When it comes to marketing strategies, there are two main types: b2b or business-to-business marketing and b2c or business-to-consumer marketing. A little known fact is that most large companies use a combination of both types of marketing in their overall strategy!
In this article, we will discuss what makes a good b2b marketing strategy and some tips for creating your own successful one.
Another way to describe marketing is as the process of interacting with customers to promote product use, increase sales, and improve brand recognition. These three goals are often referred to as the mission of marketing.
Marketing includes activities such as advertising, promotions, media relations, and even personal selling. Each of these activities directly affects the other parts of the marketer’s job.
For example, when an advertiser runs a television commercial for a new movie, this action creates publicity that encourages people to go watch it. This increased interest in the movie helps create more business for the film’t he producer, director, and actors!
These things aren’t limited to just products either. A restaurant may advertise their famous chicken parmesan dish or maybe they can tell you all about their newest dessert. Both of these strategies help build awareness of the place and its offerings which hopefully lead to more business.
A marketing strategy is what products or services you will use to reach your business’s goals. It can be as simple as choosing between social media platforms, or it can be more in-depth like creating an ecommerce store or finding new ways to market through digital advertisements.
The difference is that for example, when someone visits your website product pages, there are still parts of the site designed to promote your products (like testimonials and price lists), but what they see is mostly one type of product or service.
As opposed to looking at a site that has only information about one product or company, so people cannot get a feel for how well organized and marketed around a goal the organization is.
This way, if someone was looking to purchase a product similar to yours, their perception would be influenced by the content and features of the site, not if there are pictures or descriptions of just this one product.
One of the biggest questions business owners have is what marketing strategies are effective. Some feel that social media or blogging will not work, while others do not have enough money to invest in expensive advertisements or creative campaigns.
In fact, there is no one foolproof way to market your business! Companies spend billions every year trying to figure out how to effectively advertise their products and services, which makes sense because they want to get results.
That being said, we can learn some helpful information about b2b (business-to-business) marketing from those who have successfully marketed products before. These lessons may apply to individuals looking to start a side hustle or professionals seeking to climb the ladder at their current job.
A marketing campaign is usually defined as any activity that creates or enhances a sense of anticipation about an upcoming event, service, or thing. Marketers use this term broadly to describe anything from creating a new brand to launching a new product line.
With business technology becoming more advanced every year, it’s easy to get distracted by all the different tools and strategies you could be investing in to help your company succeed.
To keep your company afloat, you have to make hard decisions about which technologies are worth investing in and which ones you can do without for now. This article will talk about some cost-effective ways to improve your business technology marketing strategy.
Disclaimer: The content in this article should not be construed as financial advice since there may be additional costs involved with certain tech solutions. We suggest doing your research before making a decision.
A key element in any successful business is knowing how to market yourself or your product. As mentioned before, marketing doesn’t just mean advertising, it can include things like creating content or messages that promote your products and services, developing relationships with other professionals for referrals, using social media to spread your message, etc.
However, all these strategies lack value unless you know what types of marketing are available and which one will work best for your business.
As we have discussed, branding is creating or defining a picture of who your company is and what you stand for. With business to business (B2B) marketing, this process is even more important as it will interact with other businesses!
When companies go about establishing their brands, there are several points they emphasize. These include things such as having clear values, being customer-focused, and keeping in touch with their mission. All three of these apply directly to how well your business’s brand is established.
As a marketer, one of your jobs is to make sure that people understand what your company stands for. This includes both current customers and potential new ones!
It also means making sure that employees know what your company believes in and why it exists. Consistency is very important when promoting your company and its values.
At the end of the day, your job as a marketer is to promote your product and service while reflecting upon and communicating your company’s value system.
The first step in any marketing strategy is defining your target audience or market. Who are you trying to reach with your products and services? This is more than just having an empty mind-puzzlingly difficult!
It’s about asking yourself questions, thinking through answers, and then acting upon those answers. You want to be sure that you have thought of everything possible before determining who your ideal customer is.
When doing so, make sure to think beyond what product or service they already have and whether there are currently alternatives available for them. Rather, ask yourself if there are current alternatives to what you offer and if their current solution can be improved by having access to yours.
You don’t necessarily need to know exactly who your potential customers are at this stage – but you should at least have a good idea. An easy way to do this is to create a word document or spreadsheet and list all of the things you believe define your target market. These could include industry body membership, talking to other members, reading literature, etc.
Once you’ve got your broad brush drawn, you can start looking closer at specific groups within your market. For example, which types of companies tend to use your existing technology? What kind of training and/or certification does their senior staff have? Are there similar industries where your competitors exist?
Combining these two steps will give you plenty of insights into who your potential customers may be.
The second part of b2b marketing strategy development is creating or refining your company’s messaging. This includes things like business goals, value propositions, slogans, and MARTIN LUTHER KING JR DAY! (I know what you're thinking...what?!)
When crafting your messages for and about your product or service, make them personal. Talk about how their experiences are similar to yours or how their products/services help you achieve your goal.
Your potential customers will feel more connected to your brand when you address their needs directly.
You can also use metaphors and examples that relate to yourself. For example, if your company offers training courses for professional services, then using a metaphor such as “professional grade learning materials" could emphasize the quality of its offerings.
Metaphors work because they appeal to our instinctual understanding of concepts. We associate professionally-trained people with high quality education so that idea gets translated into "experts who tell me something important".
Conversational style marketing tips: Use first person plural (we), third person singular (he) and gender neutral language (people). Your ideas come from you, so say those words out loud and clearly.
