Bonafide Marketing Genius

Online Marketing for B2B in North Texas

In this digital age, businesses and organizations of all sizes are realizing the benefits of social media marketing (SMM). As a result, more and more people are dabbling in online marketing. If you’re looking to venture into the world of B2B online marketing, here’s a comprehensive guide to help you succeed.

Understand The Industry

If you’re new to the field, it’s essential that you understand what makes up B2B marketing. Simply put, B2B marketing is the marketing methodologies that companies use to promote their goods and services to other businesses. The main types of B2B marketing are:

  • traditional print and offline marketing
  • email marketing
  • web traffic
  • search engine marketing (SEM)
  • social media marketing (SMM)
  • video marketing
  • podcasts
  • referral marketing
  • brand awareness
  • product reviews and many more

Depending on your product or service, you may lean towards specific types of B2B marketing. For example, you could promote your SaaS product through SEM or email marketing, or you could use videos to communicate the value of your managed service provider (MSP) to potential customers.

Once you’re familiar with the different types of B2B marketing, you can begin to understand how they all work together to create an effective marketing mix. For example, you could leverage your web traffic to drive leads to action and convert them into paying customers via SEO or SEM. Or you could use social media to generate brand awareness, drive traffic to your site, and boost your conversion rates.

Decide On A Game Plan

Just because you’ve decided to venture into the world of B2B marketing doesn’t mean that you have to wing it. Instead, you can use the basics of marketing to form a solid foundation for your business. To ensure that you execute the right strategy, set a goal for each phase of your plan and track your progress regularly. Deciding on a game plan also gives you something to work towards, which in turn, helps you stay motivated.

Determine Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

When it comes to measuring the success of your B2B marketing plan, there’s no substitute for key performance indicators (KPIs). The better your KPIs, the better your strategy. To that end, you’ll need to decide what you’re going to measure and track regularly as part of your marketing plan. Some examples of KPIs that you can use to gauge the effectiveness of your B2B marketing strategy are:

  • unique visitors
  • pageviews
  • conversions (i.e. leads, calls, and sales)
  • social shares
  • video views
  • purchase behaviors (i.e. trial, engagement, and revenue)
  • leads generated from online channels
  • cost per acquisition (CPA)

You’ll also need to set a target for each KPI you track. For example, you may decide to track the number of unique visitors monthly to see how it’s progressing, or you could use Google Analytics to track the video views on your YouTube channel.

Develop A Budget

Budgets are a necessary evil in any industry, and they’re especially crucial in the field of B2B marketing. Without a budget, it’s nearly impossible to know how much you’re spending on each phase of your marketing campaign, which can make or break your plan. That’s why you need to develop a budget for your B2B marketing strategy. You may want to set a weekly, monthly, or annual budget based on your spending habits and industry. Having a budget also prevents you from spending frivolously on things that don’t necessarily contribute to your success. For example, paying for ads that don’t return value or engaging in unnecessary social media activity.

Determine The Niche

If you’re looking to get serious about marketing, it’s time to pick a specialism. If you can become an authority in your niche, you’ll be able to command a higher fee and gain more respect from clients. To do so, it’s important to narrow your focus and hone in on a specific segment of the B2B market.

There are dozens of niches within the field of B2B marketing, from account management to sales enablement, from marketing analytics to programmatic ad buying, from web design to digital marketing. Take some time to really think about what makes your particular industry stand out – what are your competitors doing that you can do better? From there, you can craft a strategy to take advantage of the unique qualities of your product or service.

Create Key Offers

In the world of B2B marketing, key offers are a special type of marketing collateral that usually accompanies a major marketing campaign. The purpose of a key offer is to entice the reader to click through and make a purchase. Typically, a key offer will be accompanied by a highly persuasive offer that compels the reader to click through. For example, maybe you’ve developed a special coupon code that discounts the price of a product by 20%. Or maybe you’ve got a limited-time offer for a free trial of your SaaS product (i.e. HubSpot Analytics).

Depending on your product or service, you may want to create and distribute special offers as part of your B2B marketing strategy. You may want to create multiple key offers for different segments of the B2B market – such as procurement professionals, marketing managers, and so on.

Use Technology Wisely

With each new generation, more and more businesses are discovering the power of digital marketing. To ensure that you get the most out of your digital marketing efforts, you need to use the right technology. To do so, you need to be familiar with the following:

  • search engine optimization (SEO)
  • pay per click (PPC) advertising
  • social media marketing (SMM)
  • video marketing
  • marketing automation (i.e. HubSpot)
  • email marketing (i.e. HubSpot)
  • affiliate marketing
  • content creation (i.e. HubSpot)
  • market research (i.e. HubSpot)
  • product reviews (i.e. HubSpot)
  • product pricing (i.e. HubSpot)
  • and many more

Knowing how to use these technologies effectively will not only help you build a solid foundation for your business, but it will also streamline the execution of your digital marketing strategy and boost your productivity. For example, using SEO to gain a top position for your online store will not only drive traffic but it will also make you more attractive to prospective customers.

Use Measurement Wisely

As you develop your B2B marketing strategy, you’ll want to track your progress regularly and measure its effectiveness. To do so, you need to be familiar with the following:

  • analytics
  • data mining
  • web traffic
  • social shares
  • referrals
  • brand awareness
  • and many more

Depending on your budget and available resources, you may want to track a few key performance indicators (KPIs) or you may want to track dozens. Whichever it is, make sure that you have the means to track and monitor each KPI to ensure that you’ve got a clear picture of your progress. Analytics can help you track the performance of your different platforms (i.e. social media, blogs, and so on) and monitor the effectiveness of your strategy.

Tracking and measuring the effectiveness of your B2B marketing strategy is not an easy task. However, getting started is a whole lot simpler than you’d think. With a little bit of planning, research, and some focused work, you can put the pieces in place to generate the results you’re looking for.

Author Bio:

Holly Hamilton is a freelance writer and editor specializing in marketing, digital marketing, and e-commerce. She has worked for several digital marketing agencies helping to grow businesses through content marketing and SEO strategy.