Business-to-business (B2B) marketers can drive business growth at their company through digital marketing. B2B marketers can increase engagement with future customers if they adopt 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 and stand out among a noisy world and 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 concentrates on increasing marketing and sales collaboration. 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) that will help grow the organization and tailor its products and services toward those accounts.
In a typical B2B buying committee, six to 10 decision-makers have consumed at least five pieces of content independently to figure out what solution they should 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 to create an approach that will 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 correctly, they build trust with their target audience and significantly increase buyers’ confidence when considering working with a company. This leads to increase sales and revenue growth for a company.
3. Lead generation management
Lead generation management is not an easy task, but it is critical to growing a company. It is about the process of generating leads (potential customers), qualifying leads, tracking their activity, and then passing them along to the inside sales and/or field sales team to further qualify.
A robust lead generation program builds visibility, trust, and interest from potential customers, increasing a company’s sales of products and services and potentially increasing the business’s profit margins.
“You are out of business if you don’t have a prospect.”
Zig Ziglar
Companies that have a well-established lead generation program have a greater chance of turning leads into customers and B2B marketers can drive growth through digital marketing with a well-oiled lead management program.
When a company has a robust lead generation process, they know their ideal customer well, properly target their market, and 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 and valuable emails to them.
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 to the different groups.
Research says email marketing has one of the highest returns on investment, with a $44 return on every $1 invested. Email marketing helps build relationships with potential, current, and past customers.
Email marketing help companies bring in new customers and build strong, long-term relationships with current customers. Keeping existing customers happy and delighting potential customers helps grow the business.
5. Responsive website design
A top-notch responsive website helps provide an excellent user experience because the website’s layout is fluid and flexible based on the screen size of the device the potential customer or current customer is using.
Responsive website design optimizes the website for different web browsers and will help a company’s website look good on a desktop computer, a tablet, or a mobile phone. 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 component of a company’s digital marketing efforts. It helps earn the trust of website visitors.
Research says 80% of people look at a company’s website when checking out a company.
With more people using their mobile devices, a website that is responsive to different screens and browsers helps a company eliminate the extra cost of building a website for mobile. Responsive websites are easier to maintain, boost search engine optimization (SEO), provide brand consistency, and delight potential customers with an excellent user experience.
Bringing it all together
Today’s modern B2B marketers are tasked with many digital marketing projects ranging from social media to website development to content marketing to email marketing to lead generation.
For B2B marketers to succeed, they should focus on these five areas to drive business growth through digital marketing.
Account-based marketing, thought leadership content, lead generation management, email marketing, and responsive website design are five ways B2B marketers should focus on to ensure they stand out, align with sales, and grow the business through digital marketing.