B2B Digital Marketing Guide: 11 Top Strategies For B2B Companies

If you’re a B2B (business-to-business) organization, you need to invest in B2B online marketing to stay competitive because 56% of B2B businesses are already using digital marketing to their advantage.

Before exploring online marketing tips and strategies, you should understand what online marketing means for B2B businesses. And how digital marketing benefits B2B companies, to better understand why you need it.

What is B2B Digital Marketing?

B2B digital marketing is the online marketing strategy to promote your business to other organizations. If you promote products online to other businesses instead of individual customers, you’re using B2B digital marketing.

Here are some channels you can use for your B2B digital marketing efforts:

• Your business website
• Content Marketing
• SEO (search engine optimization)
• Social Media Marketing
• Email Marketing
• PPC (pay-per-click) advertising

How Does B2B Marketing Differ From B2C Marketing?

In the B2B space, your target audience is other businesses, but in the B2C (business-to-consumer) sector your customers are individuals, not companies or other businesses.

B2C marketing and B2B marketing are the same in many ways, like the online advertising platforms you use. But the strategies to market your business are quite different.

Here are the key differences:

• You have to convince multiple stakeholders in B2B marketing, but in B2C, there is a single decision maker.
• You need logic and have to highlight financial benefits like ROI (return on investment) for B2B purchase decisions/
• B2B businesses have longer sales cycles because of multiple stakeholders and complex & large purchases.
• You need a sales team and account managers for B2B sales, while B2C customers purchase directly.

What Are The Benefits Of B2B Digital Marketing?

B2B digital marketing can help you communicate the value of your product or service effectively and increase online sales and brand awareness of your business.

Other B2B digital marketing benefits also include:

Precise Targeting

You can use B2B online marketing to precisely target an audience that is highly likely to convert. You can target potential customers based on their online activity, firmographics, and demographics.

Also, retarget individuals who visit your website or interact with your online advertising. This is the opposite of traditional marketing, where you target a broad audience and the advertising costs are high.

Target Stakeholders Throughout The Buyer Journey

B2B marketing has a longer buyer journey, so you need to target potential customers multiple times throughout the buying process to convert them.

You can do that using an online sales funnel marketing strategy and reach them at the start of their buyer journey when they are looking for information.

Later, you can use different types of online advertising to move them down the funnel. The goal is to keep them engaged until they convert.

Measure Your Results And Adjust As You Go

You can measure your B2B marketing campaigns and results. You can use tools to track metrics like engagement, traffic, and conversions. This can be used to track what is driving conversions and give you ideas to increase sales.

You can also track your results to adjust your B2B online marketing strategy to improve your overall performance, conversions, and return on investment (ROI).

Metrics For Measuring B2B Marketing Success

To determine your B2B business growth, you can track metrics and set key performance indicators (KPIs). They will help you understand if you’re going in the right direction and where you need improvement as a B2B business.

Here is a list of metrics you should track:

Conversion Rate

The percentage of online visitors who make a purchase out of the total number of visitors is your conversion rate. They are the people who interact with your marketing campaign and end up buying.

It’s a metric for measuring the effectiveness of your B2B business in achieving its goals. A higher conversion rate indicates a more successful online marketing campaign.

Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is a metric that measures the revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising. It’s a key performance indicator (KPI) for individual digital marketing campaigns and annual marketing spend.

This helps B2B businesses assess the effectiveness of their ad spend. A higher ROAS indicates a more profitable campaign.

You can calculate the ROAS by dividing the revenue generated by the total cost spent on online business marketing.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total cost a company spends to gain a new customer. B2B businesses can use it to understand the efficiency of their sales and marketing efforts.

By calculating CAC, you can assess the profitability of your customer acquisition strategies and identify areas for improvement.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a prediction of the total revenue a business can expect from a single customer over the course of their relationship with the company.

You can use it to determine if your marketing efforts are bringing in valuable customers or not. This will guide your customer acquisition and retention strategies.

You can target a different audience or change your marketing tactics to increase profitability. Here is a simple formula you can use to calculate CLV: average sale value x retention period x number of transactions

11 Digital Marketing Strategies For B2B Companies

With the basics away, here are 11 B2B digital marketing strategies you can use to get new customers and drive revenue:

1. Specify Your Business Positioning

You need to understand your brand positioning before executing your B2B marketing strategy. The goal is to position your B2B brand in such a way that you stay at the top of their minds.

You have to highlight your unique business identity so customers can remember your business. When you have an improved brand image, you will see an increase in brand loyalty and more lead generation.

Having an understanding of your brand position will help you market your B2B business using messaging that resonates with your potential customers. Also, work on your online reputation management strategy for better results.

2. Understand Your Target Audience

You need to understand who your target audience is. This will help you better market your brand and create B2B campaigns that resonate with your target audience.

You have to segment buyer personas to maximize conversation and return on investment (ROI) to better target your potential customers. A CRM (customer relationship management) software can help you with that.

These buyer personas will help you create personalized marketing campaigns and address customer pain points by positioning your brand as a solution.

It is also a good idea to know how to get more Google reviews to make your business look trustworthy.

3. Make Your B2B Website User-friendly

A well-designed and user-friendly website can help you leave a good impression of your B2B business on potential customers. Also, the content on your website should address customer pain points.

If your B2B website is responsive, mobile-friendly, and easy to navigate, you will earn their trust. Make it easy for customers to take actions they want, like signing up for your newsletter or filling out a form.

Your CTA (calls-to-action) should be clear and work well on mobile. Also, keep your site fast to prevent people from leaving.

4. Use Social Media Marketing To Connect With Customers

Create your business profile on social media platforms that your customers use the most. 75% of B2B buyers check a business on social media before purchase decision.

You can use your social media business profile to share valuable information, create short videos to hook your audience, and share infographics that help them understand your B2B business.

Social media can also be used to run paid ads and precisely target existing customer segments and even lookalike audiences to increase your brand reach.

5. Use SEO To Help Customers Find Your B2B Business

33% of B2B companies say SEO brings in the most leads. If you’re not using it, you risk falling behind your other B2B businesses. Most B2B buyers search online before buying, so SEO makes sense.

An SEO strategy helps your site rank higher and makes it easier for prospects to find your business and learn about your offerings. Use relevant keywords in your content to better optimize your site for search results.

You can also use off-page and on-page SEO strategies to get more traffic on your site, and the best part about SEO is that it is free business advertising.

6. Provide Free Value With Content Marketing

Content marketing is another effective B2B marketing strategy. Sharing helpful content like blogs, case studies, white papers, and videos builds trust among your target audience.

B2B buyers are more likely to consider your business with content marketing because you’re providing free value to them.

B2B content marketing also supports your SEO strategy. When you create content that your target audience is searching for, they’re more likely to find your website. That’s why we say it the one of the best types of online marketing out there.

You need B2B buyers to notice your brand at every step of the buyer journey, and content marketing can help you with that.

Create content for different stages so potential customers can find your business when it matters most. This increases your chances of turning them into customers.

7. Use Email Marketing To Nurture Leads And Strengthen Customer Relationships

Email marketing is the best online marketing to reach B2B customers. You can earn 44 dollars to each $1 spent on email marketing. You can use it to nurture your leads.

But the best part is email segmentation. You can use it to send personalized emails to keep potential customers engaged and make them feel special, to increase brand loyalty.

8. Run PPC (pay-per-click) Ads If Your Budget Allows

PPC ads can help you reach your target audience anywhere you want, be it social media, search engines, or other advertising platforms. You can run PPC campaigns to reach the right audience based on demographics, online buying habits, and firmographics.

9. Leverage B2B Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is highly effective for your B2B businesses. 86% of B2B brands consider their influencer marketing strategy successful. But it’s not a good idea to blindly jump into B2B influencer marketing.

You have to choose the right influencers. Partner with influencers from your industry who are relevant to your business because they can promote your products/services and brand without making it an obvious advertisement.

For example, your B2B business that offers social media marketing services for small businesses can partner with business coaches or startup consultants.

They can mention your service in a post about how you helped their clients grow online or include you in their list of trusted tools and partners for growing a business.

10. Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is a B2B online marketing tactic that helps you rank prospects on a scale to prioritize your interactions with new leads. This methodology is used by B2B businesses to identify which leads are most interested in your products.

This can help your sales team prioritize which leads they should engage with. These lead scores are given based on a number of different data points that your business identifies as important.

Your business assigns points to different characteristics as a way of creating a value system that helps you better identify the quality of your leads.

To create a lead scoring system, you’ll need to consider what factors or attributes signal that a lead is promising. One way to do this is to look at your customers and see what factors they all have in common.

For instance, if any of your best customers are in a specific job role, then this may be one of the elements that you include in your lead scoring system.

In lead scoring, it’s important to understand the negative attributes. So you should look at which attributes your contacts that did not become customers have in common.

So, which attributes do you use to assign a lead score? This will vary depending on the B2B product or service that your company provides. There are some general characteristics that all B2B businesses should consider when developing a lead scoring system:

Industry

Is there a specific industry that your company targets? Even if you work with businesses from multiple industries, there may be certain industry types that are more likely to purchase from your company.

You should assign these industries more points in your lead scoring system.

Job Role

As a B2B company, you want to reach those who are going to be a part of the decision-making process when it comes to buying the product or service your company provides.

That’s why you should assign more points to the job roles that these decision-makers hold, such as CEO, manager, or head of sales.

Online Behavior

You can assign more points to online behaviors that may suggest a lead is interested in your brand.

For instance, when an individual looks at your pricing page, this often means that they are in the decision-making stage of their B2B buyer’s journey. This action might warrant more points than, say, looking at your home page.

Email Engagement

High and consistent engagement with your email content can suggest that a lead is interested in the products or services. You can assign points to different email engagement actions, like clicking a link in the email message.

Once you have decided which actions or attributes signal that a lead is promising, you can use this lead scoring system. This is to identify marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs).

Lead scoring will help your marketing and sales teams work more efficiently to identify, nurture, and convert new B2B leads.

11. Automate To Enhance Your Efficiency

Automation is another B2B digital marketing strategy you can use to improve the personalization and efficiency of your B2B marketing campaigns. You can use different tools to integrate automation in your B2B online marketing.

For example, a CRM can streamline your marketing by automatically collecting customer data, sending email campaigns, and handling other key tasks.

Conclusion

B2B online marketing has its distinct challenges, but it is possible to effectively reach more leads online with a little planning and the right marketing effort.

There are a lot of digital marketing tactics that you can use to reach your audience. The key to getting the most out of these tactics is to identify and invest in those that work best for your B2B business.

If you need more help with your B2B online marketing strategy, it’s time to call in an expert B2B marketing agency. LYFE Marketing works with B2B clients who are looking for new ways to engage their audience and improve sales.

We’d love to help you schedule a one-on-one consultation with our B2B online marketing experts.

B2B Online Marketing FAQs

What is B2B online marketing?

B2B marketing, or business-to-business marketing, is a business marketing their product or service to another business. B2B marketing is to appeal to multiple stakeholders and organizations rather than end consumers.

What are the 4 types of B2B marketing?

The 4 types of B2B marketing are: Product Marketing, Service Marketing, Digital Marketing, and Traditional Marketing.

Is Netflix a B2B or B2C?

Netflix is a B2C platform because it directly targets individual customers and not other businesses.

What is the B2B marketing method?

The B2B marketing method is how a business attracts other businesses to buy their products or services. You can use different types of content across both online and offline channels.

What are the 4 C’s of B2B marketing?

The 4 C’s of B2B marketing include Content, Connection, Communications, and Conversion. You can use a mix of these to create an effective B2B digital marketing strategy.