How to do marketing in B2B industries?

Although marketing practices seem to be on the agenda of B2C industries, whose target audience is end-users, it is also critical for B2B industries, whose target audience is companies, especially in the age of technology. Companies operating in B2B industries need to integrate digital activities into traditional business rules and leverage digital marketing practices to implement successful marketing strategies. So how to do marketing in B2B industries? In our blog post, we have answered this question for you.

Today, social networks have become an essential tool for every business. The intended uses of these networks are diversifying every day. In fact, researches show that the goals of digital strategies vary depending on the company type. Companies in B2C industries focus on having continuous contact with their end-users, increasing interaction, and calling users to action with likes, comments, and posts. However, the logic of digital marketing activities in B2B industries is a little different. Informing users and, above all, increasing brand awareness as a reference point are the companies’ goals.

Content as the principal focus of B2B industries in marketing

Content is the best “selling” material of the digital. Companies can strengthen their image and reputation among their target audiences with qualified and industry-specific contents prepared by considering user benefits.

Studies show that companies invest 25% of their marketing budget in content marketing and content production activities. To adopt a modern and effective marketing strategy, companies operating in B2B industries also need to invest in content.

This type of digital marketing, or content marketing, is performed on the companies’ websites and social networks. So what steps should be taken into consideration? Let’s move on to the next paragraph.

5 things B2B industries should pay attention to in their marketing practices

1. Know your target audience

Regardless of which method or platform you use, you need to analyze your target audience before conducting any marketing activity. Knowing your target audience is much easier in B2B industries compared to B2C. That’s because consumer behaviour prediction is more complex than the analysis of the characteristics of companies. To conduct an effective B2B marketing activity, the targeted companies’ structures, needs, visions, and market dynamics should be known. Another important point is the digital habits of these companies. Thus, you can easily identify the digital marketing strategies you need to follow so that they can reach you as quickly as possible.

2. Your website is your home

A website is the official presence of a company in the digital environment. It should be well developed, user-friendly, and simple. However, above all, it should include the most basic information about a company, such as its principles, values, and history. This is the best possible way to form a solid basis for digital marketing activities. Considering the website as your home, you should host the visitors, that is, the guests of your home, in the best manner, and when necessary, you should add the finishing touches to improve your home and make it more comfortable. In this regard, changing the page layout, rebuilding the website content, and leveraging interaction tools such as chatbots or forms to improve the user experience can be given as examples.

3. Address your industry with blog articles

One of the most ideal and effective methods for B2B companies is to focus on content creation for marketing activities. Here, we have the blog posts uniquely suited for the target audience to find the information they are looking for in the B2B company’s home, that is, on the website. Helping to rank the companies higher in search engines with SEO enhancements, blog posts are of great importance to increase the companies’ digital visibility and facilitate trust-building. It depends on the quality of the content for a B2B company to see blog posts’ benefits. However, if the content is qualified and considers the target audience’s benefits, it will increase its value for search engines and readers.

At this point, the analyses of the questions such as through which keywords the website receives its traffic from, which subjects the target audience searches for the industry, or from which locations the website is visited become the content strategy’s determiners.

4. Using social networks to reach your potential stakeholders

Like in B2C industries, the website is vital, yet it is not sufficient by itself in B2B industries. Being active in social networks is fundamental as well. That’s because social networks today are the digital environments for people to socialize and the industries and companies to form “networks”, as in the most commonly used term. While B2C industries use these social networks to interact with their end consumers, B2B industries should engage in social networks to communicate with potential customers and stakeholders. Starting with LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook, companies should be active in the platforms most-suited for their industries and target audiences and include marketing types such as video marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing in their marketing strategies to collect leads.

5. Remember that we still have e-mails!

E-mail is an essential tool that has been actively used for companies’ internal communication and their processes with customers for years. As it is used to inform the target audience about the recent company news and the new products or services offered in B2B marketing activities, e-mails should also be used to share information that will increase the reputation of the company, such as research, reports, and predictions concerning the industry. E-mails play a significant role in reaching potential companies and generating customers from the existing leads as well. With the analytical data it provides, they also give important insights into the behaviours of the companies contacted.

There are various tools used for this practice, that is, e-mail marketing. These tools offer lots of data, from the e-mail open rates to the click-through rates. All these data allow the companies to measure their marketing strategies’ strengths and weaknesses in a data-oriented manner and ensure they make the right moves to improve these strategies.