Top B2B Marketing Strategies for a Positive ROI in 2020
In the blog, we’ll discuss B2B marketing in particular. Here you’ll learn what B2B marketing is, who is the target audience, and the best marketing strategies to earn a positive ROI in 2020.
Effective marketing depends on a lot of various factors. From a limited budget to creative demands, multiple marketing channels, and the target customers, it’s challenging to determine the perfect set of ingredients for a perfect recipe.
Your target audience is the most significant determinant that influences your marketing strategy. If your marketing campaigns don’t resonate with your consumer base, encouraging them to perform your desired action, then your advertisements may as well be falling on deaf ears.
In the blog, we’ll discuss B2B marketing in particular. Here you’ll learn what B2B marketing is, who is the target audience, and the best marketing strategies to earn a positive ROI in 2020.
What is B2B Marketing?
B2B stands for business-to-business, which implies that B2B marketing strategies are directed towards business owners instead of individual consumers. It allows B2B businesses to promote and sell their products or services to other companies and help them in their day-to-day operations.
At the surface, B2B marketing may seem much like B2C marketing that targets the average population. However, the two are vastly different in strategy planning and execution.
B2B marketing is created to attract business executives, procurement offices, and other representatives to make purchasing decisions for their organisations. These individuals are trained to follow the logic and financial incentives, like a positive return on investment (ROI), increased productivity, and efficiency.
An effective B2B marketing strategy will help in not just attracting the audience but also in educating and retaining them.
Who are B2B Customers?
B2B customers can be categorised into different types. For understanding the marketing strategies for B2B businesses, it’s essential to understand the kind of customers you are trying to attract:
- Companies selling to other companies
These companies offer products and services to other organizations, helping them optimise their operations for increased productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.
Government agencies are the most significant B2B buyers. From security software and technologies to stationery, fuel, weapons, medical services, and more, they procure them all.
For manufacturing companies, wholesale retailers are the target audience. An effective B2B marketing strategy will help you persuade wholesalers to buy your products and services and distribute them within their global market.
Healthcare service providers, civic clubs, religious organizations, and other non-profit and for-profit institutions are customers for businesses, like pharmaceutical companies.
That said, your marketing strategies need to align with your buyer personas as well as account for the different stages of their buyer’s journey:
Prospects are aware they have a problem or opportunity at hand.
Prospects have understood the problem and are looking for a solution.
Prospects have decided on the solution and are researching vendors before making a purchasing decision.
Each stage influences your marketing strategies and how you execute them.
B2B Marketing Strategies to Boost Your ROI in 2020
You can divide your marketing strategies into separate categories, depending on the channel you use. Each marketing channel helps achieve different marketing goals, including customer acquisition, engagement, or retention.
That said, here are B2B marketing strategies that you should consider for a positive ROI in 2020.
Email Marketing
Unlike B2C customers, business representatives making purchasing decisions are not influenced by emotional sentiments. They look for logic and financial incentives, like a higher ROI. They ask questions like how can your product or service help their business grow.
For that reason, email marketing strategies targeting the B2B market need to highlight factors like time, money, and resources.
What to focus on when composing attractive, engaging, and delightful emails:
- Make email subject lines catchy and attractive for the reader to open the email
- Include one call-to-action to encourage subscribers to take the next step.
- Segment your email list to target the relevant audience.
- Make responsive email templates that offer an exceptional user experience on any device.
- Try out cold emails too that are direct and to the point.
Effective email marketing strategies can encourage engagement and visitors to leads and then customers.
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing comprises of search engine marketing that is search engine optimisation and pay-per-click marketing that gets your website ranking in the search results. To strengthen your digital marketing strategies for B2B businesses, here’s what you should do:
- Identify the target market.
Determining the demographic and psychographic data of your buyer persona will set the outline for your marketing strategy.
For digital marketing to be effective, you need to have an online address where consumers can visit and engage with your brand. It’s also where they can learn about your products or services before making a purchasing decision.
- Optimise for search engines
To make your website visible to the target audience, you need to optimize your site for search engines. SEO strategies help here!
Unlike SEO, PPC campaigns are a type of paid advertisement that helps your brand reach new audiences via search engines and other advertising channels.
Tip: To get the most out of paid campaigns, consider your buyer’s persona and where they are in their buyer’s journey and writing content they can relate to.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is the best way to fulfill the needs of B2B buyers looking for expertise, logic, and desire to learn. It not only provides informative content that educates readers on your products or services but also helps your SEO marketing.
Approximately 80% of B2B buyers make their purchasing decisions after researching information in review articles than advertisements.
However, a B2B buyer’s journey is different than B2C buyers. For example, instead of viral content infographics for the attraction stage, you need checklists, white papers, and industry reports to take your B2B buyer into the consideration stage.
How to Choose the Best Marketing Strategy?
I hope the blog helped in understanding B2B marketing strategies to raise your ROI in 2020. The next step is devising the approach that works best for you. There are plenty of marketing and advertising firms that can help with strategic planning and execution.
You can find industry-leading names based on client reviews, quality of work, and other parameters on platforms like Top Firms that help B2B buyers to make informed decisions. (You can also consider the blog as an example of content marketing for TopFirms).
So, find your marketing consultant, and boost your reach for a positive ROI in 2020!