The B2B marketplace has drastically changed over the past few years. Today, customers are much smarter and well-educated, meaning that your decade-old strategies can’t work anymore.
With competition stiffening by the day, your B2B marketing strategy needs to generate more leads day in day out. Otherwise, you’ll be choked out of the market. Sadly, most businesses are struggling to come up with marketing strategies that boost their conversion rates.
So, here is a step-by-step guide to creating a strategy that works.
1. Assess your competitor strategy
Any marketer knows that the perfect b2b strategy is a mirror of several competitor strategies. So, if your strategy isn’t working, your first step should be looking into a strategy that works.
This doesn’t mean replicating the competitor’s strategy, but rather, learning to see what works in the market and what doesn’t work. Carefully assess some of the things they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong.
This way, you can then apply whatever’s useful to your strategy. Look into how they do their promotion, the type of content they put out, who they partner with, etc.
2. Define your goals and target
Once you’ve noticed that your B2B strategy isn’t working, define the goals for the new strategy you want to come up with. Define the type of audience you want to reach, the conversion rates you want to achieve, and even your lead generation goals.
Setting goals enables you to identify the key areas that the new strategy should address. Ideally, you need to target a specific audience – your ‘perfect audience.’
This audience will be the focus of the entire marketing strategy. Because once you have a defined audience, you’ll know the type of content that works, what converts, and which products work.
3. Get over your old marketing model
Most b2b businesses have stuck to their traditional marketing models, which is why their businesses are failing.
Tactics such as cold emailing are somewhat outdated, and so, even though they might work, they’re not cut for the modern market. Instead, embrace the platforms where most of your customers actually are, that’s social media.
Create a good profile for your business and stay active on the preferred platforms. The more you engage with potential customers, the better they get to know you. This raises the chances of converting them to loyal customers.
But not all platforms will work for your advertising. You need to carefully choose a social platform that addresses the professionalism of your business.
So, LinkedIn and Twitter can be a good start, but don’t limit your reach to these sites.
4. Research, Research, Research
The marketing landscape is fast changing. What was working yesterday may not necessarily work today. Consumer behavior is also never constant.
Therefore, you need to research the market and consumer behavior. Understand what affects their decision-making and learn the constant factor in their behavior. This way, you can stay one step ahead of them and always services and products that they love.
If you don’t have the time or resources to keep up with the market trends, you can always outsource that department. Digital marketing agencies such as Media Group Worldwide can easily take up that job and help keep you updated.
5. Determine how you’ll measure your success
Once you’ve outlined this strategy, the final step will be to measure the success of each step. Measuring success will assure all stakeholders that you’re on the right track.
You can choose to measure this using google analytics or data studio. Look into your CTR (click-through rate), your page views, your bounce rate, etc. The best way to do this will be based on the nature of your objectives.
For instance, if your objective is to increase leads, then the number of your new email subscribers will be the base measure, etc.
Final thoughts
Creating a B2B strategy that works isn’t rocket science. However, it demands careful analysis of your current strategy, target, and goal setting, abandoning your ineffective models, and doing your research.
It may take some time before you notice the results, but if you followed these steps, we’re confident that you’ll finally get the results you’re after.
