What Does Digital Marketing Mean for B2B?
It’s no secret that there are some key differences between marketing for B2C companies and B2B companies, and digital marketing is no exception. With B2B companies, sales cycles tend to be longer, and leads need to be nurtured for several months or longer before they will become paying customers. With consumers, purchasing decisions are made quickly, and the process for getting a consumer to buy from you is vastly different than it is for B2B customers.
So, how do these differences effect B2B when it comes to marketing the business online? Here are some insights that will help you understand what digital marketing means for B2B businesses:
You Need a Sold Content Marketing Plan
Content is the cornerstone of your efforts online. Content should be planned for each phase of your buying cycle. This gives you a chance to nurture your leaves and keep people engaged with your brand during the long cycle. If your content only hits one or two phases of the buying cycle, your potential customers might not return to your website. You want them to engage with your brand, and you can only do this if your audience feels as if you are meeting their needs.
Your content marketing will also help people return to your brand after they have left your website. You always need to give them a reason to come back. Here are some scenarios that will enable this to happen:
- Social media. Sharing a new blog post link in social media might encourage potential customers to click and visit your website more often.
- Newsletter. Let’s imagine that a potential customer signed up for your newsletter. If you share your new content in your newsletter, chances are pretty good that eventually your leads will find some of the content intriguing and then click back onto your website.
- SEO. New content gives the search engine more chances to return your website in the search engines.
Tailor Your Social Media Plan for B2B
Social media looks vastly different for B2B than it does for B2C. For B2B brands, it’s all about lead nurturing and branding, and taking a gentle, consistent approach is what yields the greatest results. For B2C companies, social media is used much differently. For example, a clothing brand may use social media to alert customers about a sale, or to showcase a new collection.
For B2B companies, the strategy may look different and include links to useful information on the website. The goal here is to make sure you are sharing plenty of content in social media that could help influence their eventual buying decisions. Sharing customer testimonials, product videos, and helpful, and helpful articles can all help nurture the lead in social media. The strategy should be created with this end goal in mind. You want to make sure people stay engaged with your brand while they take their time making a purchasing decision that works for them.
Digital marketing for B2B companies looks much different than the strategies used for B2C companies!
Categorized in: B2B Digital Marketing
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