Digital-based marketing changes just as rapidly as the marketplace itself. Trends come and go, tools are developed and then rendered obsolete. If you’re creating or improving your B2B web marketing strategy, it can be difficult to know where to start.
Since it’s the beginning of a new year, we’ve pulled together a few tips and new web marketing trends that will help you get started on the right foot.
Master LinkedIn Marketing
While social media marketing and social selling have become ubiquitous buzz words, not all platforms are created equal. For a small business owner, seriously focusing on one platform rather than dabbling in many is an effective approach. As a professional networking site, LinkedIn has many unique advantages when it comes to B2B web marketing: it gives you the ability to build a community with individuals based on similar professional and business interests. You will also find highly relevant information such as the person’s current position, job history, technical expertise, educational background and location. This information is especially useful for lead generation because you can hyper target prospects that fit your ideal buyer.
LinkedIn Pulse is a great tool for publishing and promoting your content. It allows you to post long-form articles that most social platforms don’t provide. This is a perfect opportunity to educate and communicate with your audience.
Be sure to develop a content strategy that helps you reach your objectives and always conclude your posts with a proper Call-to-Action (CTA). Encourage your readers to sign up for your newsletter, download a report or whitepaper from your website or even watch product demos. The content you develop must help in pushing your prospect further along your sales funnel.
Paid tools such as the LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator can help your sales team optimize prospecting efforts. The ability to filter and find key individuals within companies and reach out to them is powerful solution. It also allows you to monitor the LinkedIn activities of individuals you are targeting.
LinkedIn is a great platform but expect to invest considerable amount of time and patience to build a good network and see results.
Establish Thought Leadership
Access to relevant information is especially important to decision makers in B2B companies because a misstep can cost the organization millions and possibly end their career.
Buyers are fundamentally risk-adverse when it comes to decisions that involve spending money. This is why a thought leader within your organization can help your brand stand out. A trusted expert is valuable because it increases a buyer’s confidence and helps him or her mitigate risks.
More and more executives and leaders are realizing that their personal brand can be leveraged to improve brand recognition and lend credibility to the organization.
Identify the thought leaders within your organization and develop high quality gated content such as ebooks, whitepapers and reports that harness their technical expertise and industry experience. Create videos or podcasts where these leaders can talk about relevant topics and trends. The more valuable content these experts provide the target audience the more they will be seen as a credible source of information.
Focus on Personalized Content Marketing
Content marketing may be old news, but it has become an even more powerful B2B web marketing strategy for companies that know how to use it effectively. Unfortunately, most companies develop content without the customer buyer journey in mind. Your content marketing strategy must meet your prospects needs depending on which stage in the sales funnel they are on.
The buyer’s journey is often divided into four steps. On top of the funnel is when potential customers become aware of their problem and start seeking solutions. Next would be evaluating options and comparing the pros and cons of each one. At the end of the funnel, the prospect decides on the solution that best addresses his or her needs and proceeds to make a purchase. For any company to survive, not only do they need new customers but repeat business. Therefore, retention and nurturing are also key.
But as much as we want buyers to neatly follow the process, they are in control and often do not move along a linear path. They are simultaneously exploring and comparing. Thus, your content portfolio must be diverse and valuable to help nudge the prospect forward.
If you have enough data to segment your database according to where they are in the customer life cycle, you will have the ability to further optimize your content marketing efforts for better results. The ultimate goal is to deliver the right content, for the right people, at the right time.
Want to get more sales and marketing tips? Sign up for our newsletter. Looking for B2B sales, marketing and inbound lead generation services? Contact us today.
