17 Untapped B2B Marketing Strategies For 2021

A Definitive Advisor On 17 fruitful B2B Marketing Strategies

Introduction

Welcome to the world of marketing!
Studies show that from the total world data we have today, about 90% of it belongs to only the past two years. Thanks to the advancement in technology which has completely changed the way we ruminate, acquire knowledge, act and shop. Business- to- Business sector is not an exception.

When it comes to B2B marketing, almost all the business owners commit the mistake of following the same marketing and sale strategies as were prevalent in the 1990s just because they reaped fruits. But, with the change in time, you need to advance your strategies so that they work effectively. All the B2B buyers these days have access to all the required information via a tiny screen kept in their pockets. Even with this widespread proliferation of Internet all round the globe, B2B buyers feel that purchasing is one of the most tiresome, time consuming and tedious tasks.

Now is the time to bring about a change!!

Many experts, who have been on the top rows when the matter is of B2B marketing transformation already know very well how to succeed and what all practices wouldn’t work. They share their insider knowledge with other business owners so that they can take a lead. Here, we bring to you some of the best, yet untapped B2B marketing strategies which will help your business to reach to another level.

A marketing strategy basically guides you towards a fool- proof plan to raise brand awareness and customer loyalty regarding your goods and services as well as the ways to attract potential buyers. It is quite a long journey which begins at identifying the tools and channels which you will be making use of throughout your way of getting from one to many others.

This guide has all the proven, tested and true strategies for B2B marketing aimed at identifying the productive market segments and the ideal customer profile as per your business. If implemented well, they will also make way for the right and best marketing channels through which you can generate leads.

Is B2B same as B2C

Business to Business Marketing, abbreviated as B2B marketing is the term used for marketing of one firm’s goods and services to other organisations or businesses. It is not the same as B2C marketing in any ways. B2C is largely customer oriented, with prime focus on convincing the customer to make the purchase.

Speaking in broader terms, another point of differentiation between B2B and B2C business is that of level of information passed on. B2B marketing should be much more informative as well as straightforward as compared to B2C.

The main reason behind this tactic is that the purchase decisions of a business vary a lot than those of individual consumers. The primary focus of any business firm while making purchases is the Return on Investment (ROI). Whereas, on the other hand, consumers, as an individual, rarely care about this factor.

In the modern world of corporates, B2B marketing aims at selling their products or services to buying committees at large, which have a significant number of stakeholders. This leads to the formation of a challenging and complex landscape. But, the good news is that with the coming of the Internet, data sources have become all the more accurate and robust. Therefore, mapping buying committees is no more a tough task. Any business can easily spot buyers and know all their relevant personal information.

Who should go for B2B marketing?

Softwares and computers are absolutely hand in glove with each other in the 21st century or the digital era. And where computers are concerned, nobody needs to panic as any problem or issue can be solved with just mere efforts, thanks to the ever improving and helping computer technology.

Almost all the companies have switched their businesses over to computers that has helped them to reach another level. But without softwares, computers are a million pound treasure that has been set in a circle of ever blazing fire. That’s why many companies, organisations and institutions have started this business in which they rent or sell softwares to other companies that pay for them on either monthly or yearly basis.

The system which has been leading in the past few years in this field is B2B. With it’s marvellous infrastructure, B2B has been successful in producing the most massive growth ever witnessed. It’s infrastructure follows the basic yet fruit-bearing principle of marketing and selling/renting computer operating softwares in return for money.

Not only softwares, but many other things like security solutions, tools, accessories, office supplies etc. can also be traded effectively through B2B marketing strategies.

The main focus of B2B marketing campaigns are those individuals or firms who either have a control over or influence the decisions regarding purchases in some or the other ways. This definitely encloses a large number of functions and titles, ranging from researchers at low- level to C- suite.

Making A Strategy: All you need to know

Companies often suffer from competition from each other. Each company has to make sure that their level of service is higher than that of other companies’ services.

B2B is also engaged in this competition. As we all know, any work done without careful thinking is determined to fail. So, executing plans, strategies and schemes is indeed a task to worry about even for big companies.

Presented below are some of the points to consider while making a strategy, whose magnificent execution will simply work wonders for the company:

Step #1: An overreached vision

Before making any decision, it is of utmost importance that you have a clear vision regarding your main objectives. These objectives should be measurable distinctly specified. The next step involves laying out a framework which explains how your strategies are inclined towards achieving those objectives. Therefore, you need to have an overreaching vision while devising B2B marketing strategies.

Step #2: Defining the buyer and the market

All B2B organisations must cater to this step seriously. It is commonly observed that products of B2C businesses are sold to a wider and generalised set of customers. On the flip side, goods and services of any B2B firm have to be sold to a very distinct customer base, that too with different needs and challenges. The best way to come in contact with those customers is by narrowing down the list as much as you can, which will make the communication effective and impactful. What you can do is develop a dossier related to your ideal buyer persona.

For this, you will need to do some research in the field of demographics, take interviews of others in the industry and analyse your customers.

Step #3: Identification of tactics

Once you are aware of your customer persona, the next step is to find a way to reach them. Also, you will need to see where these customers and prospects are located. All the hard work which you did in the last step will assist you here. What follows is a list of questions which you should be able to answer. These questions are all related to your existing customer base and prospects.

On which platform do they spend most of the time while online?
What are the doubts and questions they ask from the search engine?
What all social media sites do they prefer the most?
What are the ways by which you can fill up the competitive gaps left by other firms working in the same industry?

Step #4: Make people aware about your business

Now that the entire plan is ready in your mind, the time has come to execute the same with consciousness and care. Some of the most important and critical aspects which should be incorporated in your campaigns are:

A message
Useful insights
Creative approach
Strong CTA (Call To Action)
Sophisticated targeting

Step #5: Analyse and Improve

This, the last tab is a never ending process which keeps you on the right track. Putting it in simpler terms, what we mean here is that you need to find out why your good content is fruitful and the reasons why the bad content isn’t good. By this you will be able to make and implement better decisions regarding the effort and time you are putting in an activity. All this depends upon your continuous guesswork until you find out what’s best for you, which has helped you gain the maximum engagement and helped you in generating leads.

Classification of B2B marketing

There are many different types of B2B marketing channels which you need to be aware about.

Blogs

Blogs can be considered as a centrepiece for most of the content teams. If you regularly update your blogs, it will help you gain inbound traffic towards your site and enhance organic visibility. You can incorporate a large number of content formats in your blogs- like infographics, written copy, case studies, videos and much more.

Search

Google’s algorithm changes quite frequently and same is the case with SEO best practices. This makes it quite tricky a space for B2B to work in. These days, the main focus has been on searcher intent signals rather than on keywords and metadata.

Social Media

There should be a proper mix of paid as well as organic. Social networking sites provide a platform where you can reach and engage with your potential customers where they are active. These channels are frequently used by B2B buyers in order to search for potential vendors.

Whitepapers/eBooks

These are standalone assets which are also downloadable and contain valuable information. They can either be gated i.e. requiring viewers to give their contact information or perform any other action) or ungated. This is the most commonly used tool for lead generation.

E-mail

E-mails are not going to lose their importance anytime in the near future despite its waning effectiveness in the times of inbox shock and spam filters at work. Some B2B marketing professionals also make use of LinkedIn and InMail to overcome the hurdles posed by overloaded inboxes of their recipients.

Videos

This type of content can be included with every other format earlier discussed- like emails, social media, blogs etc, but when used individually by B2Bs, it has proved its worth.

The Untapped Strategies

Here are 17 untapped B2B marketing strategies that are definitely going to work wonders for your business.

#1. Write guides

The best content formats for any B2B business are definitive guides. Research shows that long contents, like guides, enjoy a large number of shares over the Internet. Another benefit of guides is that they contain all the relevant information as well as hit all the . B2B decision- makers do not have to go here and there for information. They prefer ‘one- stop shopping’. Also, creating a guide is not as tough as you might think. All you have to do is take the content from different blogs and combine them.

#2. Weekly Newsletters

Email newsletter on a weekly basis helps you to grow brand awareness, drive enormous traffic, generate lead, launch and sale of new products and much more than that. When you send a newsletter at the same time each week, people tend to expect emails from you. Therefore, sticking to a regular weekly schedule for your newsletter is extremely important.

#3. Create data- driven pieces

Videos, blog posts or podcasts are quite common formats which everyone uses. To make a mark, you need to use something different and less- competitive, which is exactly what is data- driven content. Some of the things which you should incorporate in a data- driven content of a B2B marketing strategy include surveys of people engaged in your industry, top ranking companies etc.

#4. Keep a check on your site’s SEO

The main sources of traffic for a B2B business is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). So, your focus should be on keywords, content, blacklinks. But, more than that, priority should be given to regularly keeping a check on the situation of your site’s SEO.

#5. Use LinkedIn

Undoubtedly, LinkedIn is one of the best platforms for B2B marketing. To attract traffic, all you have to do is keep on posting super engaging posts, especially from that of your employees. The simple reason behind this is that people are more likely to interact with people than with brands. Your posts on LinkedIn will definitely receive more attention than your posts on any other social networking site.

#6. YouTube Channel

Studies show that videos contribute a lot in getting leads to the marketers. Video marketing of a B2B business can be effectively done over YouTube. Most decision makers prefer YouTube to learn about digital marketing, supply chains, invoicing and many other topics related to B2B.

#7. Comparison Blog Posts

Comparative blog posts including ‘Vs’ are a great way of capturing the attention of B2B buyers. This blog should include pros and cons of both the parties, but at last should be in favour of one. Many people know what they need but they’re confused from where to get that. Comparison posts will help them in making decisions.

#8. Tangential content

The content which is not connected to your industry in any way is known as tangential content. This type of content marketing will help you in getting more traffic, black links and social shares.

#9. Coin your own terms

If you coin your terms and phrases, whenever people mention those terms, your brand awareness gets a boost. Some of the terms like sales funnels, buyer personas, webinars, marketing automation etc were also coined by somebody which must have helped them gain popularity.

#10. Split Testing

The best strategy for B2B marketing has always been split testing, only if done effectively. Test out some changes in your landing page after which you can go with smaller elements like copy, page layout, button colour etc.

#11. Existing content should be repurposed

Most of the B2B businesses spend about half of their budget on content, which has to be used only once and all your resources get wasted. Therefore, you need to repurpose your content. For this, you can turn your blog posts into attractive videos. Video content can be made into episodes of podcasts and podcasts into stories. Concludingly, better ROI can be achieved if you practice repurposing your content which you have created.

#12. Choose keywords wisely

Searching keywords for your SEO content is not as tough as selecting the best ones. There can be many metrics on the basis of which companies decide keywords for themselves. One very common metric is monthly search volume. B2B businesses only have a small group of buyers whose attention they need to seek. Therefore, focussing on only buyer- intent keywords works best.

#13. Be up to date

Most of the B2B businesses have very opd content posted up, which only collects dust on their blogs. It is obvious that outdated content will never have a top position in Google. People who visit your page, see those old posts might not want to sign up with you, leaving a bad impact on your business. The only solution you are left with is to keep them updated. When the volume of content and number of posts is significantly large, updating the text can be tedious and time consuming, but at the same time, it’s worth your time and efforts.

#14. Practice Retargeting

One of the best ways to attract all those who once visited your pages is retargeting. Show advertisements to all those who visited your landing page within the past 3 months or else you can also practice a bit complicated kind of targeting by tailoring some advertisements to present a specific page someone visited.

#15. Partnership with other businesses

Partnerships are one of the best strategies for B2B marketing firms. Coming into partnership with other firms is advantageous in terms of more leads and referrals, more than ever brand awareness, reduced costs of marketing, strategic relationships and much more.

#16. Write for influencers working in your field

An important truth you all must know is that all the B2B customers generally lack popular blogs. Moreover, they don’t even have a large follower base. This simply implies that they are not going to spread the word about your business among their audience. Here comes the role of all those folks who can genuinely link to your content as well as has the capability to share your content. Develop content that appeals to such Linkerati.

#17. Visual content

Whenever you come across this term ‘visual content’, the first thing which strikes your mind is infographics. That’s not entirely wrong. These also work in some of the cases, but except infographics, there are certain other types of visual contents as well- like charts, animated GIFs, drawings, sketches, flowcharts, visualisations etc. Visual content has always proved to be the perfect and best strategy for B2B marketing. Topics of B2B tend to be quite boring as well as complicated. Therefore, to simplify things up and make them all the more interesting, visual content plays a great role.

Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed going through this entire blog and gained something by these 17 strategies mentioned here. Now, your chance to chime in. Keep on experimenting and trying out these strategies. Discover what works best for your business and what doesn’t. Let us know your reviews in the comment section. We will be glad to hear from you your success stories after implementation of these strategies.