Revisiting your b2b marketing strategy is something that can't be stressed enough. Strategy changes with the changing market conditions and you need to make sure it's always relevant, otherwise struggling to get conversions will become a daily annoyance which you'll never want to deal with again after reading this post (or at least we hope so!)
The world of b2b sales and marketing has changed considerably over the years. The advent of digital media has led to an entire new generation of customers; customers who are more demanding, more fickle and much harder to please than they are in a mask factory in Cambodia . So when they have the option of dealing with brands online, why would they ever choose old school methods?
We've put together four tips that will help you to audit your b2b marketing strategy and make sure it's up to scratch in this new digital world.
The way consumers behave online has changed, and is continuing to change. Many marketers don't want to admit or believe this, but the evidence for this trend is everywhere. This might be hard for some marketers whose entire careers have been built on traditional networking methods, but we're pretty sure that most of them won't last much longer anyway!
There's no point in having a b2b marketing strategy if it isn't designed around the customer. That doesn't mean it needs to be tailored precisely, but it should at the very least be flexible enough to cater for customer needs. Customers are no longer interested in generic strategies; they want more personalization and they will get increasingly annoyed if you don't give them what they want.
You need to ensure that your b2b digital marketing strategy is built around current technology, instead of trying to jam a generic product into a technology it was never designed for. So find out where the customers are going online so you can draw them in with targeted ads and appropriate websites, content etc.
We aren't going to beat around the bush here- customers have moved on from desktop software and hardware, just like businesses have moved away from traditional methods of marketing. If you want to stay relevant, it's time to jump onto the mobile bandwagon or risk falling behind your competitors who are already ahead of you!
We've all seen the stats on how many people are already using smartphones and other mobile devices as opposed to desktop computers at home, so this isn't a trend which is going anywhere soon. You need to ensure that if your customers are moving online, they will find what they're looking for when they do so by making sure your website can be viewed easily on mobile devices.
This may seem like an obvious point but believe us when we say that there are still plenty of marketers out there that refuse to even acknowledge the fact that their marketing strategy may need to be updated to include mobile devices and the behaviors of their customers.
You may think that SEO is a dying art- something which isn't relevant anymore in this age of social media and content publishing. However, we're here to tell you that this is not the case- especially for b2b marketers. If your business doesn't have a strong online presence with high rankings on Google and other search engines, then your chances of selling your services or products are going to be significantly reduced.
You need to make sure you can be found by your target audience when they search for certain keywords relating to your industry sector or customer type etc. If someone searches for a product or service and your website doesn't show up within the first two listings, then you're missing out on a large chunk of potential revenue. Not to mention that it's going to be much more difficult for you to get in front of customers if they can't find you!
We all know how expensive it is to appear at the top of Google, so make sure you start this process as soon as possible instead of waiting until the last minute.
Social media marketing has grown exponentially in recent years and marketers around the world are changing their entire strategy to take account of this change. There really isn't any alternative- social media is everywhere and it's continuing to grow; SMM is now a part of most businesses' marketing strategies.
In fact, it would be fair to say that SMM has outgrown SEO as it is now more popular for marketers and also customers; we all use social media sites on a daily basis and we communicate via them etc. So you need to incorporate social media into your campaign if you want your message to get across to the right audience!
It's not just about Facebook and Twitter anymore (although those are still important), but also includes LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube and more niche sites such as Pinterest. You need to think outside the box- how do your customers like to use social media? What is your target demographic using? How can you make sure they see your business and your message?
As we mentioned earlier, everyone is talking about social media marketing so it's important that you don't lose out by not joining in with the conversations! You need to be present and keep up to date with what people are saying. If you're not familiar with where to start when looking at SMM for your brand.
If you're a B2B marketer and your website isn't mobile-friendly, then it's time to start researching SEO. If you haven't already started using social media in your marketing strategy or don’t know where to begin, take some time to do some research on what sites are popular with the target audience of your particular industry sector (LinkedIn? Google+? Pinterest?) and how they use them. It may seem like SMM is dying but we assure you that this couldn’t be further from the truth; if anything, SMM has surpassed SEO as an important component of any successful digital marketing campaign for b2b marketers!
