Key Takeaways
- B2B marketers can drive growth through digital marketing by focusing on five key strategies.
- These strategies include account-based marketing and thought leadership content.
- Others are lead generation management, email marketing, and responsive website design.
- The shift towards digital marketing is crucial for B2B success, especially post-pandemic.
- Account-based marketing helps tailor efforts to high-value accounts, enhancing collaboration between marketing and sales.
- Thought leadership content builds credibility and trust, contributing to demand generation and sales growth.
- Responsive website design ensures a positive user experience across devices, which is essential for customer engagement.
Business-to-business (B2B) marketers can drive business growth at their company through digital marketing. B2B marketers can increase engagement with future customers by adopting specific digital marketing tactics.
The global pandemic accelerated the shift of B2B marketers toward digital.
A robust digital marketing strategy that drives positive business revenue gains is a must.
The importance of digital ads, content marketing, email marketing, and a targeted approach has grown.
The right approach to B2B marketing can make or break a company. It helps a company stand out among a noisy world. It also helps in a growing list of competitors.
Research has shown that 89% of B2B marketers have completely changed or somewhat changed their marketing mix of channels.
5 ways B2B marketers can drive growth through digital marketing
There are five main ways that B2B marketers can drive business growth through digital marketing. Let’s dive in.
1. Account-based marketing (ABM)
“ABM is more than a third of digital marketing budgets.”
Tim Bollish, LinkedIn’s market research manager
ABM is a focused growth approach to B2B marketing that focuses on increasing collaboration between marketing and sales.
It brings together resources to create a personalized buying experience for a limited set of targeted, high-value accounts.
ABM is appealing in the B2B world because it is targeted, strategic, and personalized.
A business focuses on a specific number of companies (accounts). These companies will help grow the organization. The business tailors its products and services toward those accounts.
In a typical B2B buying committee, six to 10 decision-makers are involved. They have each consumed at least five pieces of content independently. This helps them decide which solution to buy.
Marketing teaming up with sales to deliver personalized messages and marketing and sales activities to engage those buyers requires resources.
Since companies can’t be everything to every company, this approach focuses on marketing and sales teams.
They create a strategy to grow the business with current and future customers.
2. Thought leadership content
Thought leadership content is about a company’s unique perspectives, experiences, and resources to engage current and future customers.
The goal of this content is to build credibility, trust, and loyalty.
“If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”
Zig Ziglar, an American author, salesman, and speaker
B2B marketers are producing more thought leadership content today. However, they are not providing enough valuable insights that stand out from their competitors.
B2B marketers are also undervaluing the power of thought leadership.
Effective thought leadership helps companies increase their demand generation and lead generation efforts.
Most companies think thought leadership is a type of content, but it’s an approach to content.
When companies approach thought leadership content effectively, they build trust with their target audience. This significantly increases buyers’ confidence when considering working with them.
This leads to increased sales and revenue growth for a company.
3. Lead generation management
Lead generation management is not easy, but it is critical to growing a company.
It is about generating leads (potential customers) and qualifying them. It also involves tracking their activity.
After that, they are passed along to the inside sales and/or field sales team for further qualification.
A robust lead generation program builds visibility, trust, and interest from potential customers. It increases a company’s sales of products and services. This can also increase the business’s profit margins.
“You are out of business if you don’t have a prospect.”
Zig Ziglar
Companies with a well-established lead generation program are more likely to convert leads into customers.
B2B marketers can drive growth through digital marketing with a well-oiled lead management program.
When a company has a robust lead generation process, it knows its ideal customer well. They properly target their market. They also produce compelling content that resonates with their target audience.
Without leads, companies won’t have the customer base needed to grow.
4. Email marketing
A critical part of the lead generation process is email marketing. Email nurturing helps warm up cold prospects by sending a series of helpful, valuable emails.
Companies can segment their email lists into groups that are organized by digital behavior, interests, geography, and other targeting criteria.
Companies can create targeted emails for the different groups.
Research shows that email marketing provides significant returns. It has a $44 return for every $1 invested.
Email marketing helps build relationships with potential, current, and past customers.
Email marketing helps companies attract new customers and build strong, long-term relationships with existing customers.
Keeping existing customers happy and delighting potential customers helps grow the business.
5. Responsive website design
A top-notch responsive website helps give an excellent user experience. This is because the website’s layout is fluid.
It is also flexible based on the device’s screen size. The potential customer or current customer is using this device.
Responsive website design optimizes the website for different web browsers. It will help a company’s website look good on desktop computers, tablets, and mobile phones.
First impressions matter, and a responsive website design is a must.
“The way you position yourself at the beginning of a relationship has a profound impact on where you end up.”
Ron Karr, American author
A website is a critical part of a company’s digital marketing efforts. It helps build trust with website visitors.
Research says 80% of people look at a company’s website when checking out a company.
More people are using their mobile devices. A responsive website functions well on different screens and browsers. It helps a company remove the extra cost of building a mobile website.
Responsive websites are easier to keep. They boost search engine optimization (SEO). Responsive websites offer brand consistency. They delight potential customers with an excellent user experience.
Bringing it all together
Today’s modern B2B marketers handle a range of digital marketing projects. These projects include social media, website development, content marketing, email marketing, and lead generation.
For B2B marketers to succeed, they should focus on these five areas to drive business growth through digital marketing.
Account-based marketing is an essential strategy for B2B marketers. Thought leadership content plays a crucial role. Lead generation management is critical, too.
Email marketing is another key strategy. Responsive website design is also vital.
These strategies help them stand out. They also guarantee alignment with sales and foster business growth through digital marketing.
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