5 fundamental B2B digital marketing strategies for driving growth
And no, setting up a website and inactive social media accounts doesn’t cut it. Now more than ever the importance of deploying digital marketing strategies can’t be underscored.
Brands are gaining substantial visibility, tapping into new market segments, and communicating with prospects using channels the latter preferred.
So, if you’re still testing the waters or doing the bare minimum to keep up with the competition, it’s time to go full throttle. Online marketing isn’t going anywhere, but brands that refuse to embrace the methodology might.
Having said that, there are multiple lead generation strategies touted as worth investing in, making it hard to know where to begin. Let’s tackle some fundamental ones to get you started.
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Work With Data
Today’s customers are masters of self-research preferring to remain anonymous longer in the purchase cycle until they feel ready.
This pretty much leaves vendors at the “mercy” of the buyer. Without analytical data, you have no way of knowing who’s checking your site or content so you can nurture the relationship.
Thanks to analytical data, businesses can study a visitor’s digital body language and glean useful insights about their likes and dislikes. They can use these insights to improve their customer profiles, personalize communication and win over new or repeat customers.
Now, this data can be generated internally, available publicly, or paid for. Before choosing a source, we recommend clarifying what you need the data for.
Is it to increase sales, boost customer loyalty, or improve your knowledge of customer needs? With this covered, you can then determine the best way to source this data.
Further, data-driven marketing allows teams to identify which approaches (channels, content, and times) are more effective.
Rather than deploy multiple activities, you use data analytics to filter the least effective so you can double down on the ones that work. And after that, measure the results.
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Content Marketing
Here’s what most organizations do: determine that they need to create content, delegate the task to one person (perhaps two), and leave it at that. The staff in charge thinks up an idea, writes the blog, circulates it to their teammates for comments, and edits before publishing the post.
This person comes up with another idea or gets one from someone on the team and repeats the process. It’s all very haphazard and hardly the stuff that truly gets the audience’s attention.
For a strategy that’s foundational to attracting leads and boosting growth, jumping in without a clear and expressly documented plan may lead to inefficiency. Worse, you’ll waste manhours on content that doesn’t address the real issues your customers face or bring you closer to attaining your goals.
To maximize your content strategy, you’ll need to
- Identify your target audience
- Determine the questions your content seeks to answer and your overall goal for engaging in content marketing
- Clarify how you intend to differentiate your content from what’s out there
- Agree on content formats and distribution channels
- Put together an editorial calendar with realistic timelines
- Determine how to measure your strategy’s success
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Cold Calling
The 21st Century cold calling tactic isn’t about barging into people’s lives—there are laws that protect the unsuspecting public from that.
But regulations aside, those who want to succeed in this field must understand that effective cold calling isn’t about driving a hard sell.
It’s about building trusting relationships over the phone. Personalising your script so the prospect feels more at ease and opens up to conversing with you.
Here’s how to build trust
- Create an insider perception. Research the prospect’s industry, common lingo, and what your prospect’s top competitors are up to. Have a solid grasp of your products/services’ abilities and limitations then share in the “prospect’s language” how your solutions can benefit their brand.
- Leverage past customers’ stories. Have you served customers who had similar pain points? Share their stories briefly to help create relatability and prove your expertise, without sounding arrogant or boastful. Offer to send a case study (or two) for their perusal.
- Be an active listener. By listening we don’t mean sitting too still as the prospect speaks, they’ll wonder if you’re still on the line and imagine you’re ignoring them. Chip in with grunts, “ahs” and relevant questions, and recap important points to confirm you’re both on the same page.
- Never lie. When you’ve got pending quotas and a boss breathing down your neck, it’s easy to overstate your solutions capabilities. You’ll likely lose the prospect; word will go around and your reputation will be damaged. Rising from there will be a headache.
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Video Marketing
Over 90 percent of video marketers accredit video to greater brand awareness and lead generation, higher website traffic, and a better understanding of products/services. A further 87 percent state that video marketing helped boost sales—aka business growth.
Video isn’t just great to consume and neither should it be just another SEO tactic in your overall marketing program. It’s fundamental in all stages of the sales cycle.
Here are video types worth exploring
- Explainer videos. Amusing and captivating explainer videos (especially animated ones) are perfect for communicating tons of information about your brand and solutions. You can also use them to impart difficult concepts concisely.
- Product videos. Illustrating your solutions’ features, benefits, and how they work allows you to speak to those on the edge of deciding and win them over. That, in addition to showing customers how to maximize usage.
- Customer Testimonial videos. Building credibility in the eyes of new prospective customers can be. How can they be sure that what you say is true? Testimonial videos and success stories allow existing customers to share their experiences, backing up your claims.
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Market Segmentation
The above tactics can only be successful if you direct the right message to your prospects. It’s easy to have multiple leads but zero engagement simply because the message you’re communicating doesn’t appeal to them.
Segmenting potential customers allows you to zero in on specific common traits and personalize marketing messages to improve relevance and incline prospects to listen.
There are multiple ways to segment customers, including the following:
- By firmographics. Classifying prospects according to their size, location, or tech stack is particularly useful for marketing campaigns that pass information. We recommend combining this segmentation type with intent data to increase campaign effectiveness.
- By tiering. Tiering separates prospects based on the value they can bring. The ABM utilizes this strategy to point out key accounts that staff can direct their energies toward to maximize conversions.
- By need. This segmentation type is more subjective than most, focusing on potential buyers’ motivations, personal values, content interests, and decision-making criteria. It helps teams align their strategies with those of the prospect to improve conversion.
