[2023 GUIDE] 18 Most Effective B2B Marketing Strategies & Checklist

In this article, we provide the ultimate playbook for planning and implementing the most effective B2B marketing strategies in 2023 to crush your goals for lead generation, customer acquisition, and client engagement and attracting a B2B customer.

You will learn the b2b marketing best practices tips that you can quickly implement to help you improve your B2B marketing strategy, which is a vital aspect in creating predictable and repeatable streams of new leads, customers and revenue.

81% of marketers expect the majority of their decisions to be data-driven by 2023. Seventy-six percent say that’s already the case. (GARTNER for Marketers)

Some B2B marketing strategies will be evergreen concepts that you’ve most likely already heard before as a B2B marketer, while others might provide you with a brand new way to look at your usual approach.

1. Make Sure You Mean Business — B2B VS B2C

Right off the bat, let’s establish the difference between business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) marketing, as the first step in any process is truly understanding the landscape. If you don’t already know, the B2B business model sells the products or services of one business to other businesses, while B2C companies sell products or services directly to consumers. Easy enough right?

While most business owners understand the difference between B2B and B2C models when it comes to their company’s product or service, they often forget how it comes into play when it comes to their B2B marketing strategies.

According to a helpful blog post by Hubspot, these are the six main aspects that separate B2B marketing strategies from that of B2C.

• ROI matters in B2B marketing process. Unlike customers, business owners want to know how and when your product or service is going to make them money. They need to be able to explain to their superiors when they will see a return on their investment.
• The typical B2B customer wants to be educated. Before making a decision, a B2B customer wants to fully understand the product or service to be able to relay this information to the rest of their team. They’re more open minded when it comes to b2b content marketing.
• They want more detailed content. For B2B customers, the more detailed and personalized to their company your content is the better. They want to feel catered to and that you fully understand their needs and concerns.
• They have a longer chain of command. The first person you reach out to at B2B companies is most likely not able to make the final decision. There is a longer chain of command and therefore, more customer profiles, personas, pain points and key selling points to determine.
• You’ll experience a much longer sales cycle. A B2B lead requires much more nurturing, unique and detailed content, and has a lot more at stake. It’s not only a purchase, it is a business relationship. For this reason, a B2B sale will take much longer and require more patience.
• The contract with B2B customers can last for months or sometimes even years. As mentioned in the bullet point above, a B2B lead doesn’t just purchase your product or service, they enter into a contract and ongoing relationship with you and your company.

Many B2B company owners fail to realize how these differences come into play when developing their marketing campaigns.

In most businesses today, there is more than one decision maker which means there is more than one ideal buyer profile. For this reason, you will need to determine the main players within the company and the key selling points for each individual decision-maker. Business owners, CEOs, and managers all require a different approach.

Although it's important to consider the personal needs, challenges, and motivators of the key players in a company, a B2B buyer’s journey is still quite different from the journey of an individual purchasing a consumer-facing product or service.

In B2B marketing methodologies, your b2b buyers aren't purchasing your products for themselves. Yes, a human hits the “Complete order” button, but the real customer is the organization that the person represents. Always keep that in your mind when organizing a marketing campaign.

Types of B2B Marketing:

Effective B2B marketing in 2023 will be different from what worked in previous years—as new b2b marketing strategies and sales technologies have recently become more widely adopted by B2B marketers.

For example, the b2b marketing world has seen a paradigm shift away from the traditional “funnel” and more toward the “flywheel” outlined in the video above. Inbound marketing agencies are ditching the outdated funnel structure and choosing the momentum-building concept of the flywheel that actively attracts, engages, and delights customers throughout their entire journey.

Navigating Uncertain Times Ahead in B2B Marketing Strategies: Pivoting and Adapting for Success

The world has changed rapidly over the past year and a half, and businesses have been forced to adapt to a new normal. Marketing strategy is no exception, and as we move forward into an uncertain future, it's more important than ever to be agile and ready to pivot. In this article, we'll explore the importance of pivoting in uncertain times, and how to navigate the five post-pandemic trends that are shaping consumer behavior.

Pivoting in Uncertain Times

One of the most important things b2b businesses can do in uncertain times is to pivot and adapt to new circumstances. This means being willing to try new things, while also doing the tried and true. It's important to measure what matters, marketing at the speed of consumers, and multiplying your expertise.

Measuring what matters means focusing on the metrics that are most relevant to your business, such as customer engagement, conversion rates, and revenue. This allows you to track the effectiveness of your B2B marketing strategies and make informed decisions about where to allocate resources.

Marketing at the speed of consumers means being able to quickly respond to changing consumer behavior and preferences. This might mean shifting your B2B marketing strategies to focus on digital channels or creating new products or services that meet emerging needs.

Multiplying your expertise means investing in the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in a changing landscape. This might involve training employees in new technologies, partnering with experts in emerging fields, or pursuing advanced degrees or certifications.

Post-Pandemic Trends in Consumer Behavior

As we navigate the uncertain times ahead, it's important to understand the trends that are shaping consumer behavior. Here are the five post-pandemic trends that b2b businesses should be aware of:

Trend 1: Consumer buying journeys are omnichannel and longer.
Consumers are using a variety of channels, both online and offline, to research and make purchasing decision. This means that businesses need to be present and active across multiple channels, providing consistent messaging and experiences.

Trend 2: Consumers rely on personal budgets and use quality and pricing to make a decision.
With economic uncertainty and changing priorities, consumers are increasingly focused on value. They want high-quality products and services at affordable prices.

Trend 3: Value prioritized.
Consumers are looking for affordable ways to indulge and make better buying decisions. Businesses that can offer value and affordability will be best positioned to succeed.

Trend 4: Consumers use intention and specificity when searching for products or services.
With more information and options available than ever before, consumers are increasingly specific and intentional in their search for products and services. Paying attention to common terms in search engines and offering personalized solutions will be most successful.

Trend 5: Consumers are willing to switch brands and don't have as much loyalty when making purchase decision.

With so many options available, consumers are more willing than ever to switch brands if they feel they are not getting the value or experience they want. Brand loyalty is no longer guaranteed- even for well established businesses.

Businesses that can offer exceptional experiences and build strong relationships with their customers will be most successful in both creating a strong brand identity that customers can relate to, as well as building loyalty.

Understanding the post-pandemic trends in consumer behavior is also critical, as businesses that can meet the changing needs and preferences of their customers will be best positioned for success.

Getting Started with B2B Marketing Strategies Planning

When it comes to B2B marketing strategies, setting clear and measurable objectives is crucial for success. Objectives provide a roadmap for your online marketing activities, guiding your team towards achieving specific goals that align with your overall business strategy.

Understanding LTV and AOV

Before setting objectives for your B2B marketing campaign, it's important to understand two key metrics: LTV (lifetime value) and AOV (average order value). LTV refers to the total amount of revenue a customer will generate over the course of their relationship with your business. AOV, on the other hand, refers to the average amount of revenue generated per order.

Why are these metrics important? LTV and AOV can help you determine the value of a customer and the potential revenue that can be generated from each interaction. By understanding these metrics, you can set more realistic and meaningful objectives for your B2B marketing campaign.

Aligning Business Goals

Once you understand LTV and AOV, it's time to align on your overall business goals. What do you want to achieve with your marketing campaign? Are you looking to increase revenue, generate leads, or build brand awareness? Your marketing objectives should align with your overall business goals.

For example, if your goal is to increase revenue, your marketing objectives might be to increase sales by a certain percentage, increase customer lifetime value, or increase the number of repeat customers. On the other hand, if your goal is to get high quality leads, your marketing objectives might be to increase website traffic, improve lead conversion rates, or increase the number of qualified leads.

Setting SMART Objectives

Once you've aligned your marketing goals, it's time to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives for your B2B marketing campaign. SMART objectives provide a clear framework for your marketing goals, ensuring that you're working towards a specific goal that can be tracked and measured.

Here's an example of a SMART objective for a B2B digital marketing campaign:

Increase website traffic by 20% in the next six months by implementing targeted SEO tools and b2b content marketing strategies.

This objective is specific (increase website traffic), measurable (by 20%), achievable (through targeted SEO tools and b2b content marketing strategies), relevant (to the overall goal of generating leads), and time-bound (in the next six months).

1. Map Your Lead to Customer Journey in B2B Sales

In the world of B2B sales, mapping your lead to customer journey is an essential process that can help you identify areas for improvement and ultimately drive more revenue for your business. This process involves tracking the touchpoints that a lead has with your company, from the initial point of contact to the point of conversion into a paying customer.

Why Map Your Lead to Customer Journey?

Mapping your lead to customer journey allows you to gain a better understanding of your sales funnel, identify bottlenecks, and optimize your sales process. By analyzing the b2b buyer's journey, you can also identify the key decision-makers, influencers, and gatekeepers that impact the sales process.

Additionally, mapping the customer journey helps you identify the pain points that potential customers face, which can be addressed through personalized b2b marketing strategies. By addressing these with them, you can increase your chances of converting leads into customers.

Steps for Mapping Your Lead to Customer Journey

1. Identify touchpoints: The first step in mapping your lead to customer journey is identifying the touch points that a lead has with your company. These touch points can include website visits, email inquiries, phone calls, meetings, and more.
2. Define stages: Once you have identified the touch points, the next step is to define the stages of the customer journey. These stages can vary depending on your specific sales process, but typically include awareness, interest, consideration, decision making, and retention. You can use this to determine what marketing channels will be most effective.
3. Assign metrics: For each stage, assign metrics that will help you track progress and measure success. These metrics can include website traffic, email open rates, lead response time, conversion rates, and customer retention rates.
4. Analyze results: After you have assigned metrics, track and analyze the results to identify areas for improvement. For example, if you notice that a large number of leads are dropping off during the consideration stage, you may need to adjust your messaging or provide more detailed information about your product or service.
5. Optimize the process: Use the insights gained from analyzing the results to optimize your sales process and improve the customer journey. This can include streamlining communication channels, providing more personalized messaging, and addressing challenges and concerns.

2. Go Back To The Drawing Board

Another factor that often gets overlooked in B2B marketing is doing the proper research. It’s the foundational stone of the whole process and can make or break the entire campaign.

You should never stop your research, as the marketing landscape is constantly changing. The following are just a few of the areas to keep up to date with in order to stay ahead of the curve.

• Research the market itself. You should know all of the ins and outs of your particular market category, including what your competitors are up to, any new technologies being developed, or updates to the industry.
  
• Research the organization to learn the key players and decision makers.
• Research your ideal buyer’s needs, challenges, desires, and motivators. These characteristics can evolve over time for a number of reasons.
• Research key performance metrics, relevant data and analytics.

Within most B2B verticals, your company is selling value and measurable results to other B2B businesses, and the main goal is to help them grow bigger and make more money. While that will never change, you still need to understand their value proposition, the pain points that stand in the way of their growth, and the best solutions for their challenges.

The research will help you understand your potential clients, which will make the b2b marketing campaign more direct, and thus more effective. But, remember, this is something you need to do constantly, or at least periodically.

Research is not something you do only once, as you can risk falling far behind your competitors with outdated information.

3. Hire an expert B2B marketing agency.

In today's competitive business landscape, it's becoming increasingly challenging for companies to stand out from the crowd and reach their target audience. B2B marketing strategies is an essential component of any successful business, but it's not always easy to execute. That's where a B2B marketing agency can come in and provide value.

What is a B2B Marketing Agency?

A B2B marketing agency is a professional organization that specializes in developing and executing B2B marketing strategies specifically designed to help businesses reach their B2B target audience. Hiring a B2B marketing agency can bring numerous benefits to your business, including:

Access to Expertise

One of the most significant benefits of hiring a B2B marketing agency is gaining access to a team of experts in the field. Marketing agencies typically have a team of professionals with extensive experience in marketing, including digital marketing, competitive analysis, content creation, social media, and SEO. With their expertise, you can trust that they'll develop a best B2B marketing strategy that's tailored to your specific business needs and target audience.

Cost-Effective

Hiring a best B2B marketing agency can be a cost-effective solution for businesses looking to grow their marketing efforts. Rather than hiring a full-time marketing team, which can be costly, outsourcing your B2B marketing needs to an agency can be more affordable. Additionally, by working with a B2B marketing agency, you have the flexibility to scale up or down your marketing efforts based on your needs, saving you money in the long run.

Focus on Your Core Business

As a business owner, you have a lot on your plate. Marketing your business can take up a significant amount of time and resources, taking you away from your core business functions. By hiring a best B2B marketing agency, you can focus on your core business while the agency takes care of your marketing needs.

Increased Efficiency

Marketing agencies have streamlined processes and access to the latest marketing tools and technologies, which allows them to execute best B2B marketing strategies more efficiently. With their expertise and technology, they can quickly develop and execute a B2B marketing plan that focuses on various marketing channels for optimal success.

Measurable Results

Marketing agencies have a track record of delivering measurable results for their clients. They use data-driven strategies to monitor and optimize their marketing campaigns continually. By tracking the effectiveness of their B2B marketing strategies, they can adjust their approach to maximize results, ensuring that your marketing activities are driving the desired outcomes.

4. Refine and Optimize Your Website Design

Your website needs to look awesome and work even better. If it still looks the same it did when you founded your company in 1997, better get to work and hire some designers and developers.

There’s no getting around this. Your web pages need to be top notch, easy for the b2b buyers to use, and a killer data-collecting expert. A well designed website often serves as the first thing your customers see, and acts as your 24/7 salesperson. The following is a list of best b2b marketing tips to ensure that your website is working with you, not against you.

• Growth driven design (or GDD). This B2B marketing strategy of web redesign is being implemented more and more by newer B2B marketing agencies because it allows companies to keep what works and what doesn’t work when they attempt to redesign. By focusing on rebuilding specific pages and launching them individually, your business can save time and money and obtain clear insight into how your pages are performing.

• The speed of your website is crucial. Studies show 53% of users won’t stay on your website if it takes more than three seconds to load. The speed of your website is an incredibly important factor to attract website visitors and keep them long enough to turn them into prospective b2b buyers. In addition to the user experience perspective, the speed of your website also matters when it comes to Google ranking. If your site performs super slow, don’t expect to be on the first page of Google.

  
  
  

  

• Your website has to be secure. Many users will avoid your website at all costs if it is not secure.

• It should be mobile friendly. Nowadays, your customers have a small computer screen in their pocket. Make sure you spend just as much time developing and testing the mobile version of your website, as that is one of the main ways potential b2b buyers are searching for your product or service.

5. Gain More Awareness with SEO

In a nutshell, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making your content the first that pops up in unpaid search engine results. It’s an intricate system of collecting data to learn what the most searched keywords, phrases or questions are, developing educational content that offers an answer or solution to the problem and then guiding the traffic back to your site.

These are some tips when planning your SEO strategy.

• Do your keyword research. It’s critical that you know what people are searching for related to your brand, how many people are searching for it, and in what format they prefer to receive the information.
• Create personalized content. When deciding on what content to produce and optimize, consider the needs, challenges, and motivators of your ideal customers. It’s important that your content is targeted and personalized to the right audience.
• Write in real, natural, and understandable language. Make sure the content you create and deliver is conversational. Even if your ideal clientele is a B2B professional and understands the technical lingo, they want quality content that is easy and quick to read.
• Implement on-site SEO Strategy. Once you know what keywords or phrases your ideal customers are searching, it’s important to incorporate specifically designed website pages that work to provide an answer to the question those users were asking through their search.
• Use technical SEO. Don’t just focus on appealing to the user. A key element of SEO is being readable by the search engines. Understanding the technical side of search engine optimization can be a game changer when working with developers and website designers.
• Use link building to gain authority. This relates to gaining credibility through word of mouth. Link building is the process of gaining links from other authoritative websites, building your brand’s messaging, and earning a trusted audience that shares your content. Inbound links and internal links work to boost your credibility.

   

6. Implement the Right Tools and Consolidate Your Software

If you’re running two different types of automation systems, an ABM software, a CRM that only your sales team really uses, and more than one data acquisition platform… it’s time to rethink your technology stack.

Leave behind the idea of “the more tools the better”. This isn’t the case. Consolidate by utilizing all-in-one providers and working with an agency that can recommend the best software solutions.

It’s critical to the success of your B2B marketing strategy that you’re working with the most cost-efficient and least time-consuming software that helps align your teams and their work efforts.

7. Focus On Adding Value with Case Studies

Adding value should be your mantra in anything business-related, but B2B marketing strategies are where you should emphasize it even more. People who are browsing your products and services need to have a clear sense of what solutions you have to offer for their challenges.

When it comes to B2C, adding value is achieved by writing blog posts or offering a discount code here and there. If you sell supplements, creating a how-to guide that lists the best-kept recipes, or the most effective forms of exercise for weight loss will get you more attention and many opportunities to mention your product or service in the text with those discount codes.

A successful B2B marketing strategy often includes B2B content marketing like how-to blog posts and related articles but requires more in-depth content as well. Look at it this way - business owners, managers, and other key people are already educated about running a business and know what they want to achieve.

Giving them general, one-size fits all advice won’t have much of an impact. And trying to reach too broad of an audience base is never a wise idea in B2B marketing campaign, as you can miss the point.

So what do you do?

One proven approach is to show how your products or services have already added value in real-life situations with your existing clients. Case studies are a perfect example of that.

Case studies have a similar effect as word of mouth or referrals, which is one of the most powerful marketing tools. When a friend, family member or colleague of a potential customer recommends your brand, they’ve already developed a trust and bond with your product or service and are more likely to purchase. It’s an easier sell.

Through appropriately crafted case studies, you can leverage your relationship and success with another well-known company and the bond an ideal buyer has with that company, to gain their trust right from the start.

A case study provides a before and after look into a success story you’ve created for one of your existing clients or customers. These success stories for targeted niche verticals are great for mapping content across the b2b buyer’s journey and more importantly, help show ideal customers that you understand their particular industry pain points.

Having in-depth studies can also be a valuable source for future blog posts that will explain how the whole process played out. You can also interview the business owners, and use their praise for your testimonials page, which is another excellent form of promotion.

8. Test Your Ideas

Marketing is not straightforward or strict. There are no guarantees, no matter how many hours you spent figuring out and fine-tuning your idea. That’s why it is always a necessary step to use the information you’ve gathered during your research phase to field-test your B2B marketing strategies and marketing channels.

You can A/B test email marketing campaigns, landing pages, but also website redesign through growth driven design. The idea is to find a combination that has the best conversion rate, or that keeps customers moving faster and more effectively through your sales funnel.

You can experiment in various ways. Create strategic call-to-action buttons in different places throughout your site. Update your copy, color schemes, try out new landing pages and actions, and implement creative email marketing headlines to test the waters and see what works best. There are so many things to try, and without split testing, you will never know what works with your target audience.

You can also test different pricing schemes, and see if freemium works better when compared to time-limited trials or money-back guarantees. Also, you can test out different lengths of your promotions, or different features included in each package.

The opportunities and combinations are limitless, but the more you try, the better idea you will have, so play around.

9. Expand Your Branding Footprint

While creating content for your website is effective and necessary, branching out to other websites and communities that relate back to your brand is even better. Doing so can help your brand stand out, and also increase your reach, including with business decision makers.

This can include guest posting, but also offering your opinion through public speaking at local conferences and industry events.

All of these marketing tactics will get you, and your company, in front of a new audience. Of course, you need to make sure the audience fits your ideal customer profile, and that it can bring you closer to your potential customers.

Writing a guest post, or speaking at a conference or a podcast will allow customers the chance to get to know you, and you will be able to present your brand in the best light possible, which combined can help drive organic traffic to your website. It can also drive list building for effective email marketing campaigns. That way, you will build personal relationships with the right business executives, and closing deals later will become much easier.

Another effective way to branch out entails asking your employees to create content themselves. You shouldn’t force or expect this of your employees, but asking politely if they’re interested doesn’t hurt. Also, the content should be high-quality and engaging. Offer rewards to those who produce relevant content, to make them want to create more, and see how all this works for you.

10. Be Direct & To The Point with PPC

You might win over the department manager and their superior with compelling and targeted content. But how do you reach and connect with the top dog that will ultimately finalize the sale?

The key decision makers within a company are most likely extremely limited on time. It’s important to keep things short and sweet when it comes to attracting these influential leads.

First, when running your email marketing campaigns, pay attention to subject lines. That is what often makes or breaks your email. Business executives are flooded with emails every day, and they will be reluctant to open another one that is trying to sell them something.

Second, it’s wise to make sure your emails add value, and you state that in the subject line. Also, avoid adding attachments, as they often trigger the anti-virus, or immediately send the email to the spam folder. Keep it short but effective.

Because most executives lack time, running a blog with relatively long articles might not be the best approach. Sure, it will earn you organic traffic, as long-form posts contain a lot of keywords. But decision makers don’t typically have the time to read 3000 word blog post you release twice per week.

This is where PPC, or pay-per-click, advertising comes into play and brings us to the third tip in targeting potential business buyers. Paid search can be incredibly beneficial when planned and implemented correctly.

The following list describes the critical factors to keep in mind when planning your PPC campaigns.

• Choose the right platform. The most popular platform for paid search is Google Ads, but with the explosion of social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. now also offer effective pay-per-click advertising.
• Next, decide the type of ad to run. You have the option of running a display ad, video ad, search engines ad or app ad. These range in effectiveness depending on your product marketing strategy and ideal customer profile.
• Figure out your budget and bidding strategy. It’s important to have clear budget goals before you decide on your PPC ad campaign. There are several bidding strategies to choose from as well, and knowing what you’re allotted to spend will help you choose which route to take. Google Ads offers: Cost-per-click bidding, Cost-per-thousand viewable impressions, Cost-per-acquisition, and Cost-per-view bidding.
• Use “negative keywords” in your PPC verbiage. In other words, this describes the analysis of what popular words and phrases to avoid so as to not waste money placing ads on pages that are irrelevant to what you’re selling.
• Measure your results. Keep track of your conversion vs sales and what keywords and phrasing are actively driving traffic, generating leads and converting potential b2b buyers into customers.

PPC advertising is controlled and specifically designed to attract a targeted group, while blogs are there, available to anyone, and are less likely to attract the right kind of people. Ideally, you should do both, but if you are interested in getting more leads in a shorter time, PPC is a much better investment.

Below is a great LinkedIn video from their content series “Live with Marketers,” discussing effective B2B marketing strategies in 2019. This LinkedIn video is an excellent primer for this article, which focuses on looking forward to ways to be an effective B2B marketer in 2023.

11. Leverage Account Based B2B Marketing Strategies

Outdated, traditional marketing approaches can often focus on attracting as many leads as possible to the top of your sales funnel with limited criteria necessary. An indirect approach like this can require a lot of effort with little return.

Account based marketing (ABM) describes a personalized B2B marketing strategy for an individual buyer within a business.

Targeted B2b marketing tactics like this can be beneficial for a number of reasons.

• It promotes a higher probability of acquiring a new client
• It ensures that users are seeing relevant content, which can help push them along the marketing funnel.
• It offers a larger return on investment.
• It helps you cultivate stronger relationships with your customers.
• It shortens sales cycle

With ABM, your focus is to directly target key decision makers at companies that fit the requirements of your ideal potential clientele. Here, you focus on real people and create the whole campaign personalized for them. This results in a much shorter sales cycle, but also more successful conversions.

Alignment between your sales and marketing teams is crucial when it comes to account based marketing strategy. Sales and marketing need to work together to deliver cohesive ABM tactics without seeming redundant or aggressive.

In 2023, account based marketing is perfect for B2B customers acquisition efforts that involve longer sales cycle and more complex deals, and it can be the turning point that results in closing deals. For this reason, it is definitely a B2B marketing strategy that you should consider implementing, as it can reap huge benefits.

Even if you don’t close the deal immediately, ABM will get you closer to the right people at the companies that interest you the most. After the campaign ends, you will be on their radar, which will make future contact much more likely.

12. Actively Engage In Social Media

We may be talking strictly about B2B marketing tactics, but that does not by any means exclude social media networks. In this day and age, social media reaches across all industries.

Developing a social media marketing plan today is not only useful but absolutely necessary. However, it can be difficult to know the right way to approach social media. For B2B companies, these tricks of the trade will help.

• Find your voice! Social media is personal, real, and relatable. Social media profiles that stand out are the ones with personality. You might be a tech startup that sells software to other companies, but you can still develop a fun, informative or interesting persona.

• Check out the competition. Peek at the accounts of your competitors and know what they’re posting. It’s important to keep tabs on their social media marketing campaigns and their success to see what works. Also, note their audience to see how it matches up to yours.

• Make sure your content is original! Users know when the content is original and creative, or borrowed and fake. If you post something just to appear active on the app, They can tell if the content is written for search engine or for Humans. That’s why it’s so important to create unique and original posts to stay relevant and relatable.

• Mix it up with multimedia. Keep it interesting. The fun part of scrolling through social media platform is seeing different types of posts: videos, photos, polls, stories, or GIFs. Use multimedia content to keep the attention of your audience.

• Shout out your employees! As I mentioned above, social media is personal. When a B2B company shines a little spotlight on an employee, it gives a sense of familiarity and allows customers to put a face to your company. It also encourages the employee or employees to share with their own networks which boosts awareness of your brand positioning.
• Engage. Whether it’s a quick “thanks” with an emoji, or answering a post about a reported issue, engagement is key. You’ll have much more success with your social media marketing if you stay on top of your communication.

LinkedIn is an excellent social media outlet as a professional business network. In the last few years, LinkedIn grew tremendously, and it is no longer solely a digital CV database. It has incorporated ways to be more interactive and user-friendly. You can also leverage LinkedIn ads to help reach more of your target audience.

This can be highly beneficial, as many people use LinkedIn, including big names higher up in the chain of command of major companies. But, it’s important that their employees use the network even more. If they start noticing your posts, you can bet it will lead to some engagement and will help you get closer to the new clientele.

Other platforms that are more “social”, like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, are extremely useful as well. Remember, John Smith, CEO at Corporation L.L.C. on LinkedIn, in his full navy blue business suit, is just John Smith on Facebook sharing adorable pictures of his children. It’s the same person in two different environments. And those two environments offer two separate, but effective ways to turn Mr. Smith into a lead.

Instagram can work for B2B as well. Targeted native ads that fit seamlessly into your ideal buyer’s feed often feel less invasive and work well with the millennial demographic. Video content is a must for Instagram marketing campaigns.

Choosing the right social media marketing strategy heavily depends on your business concept. There are no strict rules. As long as you post regularly, respond to comments and questions, and keep it original, you’ll see more traffic to your website.

Keep in mind, it is better to have one active and professional-looking profile than to have multiple inactive accounts, so choose wisely.

13. Influencer Marketing

In recent years, influencer marketing has become a buzzword in the world of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing. However, many business-to-business (B2B) companies have been slow to adopt it, perhaps thinking it's not a fit for their target audience or industry. But the truth is, it can be just as effective as its B2C counterpart.

This type of marketing is the practice of leveraging industry experts, thought leaders, and other influential figures to promote a company's products or services to its target audience. These influencers may be journalists, analysts, consultants, or even other businesses that are respected in a particular industry.

The focus is on building relationships with influencers who have a strong online presence and a large following in your industry. By partnering with these influencers, you can tap into their expertise and credibility to boost your own brand's credibility and authority. Additionally, this can segue into referral marketing, which has shown to be a great channel for engaging customers. Consider referral marketing programs, especially with influencers or micro-influencers that use your product or service. Doing this can potentially be a successful B2B marketing activity to help your business grow.

Benefits

There are several benefits of this type of marketing, including:

1. Increased brand-awareness: Partnering with influencers can help you reach a wider audience and increase your brand's visibility.
2. Enhanced credibility: By associating your brand with respected industry leaders, you can boost your credibility and reputation.
3. Lead generation: Influencers can help you generate leads by promoting your products or services to their followers.
4. Thought leadership: Partnering with influencers can help position your brand as a thought leader in your industry.
5. Cost-effectiveness: Compared to other forms of marketing, it can be cost-effective, especially if you choose to work with micro-influencers or industry experts who are happy to promote your brand identity in exchange for exposure or other incentives.

Tips for a successful Campaign

1. Identify the right influencers: Look for influencers who are active in your industry and have a significant following. Consider their areas of expertise and their ability to engage their audience.
2. Build relationships: Don't approach influencers with a hard sell. Instead, build relationships by engaging with them on social media channels and offering value in exchange for their help promoting your product or service.
3. Create valuable content: Individuals are unlikely to promote your brand name unless they believe in your products or services. Focus on creating high-quality, valuable content marketing that showcases your expertise and provides value to your content and target audience.
4. Measure your results: Use analytics tools to track the success of your campaigns.

14. Live Chat Functions, Virtual Assistants and Conversational Selling

When it comes to adding a virtual assistant or live chat function to your website, many marketers or business owners make the mistake of assuming it is solely to handle customer complaints. While it is an incredibly effective and powerful engagement tool for customer support, it is much more than that. In fact, it has become a popular choice of communication for customers in 2023.

Engaging with your customers when they are already browsing your website is key. Website visitors expect to get answers when they want them. They are already interacting with your website and they have your products and services front-of-mind. It is a fast and simple way for them to get the answers they need to help positively influence their purchase decision. A live chat function can work as your best salesperson.

15. Use Marketing Automation

In today's digital age, businesses are increasingly turning to marketing automation to streamline their B2B marketing. B2B Marketing automation involves the use of software tools to automate repetitive marketing tasks and processes, enabling businesses to focus on more strategic initiatives.

Automation has a few key benefits that can really increase the success of your B2B marketing campaign, including:

Improved Lead Management

Lead management is an essential component of B2B marketing process, but it can be time-consuming and challenging to manage effectively. Marketing automation software can simplify lead management by automating lead scoring, nurturing, and segmentation. This ensures that leads are properly qualified and passed on to sales when they are ready to buy.

Increased Efficiency

Marketing automation enables businesses to automate repetitive marketing tasks, such as email marketing, social media management, and lead generation. This frees up marketing teams to focus on more strategic initiatives, such as developing B2B marketing campaigns, creating content, and analyzing data. With automation of marketing, businesses can achieve greater efficiency and productivity, resulting in more significant ROI.

Personalized Communication

Marketing automation allows businesses to deliver personalized communication to their business to business customers. By tracking customer behavior and preferences, businesses can send targeted emails, personalized B2B content marketing, and tailored messages to their audience. This results in a more engaging customer experience and a higher likelihood of converting leads into customers.

Better Data Insights

Automation tools provide businesses with valuable data insights, such as website traffic, email open rates, campaign data, and click-through rates. This structured data can be used to gain a better understanding of customer behavior and preferences, enabling businesses to adjust their B2B marketing strategies accordingly. With better data insights, businesses can make more informed decisions and drive better results in their digital marketing strategy.

Improved Collaboration

With automation, you can improve collaboration between marketing and sales teams. By sharing data and insights, both teams can work together to identify opportunities and develop effective B2B marketing strategies for your marketing campaigns. This results in better alignment between the two teams and a more coordinated approach to business to business marketing.

16.  Leverage Long-form Content

Content marketing is a highly effective B2B marketing strategy in business to business marketing. But it is important to recognize that not all content is going to generate the same results. Long-form content is much more powerful in driving traffic, building thought leadership and raising awareness surrounding your business. It's also a great way to deliver educational content to individual consumers to influence purchase decision.

Businesses who use content marketing and blogging generate over 126% more leads than ones who don’t.

However, it’s not just the length of the blog or article that matters, but the quality as well. Marketing content should offer value to your potential customers and provide informative content that generates trust. The most effective long-form content includes case studies, how-to guides, webinars, and product demonstrations through product marketing. It is also helpful to craft your long-form related articles around the specific pain points and address the buyer’s journey of your ideal customers and target b2b buyer personas. Additionally, strong content can help your website be found through organic search.

17. Keep It Visual

Speaking of powerful content, another key element to include in your leadership-building content is the visual aspect. It is critical to include images and video content in your blogs, case studies, and other content to help boost awareness. In 2023, visual pieces and graphics are more effective than audio or text. Breaking up a long-form writing piece with graphics makes the content snackable and more attractive.

Adding photos or videos helps potential customers retain the helpful information you have to offer. Experiment with video content marketing as well including testimonials, product demonstrations and educational tutorials. You can also generate graphs and charts to demonstrate valuable data and statistics. Just be sure not to overwhelm the viewer with a distracting visual!

The other advantage to developing infographics, graphs, charts, images or videos is that they can be syndicated on other publications to further boost your brand awareness. Other websites are happy to utilize your visual content to add value to their own pieces, while linking to your page to improve your SEO rankings and boost your brand awareness. Just make sure that visuals look good both on full website or on mobile devices. This is critically as the vast majority of people enjoy using their phones, especially when they are on the go or between meetings.

18. Establish Brand Culture and Values

Another vital part of business to business marketing in 2023 is establishing the core values and culture of your business. It’s not all about delighting your customers these days, you want to delight your employees too. Your internal work culture should inspire them to promote your brand organically. Plus – your employees have the ability to magnify your marketing efforts, so you want them to give it all they got.

Employee activation takes more than just asking your team members to share content and keep their LinkedIn up to date. It goes much further than that.

To successfully “activate” your employees, you want to encourage your workforce to curate and share content that they are proud of and that authentically interests them. Additionally, you need to create an official program that inspires your team members to get involved.

19. Go Old School

The world has gone digital. That goes without saying. However, that doesn’t mean it should be the only type of marketing you do. People still go to work, communicate with their friends and family, and spend a legitimate amount of time without a screen in their face.

Therefore, implementing some traditional marketing techniques is still an effective method. Word of mouth remains one of the top marketing tactics. For this reason, building a network that rewards the customers who bring in new clients is one of the best ways to spark referrals and recommendations.

As for conversational sales, you can use telesales, live chat and conversational marketing as a sales channel. Although it is not face to face, it is still contact with a real person, which will always convert much better than solely dealing with random emails or bots.

Also, old-school marketing such as flyers, TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines still have an impact. It helps with building brand awareness, brand recognition, and brand equity.

Another old-but-gold tactic is organizing events, which falls under the category of experiential marketing. This will allow people to get to know you in an up close and personal fashion, online marketing which is something irreplaceable. 

Just make sure to show your ads in the right kind of media. Business and finance magazines, talk shows on the radio or TV are all excellent examples. If you have a heftier budget, running advertisements on these networks can be useful.

20. Measure What Matters

In today's digital age, business to business marketing campaigns are more important than ever. They're the driving force behind brand awareness, lead generation, and ultimately, sales. However, measuring the effectiveness of these campaigns can be challenging.

• Enhances overall B2B marketing strategy: Improving measurement methods can help you better understand your target audience, what resonates with them, and what they're looking for, which can inform and enhance your overall B2B marketing strategies.
• Identifies areas for improvement: Analyzing data is just one part of the process. By improving your measurement methods, you can identify areas where your campaigns are falling short, and make changes that can lead to better results.
• Increases ROI: By measuring the right metrics and focusing on lead quality, you can ensure that your marketing efforts are generating a positive return on investment, which can lead to increased revenue and profits.
• Boosts customer satisfaction: Measuring customer satisfaction and retention can help you identify areas where you can improve your customer experience, leading to greater satisfaction and loyalty.
• Improves collaboration: By improving your measurement methods, you can ensure that all stakeholders in your organization are aligned and working towards the same goals, which can lead to greater collaboration and teamwork.
• Drives innovation: Through measuring and analyzing data, you can gain insights into what's working and what's not, which can help you identify new opportunities for innovation and growth.
• Enhances brand reputation: By measuring and tracking metrics like brand awareness and reputation, you can ensure that your marketing efforts are building a positive image and reputation for your brand name.
• Enables agile decision making: With better measurement methods, you can make more informed decisions and quickly adjust your B2B marketing strategies as needed, allowing you to be more agile and responsive to changing market conditions.

With so much data available, it's easy to get lost in the numbers and lose sight of what really matters.

Here are a few ways to ensure that you measure what matters in B2B digital marketing campaigns:

Set clear goals

Before you can measure the effectiveness of your B2B marketing campaign, you need to establish clear goals. What are you trying to achieve? Are you looking to increase brand awareness, generate lead, or boost sales? Whatever your goals may be, make sure they're specific, measurable, and achievable.

Track the right metrics

With clear goals in mind, you can start tracking the metrics that matter. While there are countless metrics you could track, some of the most important for B2B marketing campaigns include website traffic, leads generated, conversion rates, and ROI. Make sure you're tracking the metrics that align with your goals.

Analyze the data

Once you've tracked your metrics, it's time to analyze the data. Look for trends and patterns that can help you identify what's working and what's not. Use this information to adjust your B2B marketing strategies and optimize your digital marketing campaigns for better results.

Focus on lead quality

While it's important to generate leads, it's even more important to generate high-quality leads. Make sure you're targeting the right audience and providing them with the information they need to make an informed decision. This will help ensure that the leads you generate are more likely to convert into paying customers.

Don't forget about customer retention

Finally, don't forget about the importance of customer retention. It's much easier and more cost-effective to retain existing customers than it is to acquire new ones. Make sure you're tracking metrics like customer lifetime value and customer satisfaction to ensure you're providing value to your existing customers.

In conclusion, measuring what matters in B2B marketing campaigns requires a clear understanding of your goals, tracking the right metrics, analyzing the data, focusing on lead quality, and prioritizing customer retention. By following these steps, you can ensure that your B2B marketing campaigns are driving the results you need to succeed in today's competitive marketplace.

Conclusion

We hope this article helped you gain more in-depth insight into how to refine your company’s approach to improve the effectiveness of your B2B marketing strategy. These actionable insights also follow industry best practices that will stand the test of time and will continue to be effective in 2023 and beyond.

After reading this, it’s possible you may still feel a little bit overwhelmed. You might still not know exactly where to begin and implement these B2B marketing strategies. Don’t worry -- you are not alone.

Many expert B2B marketers can plan an effective approach, but often lack the internal resources to execute successfully your internal approved B2B marketing strategies. This is where we highly recommend having a conversation with veteran B2B marketing agencies who really know all of the ins and outs.

When you look at these B2B marketing strategies outlined above more closely, they don’t seem that groundbreaking. They may even seem a little obvious. Yet even the best B2B marketing professionals are not fully leveraging these B2B marketing strategies to their full potential.

In this new decade, marketing teams wear many hats internally. For this reason, you should consider leaning on one of the expert niche B2B marketing companies to execute your vision and see a profound difference in your B2B marketing ROI.