Last updated on July 28th, 2021 at 12:14 pm
B2B marketing is a very different animal than B2C marketing. B2B marketing involves marketing things that other businesses need, while B2C marketing requires marketing things that consumers can buy. B2B buyers are generally more concerned about the reliability of their products and the quality of service. Therefore, B2B marketers will need to utilize different tactics to promote their products or service to other businesses.
Newsjacking
Newsjacking marketing is the practice of using the popularity of a news story to promote something else; usually, a service. For instance, if there is an entertainment announcement related to a celebrity moving into a new home, real estate companies could create a viral campaign that connects in some way to the story. For example, building on entertainment news like Compare The Market did with a fake Friends real estate poster (Friends came to Netflix this year and has announced a reunion). Â It is a fantastic way to gain the attention of businesses in the same industry and start to gain traction in their minds.Â
Create An Industry Newsletter
Newsletters might seem obsolete in this day and age. However, a well-thought-out, industry-specific newsletter will gain the attention of the other businesses you are attempting to reach. You will need to set up an email autoresponder and collect emails of your target audience, but once set up, you can quickly begin. Make sure it is not overly promotional and contains as much valuable information as possible. The best thing to do would be to treat it like a blog post or any other form of promotion. High-quality research and writing are essential if they are to attract business.Â
For example, if you are in the entertainment industry, you would use the newsletter to update your subscribers about the Academy Awards season or other celebrity news. Ideally, you should do this professionally, and you should avoid the sensational style of writing that celebrity blogs use. You should never forget that you are trying to sell your product to another business, not directly to the consumer.Â
Create An Industry Blog
An industry blog will function in the same way as the newsletter, but you can use it to attract new readers and convince them to sign up for your newsletter. There must be information on the blog that people look for and are interested in reading. To return to the earlier newsjacking section, you can also use your blog to build upon breaking news stories. For example, sports events are often the perfect opportunity for some form of promotion. Sports events like the World Cup and the Olympics create vast amounts of “buzz” around them, and you can build on this. If your company sells wholesale sports products to retail stores, you might create a post about how the athlete who won the 100-meter sprint uses a particular sneaker brand. Then you can write about the shoe in question while making it clear that you sell this brand along with other sporting goods.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
A lot of marketers believe that only end consumers use search engines to find what they want. However, this is not true, and by ignoring SEO, you could be leaving large amounts of revenue on the table. Regarding B2B SEO, you will need a high-performance website that focuses on:
- Speed: It must be fast so that visitors stay and don’t leave prematurely. Speed is also a significant factor in ranking your site on the first page of Google.
- Quality content: Without great content, you will never rank. Even if you did rank with poor content, you would not convert traffic into sales. Engaging and optimized content also attracts the attention of other authoritative websites such as news outlets. Extra promotion may result from this.
- Ease of use: If your website is challenging to navigate and the structure is poorly laid out, you won’t become an authority in your industry in the eyes of the search engines. Furthermore, what few visitors you get will be put off by the difficulty in finding what they want.
B2B marketing shares some similarities with B2C marketing but with some notable exceptions. Firstly, other business customers are unlikely to be swayed by sensation. Secondly, you need to use creative methods to gain attention, like newsjacking or industry-specific emails.
