1 January 2024 by Angela Knox
So you have a product or service, you’ve formed a company, now you have to spread the word and sell it.
But before you can sell, you need to identify and really understand your target audience/s, and how you’ll get your story across to them.
Hopefully you will have seriously considered and identified who your target audiences are and how they break down into segments before you developed and launched your product.
That way you will be able to plan your strategies accordingly and make sure you are adopting the right approach for each audience segment.
Check out buyer/audience personas as well - these are pen pictures of your audience and the detailed characteristics of your buyers. I find that with new products/services these will evolve over time, as you find out more about your actual customers when you have sold some product.
So now you’ve done all of that, it’s time to form a go to market strategy - essentially how you’ll present your product to the market, the tools you need, how to create your brand and show it in the very best light.
Tough to do if you’re just starting out as there are countless strategies and tactics to choose from when it comes to promoting your products or services.
With so many options available, it can be challenging to know which approach will work best for your business.
Here’s a short list of some of the most effective B2B marketing strategies to build into your marketing plan:
- Content Marketing: Creating helpful, informative content that speaks to the pain points and challenges of your target audience is an effective way to attract and engage potential customers.
Providing free, valuable information and insights for your prospects is the best way of building trust in your business, and bringing returning visitors to your website who will ultimately turn into buyers.
The content can include blog posts, downloadable ebooks, white papers, videos, podcasts and any other types of content which are relevant to your business.
You need to have an effective and easy to use contact form and lead collection mechanism to go with it, linked up to a CRM system - my personal favourite is Hubspot, which is an extremely comprehensive and multi-faceted tool; there’s also Convertkit which is simpler and even has a free version.
Whichever systems you choose to use must be workable for you so you can get the best outcome, and also don’t forget the GDPR compliance aspect.
- Account-Based Marketing (ABM): ABM is a strategy that focuses on targeting specific accounts or companies rather than individual leads.
This can involve personalised messaging and targeting efforts to key decision-makers within the target accounts.
Often in large businesses there are several different people who have a say in which products are ultimately purchased, and your job is to reach as many of these individuals as possible by using a multi-faceted approach.
A CFO’s opinion, for example, is likely going to be based on price, whereas an HR manager who wants to buy a piece of software to help with psychometric testing of potential recruits might have a different view, as they need to have confidence in the efficacy of the system.
So you will have to juggle to manage the communications to each of the individuals within an organisation, and be prepared for the long haul when it comes to the sales cycle within these types of businesses.
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): Correctly optimising your website and content for search engines will help you to rank higher in search results and drive more organic traffic to your site.
You need to develop an understanding of meta tags and keywords as a basic starting point, and aim to build as many backlinks to your site as you can (that’s a separate topic on its own with volumes of free information available online).
Things like easily loadable images (with alt tags) and plenty of video content also help you to move up the search rankings, and if you’re technical check out your core web vitals and be sure to set up your Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts to help you on the way.
- Social Media Marketing: Using social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube to promote and amplify your brand, share content, and engage with potential customers is an essential step to engage with your target audience, build relationships and generate leads.
Developing a strategy for this from day 1 is key, and using one of the many software tools to help you keep on top of the need to post and plan content will make the process more efficient.
If you choose Hubspot as mentioned above, you will be able to use their social posting and planning tool, and there are plenty of other systems like Buffer, Hootsuite and my latest favourite Hypefury (for Twitter).
- Email Marketing: Email outreach is a powerful tool for nurturing leads and keeping your brand top-of-mind with potential customers.
Personalised, targeted email campaigns can help you to stay in touch with your prospects and customers and provide them with valuable content and offers.
As you build your own prospect list from the contact forms on your website you can build sales funnels, using emails to nurture them through the funnel, building awareness and trust in the process - and creating long-term relationships that will last way into the future.
Again there are many tools available and software aplenty - keep checking my blogs for content on this topic.
- PR: Building longterm relationships with key journalists and correspondents should be a key part of your strategy, and in B2B markets there are often a few key verticals which you can focus on, and over time build up your own list of contacts.
Earned media is the most valuable kind, as it carries more trust, and once published your features have a permanent presence and shelf life.
Go out of your way to learn how to communicate with your media contacts so that you can present your press release information to them in a way that will make it easy for them to feature your story.
Be brief and succinct, but answer the key questions in your release - who, what, where, when, and why?
Above all, keep track of all your mentions and featured articles, add backlinks to them on your website and always thank the journalist; you can keep in touch with them so you can send future updates and aim to get regular coverage. Ultimately you need to be regarded as an expert in your field, and a key spokesperson the journalist will feel comfortable coming back to for comments when they need input.
This is a whistle stop tour of some of the important strategies you will need to adopt when launching your business. Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to B2B marketing. The most effective strategy for your business will depend on your specific goals, target audience, and industry.
That said, testing different strategies and tactics is key to finding what works best for you. By tracking and analysing the results of your marketing efforts, you can refine your approach and stay ahead of the competition.
Ultimately, the key to success in B2B marketing is to put yourself in your customers' shoes.
What do they need? What are their pain points? How does my product or service help them?
By answering these questions and delivering valuable, helpful content, communications and solutions, you can build trust, establish authority, and ultimately drive more leads, sales and profits for your business.