How to make the best of your B2B marketing strategies.
The best ways to customize your B2B efforts to maximize your reach.
There are major differences between marketing to B2B clients and B2C customers. Here are some things to consider when establishing or reassessing your B2B marketing plan and online marketing strategies.
The Differences You Need to Know About B2B vs B2C
One of the key ways to understand the B2B marketing strategies that are best for your business is to understand the differences in reaching B2B and B2C audiences. Some companies reach both markets, while others have products or services that only apply to one or the other.
One of the biggest differences is in the way products are actually purchased. A B2C transaction is usually a simple, one click purchase from an ecommerce site, a one-time phone call, or a purchase at a cash register. B2B purchases usually involve different people from different departments who all have some stake in the purchase. Understanding what group or role in a business you’re targeting when you’re talking about your product helps to create the right language and marketing messaging.
Another difference is how customers pay. While lots of businesses will finance a B2C purchase, it’s a much more regular process to set up lines of credit in just every kind of B2B purchasing. To increase sales, you can call out easy financing or payment options that you offer to B2B customers.
Understanding these fundamental differences is a good first step towards creating the best B2B marketing strategies for your business, and using these differences to create B2B advertising is a necessary part of any good B2B digital marketing campaign.
Listen to Your Customers
Another important marketing step you can take is to make sure you’re listening to your customers. Your marketing messaging should be heavily influenced by what your user base and target audience want to read about, watch video on, or purchase for their company.
The best way to find out what your customers want is to ask them. Customer surveys in emails are a good starting point in soliciting feedback. What do customers like about your product? What do they wish they’d known before they bought it? What are some of the challenges they’re having in their business in general? Getting to know your customers is a really important step in establishing B2B marketing campaigns.
You can also utilize market research to learn more about potential customers you haven’t reached yet, and learn more about their business challenges and what they expect from a product or vendor. Once you have feedback, you can decide how to incorporate it into your B2B marketing tactics to have the biggest impact.
Use the Right Channels
It’s important that your content says the right thing, but it’s also important that it’s distributed in the right place. The right B2B marketing channels make all the difference. B2B and B2C consumers are, by and large, consuming news, reviews, and other information in different places. You want to meet your customers where they’re at. LinkedIn is one of the best B2B channels, followed by Twitter and YouTube, according to SproutSocial.
When you’re making decisions about how to market your business and creating your B2B marketing strategies, make sure you consider the differences between marketing to B2B and B2C customers, as well as understanding both what your customers need and where to find them. Your sales might benefit from for the extra attention and effort.
