B2B Digital Marketing Strategies -16 Tried & Tested methods

The Most Effective Digital Marketing Strategies for B2B Businesses

The internet has redefined a lot of the marketing processes that B2B businesses have traditionally been accustomed to.

It is the first destination that modern buyers go to whenever they need to make a purchase. They’ll often visit various websites, social media pages, and even read through reviews and product comparisons.

Doing such profound research is simply a way to mitigate risks and help them make the most logical business decisions with ROI in mind. Many B2B businesses still haven’t gotten a grasp of this new reality, unfortunately.

They often have an extremely poor online presence, which makes it difficult for prospective buyers to find information about them. Access to information is crucial from a buyer’s standpoint.

This article will go over 16 effective B2B Digital Marketing Strategies to completely dominate the internet, show credibility, and find new B2B leads online.

B2B Digital Marketing Strategies – The Statistics:

Cold calling has a success rate of only 2.5%. (Source)
77% of B2B buyers won’t talk to a salesperson until they have done their own research. (Source)
About 20-40% of webinar attendees end up becoming leads. (Source)
Lead nurturing can help generate up to 50% more leads at a 33% lower cost. (Source)
66% of people say that email nurturing was the best way to re-engage leads. (Source)
Customer testimonials and case studies have been shown to be the most effective content marketing strategy. (Source)
85% of people trust reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from people they know. (Source)
70% of marketers say that their best-performing emails were sent from a person, not a company. (Source)
Email subject lines that have a sense of urgency and exclusivity get a 22% higher open rate. (Source)
50% of buyers say that online live chat is the most convenient way to reach a company. (Source)
Using visual content like videos can improve conversions on a website by up to 86%. (Source)
Asking for phone numbers has the worst impact on conversion rates. (Source)
Inbound marketing costs up to 62% less than outbound marketing. (Source)
57% of businesses have acquired a customer through their blog. (Source)
87% of B2B buyers have a good impression of a salesperson if they were introduced to them through someone they know. (Source)

16 B2B Digital Marketing Strategies and Ideas

1. Create an optimized website

A website is the foundation of your online presence and an integral part of your B2B digital marketing strategies approach. It’s the central hub where customers can access information about your products and services.

B2B companies that don’t have a website are missing out on a great opportunity to get in front of their target audience.

Search engines like Google work by aggregating information from different websites across the web. It then shows users the most relevant information. By simply having a website, you can also get recommended to people searching for your products or services.

For example, if you are a software company that provides HR solutions, whenever people Google ‘best HR solutions for small companies’, your website should show up in the results.

The most important thing to keep in mind when building your site is that the quality of the user experience. It impacts how well it ranks in the search engines. You are more like to get traffic when your content is relevant and optimized for the audience.

User experience, or UX, refers to the design of the site to facilitates the user’s journey. Ease of navigation, responsiveness, page loading speed and little to no distractions (ads, random pop-ups) are some of the key elements.

A responsive page is a website page that works as well on mobile devices as it does on desktops. Let’s be real, most people access websites through a mobile device nowadays. Your website should be optimized to provide the best possible experience to the people visiting it.

Wix is a fantastic tool you can use to build a professional B2B website that is automatically optimized to rank well in the search engines. Alternatively, you can use services such as FreeWebDesign to get licensed developers to build your entire site for free.

2. Set up PPC ads

PPC, or pay-per-click, is a popular advertising model where ads get served to people as they browse the internet. Advertisers only pay each time their ad is clicked.

For instance, if your ads get shown to 500 people and only 50 click on the ad, then you only get paid/charged for the 50 clicks despite the fact that 450 other people saw the advertisement.

PPC campaigns are undoubtedly one of the most cost-effective ways to start generating quality leads almost instantly. Hence their popularity.

Another advantage of the PPC method is that it enables advertisers to reach their target audience based on their interests, occupation, location, and phrases they’re actively searching on Google.

For example, if you are a company that sells HR solutions, you can instruct Google Ads to show ads to people who search for the phrase ‘best HR solutions’.

If you’re still on the fence about trying out PPC ads, I’d recommend you set up a trial campaign on Google Ads and run it for just a few weeks with a limited budget. The minimum ad expenditure per day is approximately $5. Based on the results of the trial, you can increase your budget to ensure the ad gets served to more people.

3. Set up retargeting ads

Retargeting is another popular digital marketing strategy where ads are shown to people who previously interacted with a website. You’ve probably seen it in action a lot. You visit a site once, and as soon as you leave, the ad shows up somewhere else.

Advertisers often spend aggressively on retargeting because they understand that they need to expose their ad to someone multiple times before they make a purchase decision.

Most internet users have a short attention span due to the number of distractions. They may have been browsing your site and got distracted by and email or notification, shifting their attention instantly.

Once they leave your site, it’s unlikely that they will ever return, regardless of how interested they were in your business. Retargeting helps you recapture their attention. The two most popular retargeting platforms are Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

4. Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the practice of increasing a website’s authority to help it rank higher on search engines.

Every time people search for information on the internet, Google scans through countless websites that contain relevant information, and then presents only what it deems as the most important. SEO is how it determines what sites are more important than others.

A well optimized website should appear on the first page of the Google results, where more people are likely to see it. A site that is not optimized might appear in the back pages and is unlikely to get any traffic.

Ideally, your B2B company website should appear on the first page for search queries that are related to your business. For example, if you sell running shoes, then you’d want to rank for keywords such as ‘best running shoes’ and ‘where to buy cheap running shoes’.

SEO has two main parts. The first on on-site SEO, which mainly entails optimizing the individual pages on your site to make them search engine friendly. Some ways to optimize a page include increasing its loading speed, making it mobile responsive, and publishing high quality content.

If you built your website using innovative tools like Wix, then all the pages should be optimized by default. Your only task will be to publish content that’s relevant to your business. Content is very important because it tells Google what your site is about.

The second part is off-page SEO, which mainly entails link building. Whenever other sites link to your site, Google sees it as a sign of authority. The more authoritative your site is, the better it is going to rank.

Since link building can be extremely complicated and time consuming, I would recommend you outsource it to an SEO expert or agency. SEO should be at the core of your B2B digital marketing strategy.

Related: 5 Simple SEO Strategies

5. Publish blog posts

A blog a great way to fill your site with relevant content that can rank on Google and help you generate traffic.

It can also be a way to you establish yourself as an authority and build credibility around your business. As mentioned several times in this post, most B2B buyers do lots of research before making a purchase.

If they keep coming across posts from your website specifically addressing the issues they’re researching, then they’ll naturally start to see you as the industry authority.

Hubspot uses this approach to a great effect. The company sells marketing automation software for businesses. Anytime you search for a marketing related question on Google, you’re likely to come across an article from their blog, even if it has nothing to do with automation.

The majority of B2B businesses don’t have a blog. That means competition is almost nonexistent, which is a good thing for you.

You can publish posts covering all possible questions that a potential buyer may have. For example, if you sell HR software, you can publish a post on ‘how HR software can help manage employees’ and ‘top 10 HR software for small businesses’.

The key to a successful blog is keyword research; that is the process of identifying specific queries that get searched frequently on Google. When you know what they are, then you can write posts addressing them.

SEMrush is a popular tool used by digital marketers to find high-traffic keywords that they can write about.

6. Get reviews

Reviews are the lifeline of businesses that rely on traffic from the internet. They are one of the few ways that people can actually get a realistic idea about whether something is as good as it has been presented. Studies show that approximately 67% of internet users are influenced by reviews.

A lot of businesses like to either exaggerate or overvalue their products. Reviews can be the social proof that your products or services work as advertised.

You can easily get reviews by simply asking for them from past clients. Make sure to have a section on your website where you can display them like trophies. Having lots of positive reviews can give you more credibility than money could buy.

7. Get a Google My Business page

Google My Business, or GMB, is a free tool run by Google to help businesses create and manage their online profiles.

GMB pages often get the highest ranking on the search results page and on Google Maps. They can be an important addition to any company’s digital assets because they make it easier to be found online and to collect reviews.

8. Email marketing

Contrary to what many people believe, email marketing is not a thing of the past. It still has one of the highest conversion rates out of all B2B digital marketing tactics. Around 93% of B2B marketers use it actively, not because they’re old fashioned, but because it works.

You can easily start collecting emails by adding an opt-in form on your website requesting users to sign up for your newsletters.

As your site keeps generating traffic through PPC ads and SEO, your email list will also keep growing simultaneously.

B2B customers are mostly interested in learning about how a product or service can help improve their business. If you can communicate that in your emails, then you will be able to convert them into actual leads who are genuinely interested in your business.

9. Publish newsletters

Publishing newsletters is a fantastic way to indirectly promote your business to your potential customers. Studies show that approximately 83% of B2B businesses send out email newsletters, and 40% say that it is the most critical factor to their success.

You can publish monthly newsletters containing information about the latest industry trends, news and interesting stats. Every now and then you can also promote your products and feature customer testimonials.

You can also take things a step further by printing hard copies and having them delivered to various companies in your niche.

In addition to being effective marketing tools, newsletters can be great lead magnets for luring website visitors into subscribing to your mailing list. A lead magnet is a free item that is offered to people in exchange for their contact information.

10. Social media

Social media is an area that often gets overlooked by B2B companies. Yes it can be labor intensive, but it’s definitely not worth passing on.

About 75% of B2B buyers use social media when making a purchase. They want to know everything there is to know about a company before investing their money.

Social media is great for growing a following that consists of people who might be interested in your business. You can easily introduce your marketing messages to them through your posts.

Another advantage of having social media profiles is that they often get priority ranking on Google, similar to a GMB page. That means when buyers are researching products, they could also come across your social media pages in the results.

If you don’t have the personnel to handle your social media strategy, you can always hire a freelance social media manager or even a virtual assistant. Some of their tasks will include posting fresh content daily, engaging with followers, answering questions, and seeking out business opportunities.

11. Marketing automation

Marketing usually consists of many repetitive activities such as managing online campaigns, Google Analytics, social media platforms, email, etc. Doing all these activities at the same time can be extremely tedious, and might even have a negative impact on your marketing efforts.

Automation is a great way to delegate repetitive tasks to dedicated software. By doing so, you get to free up precious time and personnel, and instead focus on building customer relationships, providing unparalleled support, and improving your overall operations. Automation is how successful businesses in the digital era thrive.

You can use sales and marketing software such as Hubspot to bring together all your marketing channels into one centralized system. That essentially makes it easier to create and manage your online campaigns, as well as to analyze and compare results to previous periods.

Hubspot is specifically designed to help companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers.

12. Target decision makers on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a platform for building professional connections. A lot of its users include people who are responsible for making purchase decisions for their companies, including purchase managers, marketing managers and business owners.

You can use the platform to find the key decision makers of companies in your target niche that could benefit from your products or services. LinkedIn allows you to search for people based on their job title, the company they work for, and location.

For example, if you sell HR software for small businesses, then you can search for users who have the job title ‘HR Manager’, and then filter the results by your target location. You’ll probably end up with a long list with hundreds or even thousands of people that meet your criteria.

If a person checks all your boxes of a potential lead, then you can send a connection request, accompanied by a short message introducing yourself.

The most important thing to keep in mind is to avoid selling right away. Nothing puts people off faster than that. Instead, show interest in what the person does and what they have accomplished. Ask questions to get them to talk about themselves.

Only after developing some rapport is when you can bring up the topic of how you can potentially help their business.

13. Start a referral program

Referral marketing, or affiliate marketing, is a popular B2B digital marketing strategy that involves offering a commission to people who refer clients to you.

Often times marketing campaigns get expensive and unsustainable in the long run. A referral program is a great way to get other people to work for you, while only compensating them for the actual business they generate. The risks on your side are minimal.

You can get affiliates to sign up to your program by offering attractive and above average commission rates. You can also do contests where affiliates who achieve a certain number of sales in a month get a cash reward.

Make sure to drive attention to your program by aggressively marketing it on all your mediums, including your social media pages, website and email list. You can even send invitations to previous clients.

14. Create a listing on B2B marketplaces

Online B2B marketplaces are great places to find your target audience. Some popular platforms include:

Global Sources
Alibaba
Trade India
Export Hub
eWorldTrade
Trade Key

You can also find industry specific marketplaces by simply doing a Google search. The great thing about such platforms is that most of the people visiting them have a purchase intent. They are B2B buyers looking to acquire products or services that will improve their business.

15. Join industry groups and forums

Social media groups and forums are great for networking with like-minded people, learning about the latest industry trends, and most importantly, establishing new business leads.

You can find niche groups on various social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn by simply searching for the industry name. For example, if you sell HR software, then you can search for the phrase ‘human resources’ to find relevant groups.

Once you join a group, make sure to be an active member by frequently contributing to the discussions. That helps other members get familiarized with your name.

16. Host free webinars

Webinars are a great way to bring together people who are likely to have some interest in your business.

You can host webinars on any trendy and insightful topics that are likely to generate curiosity. For example, if your business deals with marketing automation, then one of your topics can be ’10 ways automation can improve workplace productivity’.

Make sure to start promoting your webinars weeks in advance to give people enough time to plan to attend. You can run promotional ads on Facebook and LinkedIn, and also send invitations to your email list. The goal is to get as many live viewers as possible.

Once the event is done, the video can be broken down and repurposed as content for your social media pages and website.

Remember that the primary reason for hosting a webinar is not to directly sell yourself, but to impart knowledge to your audience members – many of whom might be leads. By doing so, you get to showcase your authority and grasp on topics pertaining to your industry. That in turn increases your credibility as a capable business.

Conclusion – B2B Digital Marketing Strategies

There are lots of ways to market your business on the internet, so it’s important to tailor the tactics you use based on what will work best for your company. The 16 B2B digital marketing strategies we’ve covered here should provide a good place to start or serve as reminders for things that have worked in the past and you can include in your marketing plan.

If there are any specific questions you have about B2B digital marketing strategies, please don’t hesitate to contact us at [email protected] and one of our friendly team members will be happy to help!