. Create a Mobile App
Mobility is on the rise among B2B companies. As hybrid workers and virtual assistants continue to emerge, many businesses are doing more of their research on their smartphones while they’re on the move. Creating your mobile app could be an excellent way to take advantage of this trend.
Around 78% of B2B companies now believe B2B e-commerce mobile apps and mobile devices are crucial to the future of their industry. You can use your apps however you like to boost engagement, increase repeat sales, and unlock new opportunities, including WhatsApp commerce, mobile ordering platforms, and mobile CRM solutions.
For instance, Asana and other Asana alternatives have a mobile app where users can manage their projects while on the move, but the app can also provide insights into product upgrades and services customers might be willing to purchase. You could even integrate your mobile app with your referral strategy, allowing customers to access special links and generated dynamic QR code to share with colleagues when they want to promote your business.
Mobile apps from top-rated mobile app development services can also feature push notifications, so you can send your customers special offers and discounts at certain times to increase their purchases. For instance, in your mobile app development process, you might use your CRM system to detect when a customer’s subscription is about to end, then send them a mobile nudge to let them know they can get a discount on their renewal.
10. Use Training Resources for Marketing
Part of being successful in B2B marketing is remembering that retaining customers is just as important as finding them in the first place. According to Salesforce, 74% of customers will likely switch brands if the purchasing and onboarding processes are too difficult.
Most of today’s B2B buyers don’t have a lot of time to waste on learning how to use a new service or tool. They want to buy a product after knowing how to use it. Implementing client onboarding and training resources into your B2B content marketing plan can greatly increase your chances of higher sales.
Start by speaking to your onboarding and customer success teams about the issues your customers commonly face when leveraging your services. What do they need the most help with, and where do they see the most immediate value?
Using this information, create a range of webinars, blog posts, and other forms of content you can share on your website, complete with step-by-step images and instructions. Whenever someone interacts with your sales team or considers buying one of your products, you can give them these resources with an automated email campaign.
In the meantime, the extra content on your website will help enhance your SEO strategies and make it easier for customers to understand what your service can actually do.
11. Leverage Technology for New Experiences
Today’s marketing world is evolving at a phenomenal pace. Today’s companies don’t just have access to things like email and social media marketing anymore. The pandemic has pushed us towards an environment where countless immersive interactions can take place online, opening the door for better brand loyalty and conversions.
With this in mind, companies looking into new B2B marketing strategies should consider experimenting with different forms of technology. For instance, you could add an AI chatbot with conversational intelligence and natural language processing capabilities to your website to walk your customers through the process of choosing the perfect service or product.
It’s also worth looking into the realm of extended reality. Virtual reality, mixed reality, and augmented reality can give companies a new way to help customers test and demo their products without the need for face-to-face interactions.
For example, DP World, a global trade company, helps businesses transport goods around the world. To provide insight into their services and generate trust, the company created a VR tour of their facilities for customers to explore. The 360-degree content experience shows people how efficient and safe the DP World processes can be, allowing for increased credibility.
12. Invest in Psychology
Finally, one of the most effective and overlooked B2B marketing strategies companies should consider today is the art of “neuromarketing”. For decades, there has always been a strong connection between the psychology landscape and the marketing industry.
To connect with customers on a deeper level and drive personalized, engaging experiences, companies need to understand how their customers think and feel. Neuromarketing or consumer neuroscience involves researching the potential factors which influence B2B purchasing decisions and building campaigns around those concepts.
The key to effective neuromarketing is gathering as much information from your B2B clients as possible. Leveraging tools like AI for sentiment analysis and heat mapping on your websites, as well as in-depth analytics and reporting services, can help you understand the B2B buyer journey a little better. This can assist in the creation of psychologically-driven sales and marketing efforts.
For instance, you may discover the most significant factor which encourages someone to purchase your product or service is a sense of trust. By adding reviews and testimonials, as well as trust symbols and certifications to the checkout page, you can leverage this trust to boost conversions.
Notably, you’ll need to consistently invest in your analytics and insights to make sure your strategies are actually working. However, if you can leverage psychology correctly, the results can be phenomenal for any B2B business.
FAQs
What is B2B Marketing?
B2B marketing is the term used to refer to the methods companies use when trying to attract business buyers to their products and services. Unlike B2C marketing, which focuses on capturing customers, B2B marketing forms deeper connections and relationships between companies.
For instance, an example of B2B marketing might be an evergreen webinar produced by a business to capture lead information from other companies interested in social media marketing. The social media advertising company would create a landing page where users could sign up with their email address to attend the webinar. After receiving these email addresses, the company can then send nurturing messages which increase the chances of an eventual conversion.
What are the most common channels for B2B marketing?
B2B marketing strategies come in a range of different shapes and sizes today. The most common areas for most businesses to invest in include B2B content marketing and B2B social media marketing, which can also include influencer campaigns. Other popular areas include B2B referral marketing, email marketing, and B2B video marketing.
What is the best social media platform for B2B?
LinkedIn has long stood out as the most effective social media platform for collecting B2B leads. According to the official marketing blog produced by LinkedIn, around 80% of B2B leads for some of the world’s top companies come from the LinkedIn platform. However, as the buying journey continues to evolve, many B2B businesses are also taking advantage of other platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and even TikTok. Twitter is also popular among B2B brands.
Using the Best B2B Marketing Strategies
The best B2B marketing strategies help you capture the right leads for your B2B organization and strengthen your relationships over time. With some of the methods above, you’ll be able to reduce your cost per acquisition for each new customer, generate a sense of trust among your B2B buyers, and increase average order value.
What’s more, the right B2B marketing strategies can also convert B2B leads into advocates for your brand, who can help you to find more clients in the future.
Toptal connects you with top freelance B2B marketers to guide your B2B strategy or help you navigate specific channels or tools. Get hand-matched with these pre-vetted consultants within 24 hours!
