B2B Marketing Tactics That Will Deliver Success

Once you have planned out your marketing strategy, you need to adopt a range of B2B marketing tactics that will help you achieve success.

In essence, marketing tactics are the different ways you can reach your final goal.

As such, marketing tactics can be anything from personalisation within email marketing, to testimonials and referrals through social media marketing.

There is a long list of B2B marketing tactics out there, so it’s essential to make the right choice based on your needs.

In this post we will define exactly what B2B marketing is, the difference between marketing tactics and strategies, and provide you with a list of tactics that are sure to boost your sales and engagement with your business.

So, let’s get going.

What is B2B Marketing?

B2B marketing or business to business marketing refers to the strategies and tactics businesses use to sell their products or services to another business.

This form of marketing tends to be more informational compared to B2C marketing, as businesses want to know the facts.

B2B marketing aims to create and add value to your business, as well as the business you’re working with.

Therefore, it’s no use trying to use B2C tactics on businesses you are trying to market to, as they want to know what you can offer, how much you cost, and why they should choose you over another company.

For corporate decision-makers, return on investment (ROI) and revenue are important factors when deciding which businesses to choose for certain products or services, as this choice has a knock-on effect on company budgets.

Therefore, it isn’t always useful to use the same marketing tactics for businesses as you would for consumers, as companies are interested in your credibility, and how you can save their budget.

Essentially, there’s a great deal of focus on money and cost savings when it comes to B2B marketing. Remember, decision-makers in this space are not spending their own money (as they do in a B2C space) but rather the money of their big boss.

As such, they need to be 100% confident that they are making the right decision before giving you a penny of their budget.

When it comes to choosing which tactics to use, staying up to date with the latest marketing trends, and tools is vital in order to target your efforts to the businesses you want to connect with.

B2B Marketing Tactics vs B2B Marketing Strategies

It is a common mistake to mix up marketing tactics with marketing strategies, so we thought we would include a short section on the differences between the two.

Marketing tactics are the series of actions you can take to help promote your services or products, to reach your end goal.

These actions can include, but are not limited to:

• Reaching out to prospects via social media
• Publishing targeted articles
• Sending emails or an email newsletter to your targeted audience
• Placing advertisements in public spaces

In contrast, your marketing strategy should define the long-term goal of your business, for example, this could be anything from generating an increased amount of sales, to increasing brand awareness.

Put simply, the strategy outlines the actions that need to be taken to achieve your business’s goal, and the tactics are the details of the strategy that answer exactly how to get there.

Now that is cleared up, let’s move onto some marketing tactics that will deliver success!

B2B Marketing Tactics

Marketing tactics can be split into multiple categories, as there is a range of actions you can take to increase engagement, and get more businesses interested in your product or service.

In this post we will dive further into examples of tactics in areas of marketing such as:

• Content marketing
• Email marketing
• Advertising
• Social media marketing
• Traditional marketing

So, let’s get started.

Content Marketing Tactics

Content marketing is a great way to promote your business as you can use different methods, including anything from long form blog content, to short form video clips.

Creating content is crucial, but it’s important not to neglect the quality of the content you have created a few months down the line, as there is always the option to repurpose anything that is already live.

Create and Promote Content

First thing’s first.

Do you regularly publish content on your website or via social media?

If not, why not!

The more content you post online, the more you can push your business onto the feeds of your target audience.

Providing a mixture of long form and short form content will help to attract companies, who mean business.

If you consistently provide informative content based on the facts, they will come to you as their reliable source of information and the relationship will begin based on trust.

Providing a range of content is a tactic that allows prospects to see that you know your stuff, and you are aiming it directly at them.

You should be distributing content onto platforms that are populated with businesses within your target audience, for example Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are usually good places to start.

Alongside posting content on your website and social media, it is important to link to what you have created through other forms of marketing, such as your email newsletter (which we will be visiting below).

This ensures your content is purposefully directed towards businesses that you want to be engaged with your products and services, in more than one way.

Repurpose and Refresh Content

Once your content has been uploaded to various channels, there is one important rule:

Don’t forget about it

You can’t treat all businesses the same, as not everyone has the time to read longform content to find out more about your offerings.

In this instance, this is where the repurposing content tactic will become your best friend.

To cater to all of your target audience, why not try converting your blog content into a short video that contains all of the facts and ‘best bits’ of the post.

This way the content is the same, but it is being consumed in a different format, saving you the time it takes to create new content.

If video doesn’t work for your audience, it may be useful to post snippets of your blog content onto social media channels, turning your longform piece into easy, bite-sized information that people are more likely to engage with.

Simplifying and cutting down content will make your information more digestible as more often than not, your audience want to know everything you can offer in a few quick clicks!

Email Marketing Tactics

Onto email marketing tactics now, as they are a method that can help you to include more personalisation and consistency into your B2B marketing strategy.

Personalisation

Email marketing is still thriving, and you should be utilising your emails and newsletters to maximise the ways you can reach out to businesses.

It’s no secret that companies (and your potential clients) inboxes will be flooded with marketing emails and newsletters from your competitors.

Hence why you need to ensure your emails stand out.

Although personalisation works for all types of marketing, it’s essential for B2B to ensure you are succeeding over your competitors. If your emails are generic and impersonal, businesses will be instantly uninterested and most likely move your email to their junk or spam folder.

Firstly, you need to get access to the right contact within the business you are looking to attract, whether this is the marketing manager, sales executive, or the CEO.

Using the contact name within the email, and even the business name, will catch their attention and in turn, they will be more likely to check out your website or send you a reply after feeling valued as a potential client.

However, remembering boundaries is key for this tactic, as you should avoid coming across too personal as this may make the email look spammy if it is cluttered with too many names.

Using the company and employee name once or twice throughout the email lets the recipient know it’s personal, without coming across pushy, or over-familiar.

Create Mobile-Friendly Emails

A useful tactic within email marketing is to make every email you send mobile-friendly.

As you are targeting businesses, it is essential that you tailor your emails and newsletters to every device from laptops, to tablets, to mobile phones, in order to reach your audience wherever they are.

More and more businesses are working remotely and on-the-go, and therefore often engage with emails via their mobile devices. As such, it’s important to change your content accordingly.

The emails you send out to businesses don’t need to be longform, or overloaded with imagery and video clips, as this will reduce your click through rate.

Instead, including easy to tap call-to-action (CTA) buttons, or resizing imagery or infographics to fit smartphone screens, will help to ensure that your emails are optimised for each and every device.

Equally, recipients may only see the first section of your email and wont scroll any further, so ensure that your CTA’s and most important information is at the top so that it’s impossible for them to miss.

Advertisement Tactics

Advertising for B2B marketing usually involves paid options, so it is useful to take this into account when planning your marketing budget, as paid ads can be successful at increasing brand awareness.

Pay-per-click

Using some of your budget to pay for the top spot on Google, or any other search engine, can bring you results.

Marketing through advertisement can help to get your name out there, in order to ensure potential clients are aware of your company and what you can offer.

Equally, businesses are often looking to get their hands on information quickly and easily, so if you’re at the top of the search results, your company name is the first one they will see and most likely click on.

Although, pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is a paid marketing option, your company will only pay out if someone actually clicks on the link to your site.

Keep in mind that you can track this as a metric, and this allows you to see exactly how many people are clicking through to your site, and the general demographic of visitors.

Either way, if you are paying out more often than not, this will tell you whether PPC is working for you.

Advertorial, Native, or Endorsement

Another advertising tactic that is useful for B2B marketing is placing adverts elsewhere that are more direct, or receiving endorsements from influencers.

Now we know what you’re thinking, how can involving an influencer help to attract the attention of other businesses?

For B2B marketing, it isn’t useful to promote your product or service through influencers who have little to no involvement in your line of work.

Instead, you need a brand partner or influencer in your industry who has aligned with what you have to offer. This may involve:

• Partnerships with companies in your industry (avoiding competitors)
• Collaborations with public figures in your area of work
• Reviews from previous clients who can vouch for your reliability

In addition to this, as well as using PPC, your company could consider paying for a spot on a relevant blog, or in an online business magazine relevant to your industry.

This will help to get your name out there, and plug your content onto other sites that link back to your own. Therefore, when your target audience are researching or reading at their own leisure, your company name is there.

Social Media

Due to the rise of social media, businesses are visiting platforms such as LinkedIn and Instagram to get their hands on important company information.

This is because potential clients who are looking for particular services or products can discover the past work and partnerships, as well as the individual personalities of companies from their online profiles.

Equally, social channels are the place to go if you want to view reviews, referrals or testimonials about a brand before you engage with them and show your interest.

Therefore, these are the perfect channels to communicate everything your business has to offer to your target audience, by posting how well your company has performed on recent projects, and providing evidence of customer satisfaction.

Advocacy and Referrals

Receiving referrals and testimonials can help to promote your business, and spread awareness about who you are, and what you do.

There is nothing that will boost your credibility and reliability like a great review from a business you have worked with in the past, or who you are working with currently.

It can be useful to offer incentives, for example, a discount on your product or service to these companies, in exchange for an honest review.

It is important to provide evidence of positive previous collaborations and ongoing partnerships, as businesses want to see how you maintain positivity, and keep everything running smoothly.

Equally, businesses will be happy to see that other companies have enjoyed working with you, and were pleased with the service.

Once you have received a testimonial or referral statement, you can include these on your website or post them on social media channels to promote your credibility to other businesses.

Including Personality

Although it may seem as if B2B marketing tactics must stay strictly professional, that’s not necessarily the case.

It is important not to neglect the importance of including personality and warmth into your marketing campaigns. Check out these scarily good marketing campaigns for great examples of this!

There are opportunities within your company’s social media channels to let your brand’s personality shine through, for example, posting a brand based joke along with your latest tweet about a new product launch.

This will highlight to your target audience that behind your accounts, there is a friendly face.

If you are looking to attract businesses and work closely with them, highlighting your personality is essential, as it is important that you come across as welcoming and professional, as well as relatable.

This doesn’t always have to include posting jokes on Twitter or memes on Instagram, as you need to appeal to businesses.

However, being vocal about the values of your company and where you stand on social issues can help businesses to identify and resonate with you, and they might just make you their first choice!

This may seem straightforward, however adding some character to your company’s online persona can boost you above competitors, as it will become clear your team can be both hard-working and engaging.

Invest In Social Media Ads

Implementing advertising into your social media strategy is another tactic that can increase brand awareness and build client relationships.

Blending both advertisements and social media together can help to spread your content further afield.

This way not only is your company spread to your followers, but it is filtered onto the feeds of potential clients too.

For example, if you decide to use story ads on Instagram to promote your business, your followers (and businesses you’re targeting) will see your brand as they swipe through stories.

Therefore, your visibility is instantly enhanced!

Moving on to LinkedIn now, as this is the platform that is particularly useful for B2B marketing tactics, and in particular social media ad’s.

You should make sure that creating and optimising your company’s LinkedIn channel is at the top of your priority list when it comes to social media marketing, as this is likely where your target audience spend their time online.

This platform can be a powerful lead generation tool, as you have the opportunity to send ad’s directly to your target audience via direct messages, and connect with them on a more personal level.

This helps to increase brand loyalty, as you are actively creating strong relationships with clients and other businesses online.

More often than not, businesses will appreciate this and seriously consider working with you, or using your product or services!

Equally, promoting your business via LinkedIn helps to further increase your brand awareness, whether you’re new in the industry, or you’ve been in the game for years, the channel still gives an opportunity for fresh new leads!

For example, with this platform there is an option to choose and be specific about your target audience and which feeds your ad’s are filtering on to. Highlighting the industry, companies, and even job titles of those within your target audience puts you right in front of them!

Traditional Marketing Tactics

Aside from all of these “new fangled” techniques, you can always rely on proven traditional marketing tactics too.

This is likely a post in itself in the future, but why not look at:

• Attending events and exhibitions
• Creating a marketing kit
• Networking and building relationships

Businesses have relied on tactics like this for years, so there’s no reason to abandon them now!

B2B Marketing Tactics That Will Deliver Success

So, that’s our round up of B2B marketing tactics that will deliver success for your business.

Although many of these marketing tactics can be used across the board for all different audiences, there are clear ways to direct them to businesses to help achieve your goals.

Whether your business goals are to capture more leads, or increase your number of sales, these B2B marketing tactics can help you achieve this.

It may be that you don’t have the time, money, or resources to start deciding which tactics will be useful for your business, and how to put them into action, but we do.

At Canny we offer end-to-end marketing support in order to help you put these tactics into action within your latest campaign strategy, meaning you can focus your time on other responsibilities such as managing your marketing team, or working on individual projects.

Get in touch with us to find out more!