B2B digital marketing strategy: How to make your digital marketing campaign easierB2B Digital Marketing started as early as the internet boom in the 1990s. When you compare that time, access to the internet and digital resources, it’s much easier for you now. You have more opportunities to be successful with digital marketing and to fail as well.
Review some of the insights below from my interview with Paul Slack to find your success.
In my B2B Digital Marketer Podcast, I discussed with Paul that B2B Digital Marketing Has Never Been Easier. So here is a recap and dive into the strategies that will make B2B Digital Marketing as easy as taking a walk in the park.
Okay, maybe not that easy. But, hopefully somewhat enjoyable.
And if you want to learn more about getting greater ROI from your content strategy, check out my interviews with Dr. Pele and Ryo Chiba.
B2B Digital Marketing strategy #1: Identifying your customers
According to Forbes Council Member Nick Leighton, “Marketing success can only come when you market the right stories to the right people.”
Marketing is an exercise in memorization.
So your job is really to communicate to the buyer. Communication is the only key through which the marketers can spread the word about their products to the customers.
When you’re planning, you really want to get very clear on the problems that you solve and how you communicate those things.
You also want to get very clear on how you measure success. Ultimately, you want the business to grow. Digital has to be a contribution to your growth.
B2B Digital Marketing strategy #2: Activating your audience
Now that we know who you’re going after and the messaging that’s going to resonate with them, and what winning looks like. Build awareness and start presenting that message so that you can start getting that memorization.
The goal of every business should be to solve problems. This activation pillar is where you do a post or advert on social, or advertise, or run retargeting campaigns or advertising campaigns.
All that becomes a function of the goal that we’re trying to accomplish when we’re activating our audience.
B2B Digital Marketing strategy #3: Establishing Authority And Empathy
The third pillar really is about establishing authority and empathy.
I do these things to ultimately drive people to my website because I care about helping people. So I need to create the best opportunity to convince people that I’m qualified to solve their problem.
I do that in an intentional and concise way.
Then I have empathy that my organization is qualified and wants to solve their problem. I show that I’m here to help you, and I want to.
The best place to do that is on my website. Quite frankly, in my opinion, the more enjoyable place to do it is on my podcast.
I love collaborating with my guests more than writing a blog about them.
But, 77% of Internet Users Read Blogs. And I need to be aware that increasing my blog engagement by 100% gives a 300% increase in traffic. That means I get to help more people!
Brands with 400 Blog Posts Have 3x More Leads than Brands with 100 Blog Posts (source)
If you’re blogging and not getting any results, maybe you’re not doing it in a way that’s aligned with your overall strategy where you’re really trying to establish empathy and authority with your audience.
B2B Digital Marketing strategy #4: Nurturing Relationships
The fourth and last pillar in the process is nurturing relationships because we cannot control when a buyer has that compelling event that will make them want to transact with you.
As marketers in that fourth pillar, your job is to make sure that you are top of mind, that you’re reinforcing over and over again your value proposition.
Doing it in a way that’s useful and helpful to the customer is vital. If you want digital to work, you really have to work through those four pillars.
The Contribution Of Digital Before vs. Now
So much has changed, as you can imagine, especially for all B2B organizations. COVID forced a digital transformation.
I feel like the B2C organizations were significantly ahead with their digital marketing experience and successes, and now B2B can’t afford to be such a distant laggard.
Today, there are great avenues where you can contribute to the overall using digital that didn’t exist before. “Digital and social media marketing allows companies to achieve their marketing objectives at relatively low cost.” (source)
When we think about some fundamental things like content marketing that’s been around for a long time, every business needs to be involved in content marketing.
When you hear me say content marketing, what I’m really talking about is being consistent in your blogging. Being consistent in sharing content out on social that’s really reinforcing your value proposition.
What’s great today that wasn’t so common in the past is how you can get the awareness you need for all that content marketing.
Today we can go to LinkedIn, for example, and dial into that perfect size business and make sure they will see your content.
The B2B Buyer’s Journey Process
B2B buyer’s journey starts with awareness.
Then you can do what we call vendor nurture with knowledge. So after creating the awareness now, there’s this person who knows that you exist, and you’re communicating to them your value proposition.
You would want to reinforce that, but that’s really where the content marketing game comes into play because of your job with content marketing.
Once you have that awareness, your job is to reinforce how you can solve those problems. All of that’s got to be communicated and engaged within your digital.
Becoming a disruptor in your space
To be a disruptor, your goal is to be a primary presence in your market space.
This does not happen rapidly. It is a process. It’s an ultra marathon.
Right now, in the midst of where we find ourselves, we’re all almost being forced to reconsider and look at new moves that we have to make in terms of continuing to grow our businesses. The status quo is a death sentence.
One of the things that you need to think about is not following the path of everyone else with digital.
Virtual events, podcasting, webinars, and blogging are all a red ocean of activity. It’s a noise overload. You must consider dynamic strategies to find the blue ocean and get more customers, faster.
Don’t try to do everything all at once. One of the things that I love the most about digital is how much you can iterate and learn.
I love digital because I can come up with a creative idea on how to move people through the funnel and then optimize it.
Personally, I can actually engage in that because I get real behavioral feedback. You can pivot, learn, iterate, and grow.
That’s why I always recommend a crawl, walk, run strategy.
When a client’s thinking about shifting dollars from what we would call traditional B2B marketing to digital marketing, start with fundamental elements that you know are important things, you’ve got to align all of your messaging.
Conclusion
A great digital marketing strategy has become the cornerstone of success for a lot of brands and businesses.
B2B Digital marketing is finally starting to close the gap with its B2C cohorts.
But for a B2B company to thrive it needs to make sure they do not merely look at the status quo to create their strategy.
Be the company that challenges the current practices to stand out.
Watch my interview with Paul Slack
Please Comment
- How do you implement digital for your business?
- In what ways is Digital Marketing changing over time?
- From your experience, what do you think is the best way to establish authority and empathy in your field?
