As a B2B company, you may believe most of the digital marketing techniques that are popular right now only work for B2C businesses. This simply isn’t true. Your B2B brand can leverage every single digital marketing tactic B2C companies use to see big results.
Invest in a Quality Website
Seventy-five percent of all consumers, including B2B buyers, admit to judging a company by its website quality. You don’t need to spend tens of thousands of dollars, but you should continually update styles and functions in order to engage potential buyers.
One important tool many businesses lack is a mobile-optimized site. This is absolutely crucial, because:
Unfortunately, only 42% of companies have a mobile-optimized website.
Your site should also have modern design and a thorough—but easy to use—navigation system. Take advantage of white space so your pages don’t appear crowded or disorganized. These design elements will give a great first impression, but don’t stop there.
Pay Attention to SEO
With good search engine optimization, your website becomes your most important marketing tool. Sixty-eight percent of online experiences begin with a search engine. With good SEO, your site will be found.
Keywords and relevant search phrases are the cornerstone of a good SEO strategy. Short phrases may be hard to rank with, as you’ll fight your competitors for top results. Long-tail search phrases will reach buyers who are closer to making a purchasing decision than those who are just starting their search with simple keywords—and you’re less likely to compete for them.
Keywords are important, but they’re not the only thing you need. Google expects fresh, quality content, and will often drive those results to the top of the rankings. Fresh content could be blogs, landing pages, or updated static pages. Daily changes get the best results. At least three updates per week is advisable.
Google also gives preference to faster sites, and so do buyers, so conduct speed tests often. In fact, even a 1 second delay in page response can result in 7% fewer conversions.
Other boosts to SEO can come from meta data, such as titles, meta descriptions on images and video, and a keyword-rich description on each page.
Content Marketing
Your website content, blogs, social media posts, published articles, videos, and any other words you share—however you may share them—serve to educate your buyers so they know the exact benefits they receive from purchasing your products or services.
More than half of all B2B consumers read at least eight pieces of content during the purchase process, and 82% view at least five pieces of content before buying. If you don’t provide the information, your potential buyer will go somewhere else.
You need a plan. Sixty-nine percent of B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. Map out the content your buyers need, how to deliver that content, and where your buyers will read it. Your content should be created with every stage of the buyer’s journey in mind to reach buyers at every stage of the decision-making process.
And remember, before you decide to just buy more ad space: 80% of business decision-makers prefer to read an article over viewing an ad.
Pay-Per-Click
On average, B2B researchers do twelve searches before engaging on a specific brand’s site. Organic keyword searches are great, but you can also give those results a boost by showing up very first in the promoted section of the results.
Remember, you’ll see an immediate increase in traffic, but the numbers may not match your expectations. Potential buyers will search an average of twelve times and click on your website several times before they make the decision to engage. A retargeting strategy can help you drive those buyers back to your page.
Social Media Advertising
PPC is a powerful tool, but it’s not your only paid advertising option. Eighty-four percent of B2B marketers use other paid distribution channels for content marketing — 65% of B2B companies have acquired a customer through LinkedIn paid ads.
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter may not be the best for B2B social ads, but you can definitely increase awareness. Rather than giving the hard sell with these consumer-focused outlets, consider sharing fun content to gain exposure. When decision-makers see your ad on LinkedIn, they will recognize your brand.
With a focused digital marketing strategy, you can see incredible results for your B2B brand. If you’d like to know more, check out Your Marketing Road Map , a book specially written to help small busines owners and executives, understand in easy, simple concepts, graphs, and charts, what marketing is, its components, and the power it has to increase customers and accelerate sales.
About the author:
Liz Papagni is a leading brand and marketing strategist and CEO of Marketing Initiative Worx, Inc. As a marketing expert, she has launched and propelled brands for a range of clients, from Fortune 500 companies to small emerging businesses, developing killer brand strategies and marketing plans that take her clients' businesses to the next level. Liz serves as a Fractional CMO for companies that need the marketing strategy, planning, and execution a full-time Chief Marketing Officer and marketing team brings, but at a fraction of the cost. She is also a speaker on the topics of marketing and branding, and provides regular educational articles, tips, and how-to's on her Marketing Insights blog at marketingiw.com.
