What Is B2B Marketing? Here’s What You Should Know

Business-to-Business (B2B) companies need to have a unique approach to drive sales from their customers. Since you are catering to the needs of another company, you need to demonstrate how your products or services will give value to your client’s bottom line.

Hence, your marketing strategy needs to be focused on convincing your client company’s decision-makers that purchasing your products or services can yield a good return on investment for them.

There are certain nuances to B2B marketing and today, we are talking about just that. Let’s get started!

What Is B2B Marketing?

B2B marketing the collective term for all efforts, tactics, and strategies used in promoting and selling to other businesses or organizations. B2B businesses often offer products, services, or software as a service (SaaS) that other companies can use in their daily operations, in their production, or to resell to their customers.

Marketing messages in the B2B sphere are often aimed at people with control or influence on the purchasing decisions of a company. This can include executives, procurement officers, and other individuals who can make purchases in half of companies or organizations.

The B2B market is one that is driven by logic, efficiency, and financial incentive with a longer buying cycle. Since B2B buyers are after long-term solutions, they often have a long relationship with vendors. This means building a strong personal relationship with your clients is crucial.

In B2B marketing, you reach your end goal of putting customers in your sales funnel by highlighting your expertise as a solutions provider. B2B customers want to be educated on how your products and services will make them money.

Some of the most common marketing channels used in B2B marketing are:

• Blogs. You can publish written copy, infographics, videos, case studies, and more. It plays a key role in driving traffic organic to your website and educating your target audience about your products, services, and your niche.
• SEO. B2B buyers start their purchasing journey with a web search so being at the top of search results pages (SERPs) is a great way to generate leads.
• Social Media. Being present on social networking platforms is an excellent way to not only improve brand awareness but also to build trust with your clients and educate your audience.
• Whitepapers and e-books. Downloadable documents that contain valuable information are a great B2B lead generation tool. It not only piques the interest of your target audience, but it also helps establish your brand as a thought leader in your industry. Whitepapers and e-books highlight a problem in your niche and positions your company as an expert on solving the problem.
• Email. Getting your message directly to your customers’ inbox is an excellent way to nurture your leads and help them go further down your sales funnel. With email, you can distribute content, build customer relationships, improve customer retention, turn your customer into brand advocates, improve sales, and provide top-notch customer service.
• Video. This media asset is an excellent tool that can help you attract, retain, and convert new prospects and customers. You can use it to provide product demos, promote your events, share expert interviews, promote your brand, offer a tutorial, and more. What’s more, video is highly engaging and shareable. You can embed It on your website, share it on social media, or use it on your landing pages.

How B2B Marketing Differs from B2C Marketing

B2B marketing differs greatly from B2C marketing. Marketers need to use different branding and communication strategies to effectively convert leads into paying customers. Here are the main differences between B2B and B2C marketing.

Target Audience

B2B marketing caters to the needs, captures the interests of, and solved the pain points of individuals who have a say in the purchasing decision in a company or organization.

In contrast, B2C marketing targets the needs, interests, and pain points of individual customers. They rarely need to consult other people when they want to purchase a product or avail of a service.

Customer Goals

B2B customers are focused on how your products and services can give them an attractive ROI. They put a premium on your brand’s efficiency and expertise in providing long-term solutions for their pain points. They expect marketing materials to show your products and services can add value to their bottom line

Meanwhile, B2C customers want to find the best deals from the most engaging brands. They want to see marketing materials that are fun and that offer the best value for their money.

Purchase Motivation

B2B customers are driven by logic and financial incentive. So, your message should focus on your product’s benefits, how it works, and how it can help your customers make more money.

On the other hand, B2C customers are driven by their emotions. Your messaging should tug at their heartstrings. Your marketing materials should appeal to their emotions, so they become excited to purchase your products.

Purchase Process

B2B buyers tend to prefer working with account managers and salespeople because they deem them knowledgeable about the product or service they intend to purchase. Furthermore, they are looking for long-term solutions for their pain points. This means the sales cycle is longer, so you need to build a good and long working relationship with them.

On the other hand, B2C customers like to purchase directly from the brand.

This can be through a company’s online store or through a brick and mortar. The sales cycle is shorter with individual customers so the marketing goal here is to promote repeat purchases.

Tips For Creating a Successful B2B Marketing Campaign

When it comes to creating a successful B2B marketing campaign, your overall strategy matters more than individual tactics. The specific things you do to market your product or services should be tied to a sound strategy that details your goals and success metrics. Here are the three most useful things you need to create a successful B2B Campaign:

Understand Your Position in the Market

Before you can set reasonable goals and determine the steps you need to undertake to reach them, you first need to have to understand your market and your place in it.

Look at your competitors and identify their strengths, weaknesses, and their positioning in the market. What demographics are they targeting and why? What sets them apart from other service providers in your niche?

Next, look at your own value proposition. What makes your product or service unique? What gap in your niche are you able to fill successfully and how? Is there a specific pain point in your industry that only you can solve?

Identify Your Target Market and Create a Specific Buyer Persona

Knowing who you’re selling to makes it easier to create buyer-specific messaging that will resonate with them and guarantee a sale down the line. Find the answers to these questions:

• Who are the people you aim to reach? Where to they live? How old are they? Are they married? Are they male or female?
• Where can you reach your target customers? Are they always online? Do they spend a lot of time on social media? Can you reach them at networking events?
• What are their pain points and how does your product or service solve them?
• Can you divide your audience into different segments that need to be exposed to different marketing channels and types of messaging?
• Do your competitors target these people as well? How do they respond to the marketing materials they are exposed to?

Set Your Goals

Once you know your place in the market and who you’re marketing to, it’s time to identify the goals you want to achieve with your B2B marketing strategy. Depending on your goals, you can customize the messaging you will use and pick the right marketing channel that will best serve your needs.

Most B2B companies have these goals:

• Differentiating themselves from the competitors
• Telling a compelling brand story that convinces prospects of your ability to solve their pain points
• Equipping your sales team with tools that demonstrate your products and services effectively
• Generating leads
• Nurturing leads
• Increasing customer retention and building deep and lasting customer relationships.
• Cross-selling and up-selling to existing customers
• Raising brand awareness and increase ng your visibility in the market
• Testing new channels and approaches

Regardless of the goals you need to achieve, you need to make sure that they are SMART—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based.

Start Your B2B Marketing Strategy Today

When it comes to B2B marketing, having a strong understanding of fundamentals is already half the battle. Once you understand what marketing to other companies entails, figuring out the specific steps will become easier.

But if you’re a little bit overwhelmed or if digital marketing just isn’t your strongest suit, the B2B marketing experts on the FreeUp marketplace can help you out.

We have freelancers who can help you in developing tactics that fit with your B2B marketing goals. Whether it’s coming up with compelling social media copy, writing or editing your whitepaper, or coming up with an SEO strategy that will put your brand at the top of the SERPs, hiring a dedicated freelancer can boost your B2B marketing strategy.

Sign up today for a free account to get introduced to a freelancer in just one business day!