B2B marketing - what makes it different? How to conduct it effectively?
For business
9 August 2023
Getting a customer interested is a difficult art, especially when the customer gives himself plenty of time to think. Such is the nature of business relationships, in which one party offers its products or services to another. How do you get the other company to start working with you? Our tips on how to successfully implement B2B marketing will give you the inside track.
What is B2B marketing?
B2B (business to business) marketing refers to activities initiated by companies with the aim of acquiring another company as a business customer. To this end, representatives of the entity offering its services contact decision-makers from the other company and present their proposal. Part of the B2B marketing strategy is also to take care of the visibility of one's own business and thus to appear in the minds of potential buyers of one's services or products. An important role is therefore played by advertisement .
What is B2B marketing about? Examples
The definition of B2B marketing is largely sufficient to understand what running this type of campaign is all about. It can be understood even better with examples. Companies that base their activities on providing services to other businesses are most easily found in the IT industry. There is no shortage of software houses involved in the development of custom-written software.
B2B-based examples of companies can also be found, for example, in the food production sector. The customers of many of them are, for example, companies in the catering industry, purchasing agricultural products necessary for the preparation of food. B2B marketing is also carried out by transport companies looking for business partners from the production or logistics sector. In their case, the business to business service is the transportation of employees to the factory floor or warehouse. Examples such as these of B2B marketing can be multiplied endlessly.
Who should do B2B marketing?
To carry out effective activities, you need to know not only what B2B marketing is, but also how to implement it effectively. This is what those employed specifically to deal with other companies do. The sales representatives involved in gaining their interest analyse the needs and financial capabilities of the potential business partner and then present them with an offer from their employer.
Specialised marketers who are responsible for acquiring customers for their company work mainly in large companies. Smaller companies cannot always afford an additional employee, let alone set up an entire sales department. This does not mean that they are at a disadvantage vis-à-vis their wealthier competitors. In fact, marketing in the B2B market can be carried out by a previously trained person with other day-to-day responsibilities or by the company owner.
Indeed, success in finding a contractor depends not only on knowing the needs of prospective clients and the business capabilities of rivals. It very often results from the ability to make use of private relationships and previously acquired reputation. Building up a reputation is a long process, but one that sometimes yields excellent results. By providing a quality product or service to others, the way is opened for others to enquire.
What distinguishes a B2B marketing strategy?
The principles of dealing with business customers in general are similar to building relationships with individual consumers. In both cases, an investment in advertising is needed to encourage people to choose our proposal rather than that of another company. In practice, however, the difference is dramatic, as the decision-making process for signing a contract (and therefore purchasing a product or service) in the case of companies takes much longer.
B2C (business to customer) marketing, i.e. aimed at the individual customer, requires a lot of commitment, but is nevertheless simpler than activities aimed at businesses. However, we are not referring to the acquisition of leads, i.e. simply generating interest in an offer. Unlike individuals, companies give themselves plenty of time to make a purchase decision. It is unlikely that, following the example of private consumers, any entity will decide to purchase something immediately.
How to conduct effective B2B marketing?
Those responsible for selecting an offer sometimes have to wait weeks or even months for a decision. Moreover, unlike individual customers, business customers are much more likely to expect an offer to be tailored to their requirements. Flexibility is therefore important in a B2B marketing strategy.
In other words, for a successful negotiation, you need to have a plan B, C and even more on standby. If you don't have a plan B, C or even more, a competitor may come out with a counteroffer while you are preparing a new proposal and then sign the contract with the company you want. However, even if this does not happen, another hurriedly drafted proposal may prove unfavourable to the company seeking to sign the contract.
B2B marketing - where to start? B2B marketing tools
Business, like private life, has largely moved to the virtual world and, consequently, we cannot be absent there. B2B online marketing needs to start by ensuring that you have the right visibility in the search engines, with the most popular Google at the forefront. How do you do this?
Operation of the company website
First of all, technical issues must be taken care of. In order for the company website to rank well, attention should be paid, among other things, to how quickly it loads and whether it is displayed correctly on both computers and mobile devices.
Otherwise, you have to reckon that the Internet user (who may be a future customer) will leave the site. The short time that more people spend browsing it is a signal to the search engine algorithms that the site is not worthy of recommendation. The result will be its decline in the query results.
Video, banners and social media profiles
You also need different types of content to make your website visible. Currently, video is leading the way, and this is a tip to record advertising spots presenting your offer. In addition to posting them on your website, it is also worth publishing them on your company's official social media profiles. It is also worth bragging about your successes on these, as this builds the image of the company as a group of professionals worth trusting.
In social networks, as well as on other portals and websites, it is worthwhile to additionally advertise with banners. This increases the chances that an interested business customer will click on the link hidden in the banner and link to the target page with the offer. Effectiveness is ensured by promoting yourself on well-known and popular sites. Our offer to publish advertisements on the InPost homepage and on the Parcel Manager service is noteworthy.
Company website content and sponsored articles
Videos and banners are great for appealing to the audience, but the written word should not be forgotten. Filling your own website with content allows you to present your company's offer and better position your website in search engines. In order to do the latter, it is necessary to use programmes that make it easier to write texts according to SEO principles.
Including key phrases in the content, i.e. those most frequently typed in by internet users, increases the chances of our website being recommended by search engine indexing robots. The same principle should be followed when writing sponsored texts for other websites. It is best to publish them on websites related to the industry in which the company and its potential customers operate, as well as on popular general-interest portals.
Analysis of effects
Once marketing activities have started, it is time to verify their effectiveness. For this purpose, it is worth using Google Analytics. It is a comprehensive and free tool for B2B and B2C marketing that allows you to check, among other things, the following:
- which content is most frequently viewed by users;
- how many internet users took the opportunity to download content such as an advertising brochure with a description of the offer;
- on which page someone clicked on our company's banner ad.
Using Google Analytics or another programme to analyse the effects of marketing activities allows you to react quickly to errors in communication with customers. Giving up such helpful tools can contribute to wasted human and financial resources. In other words, there is a risk that the time and resources spent on advertising will not pay off because no one in the company knows about the ineffectiveness of the campaign.
B2B marketing with InPost - guaranteed reach and effectiveness
Online promotional activities are fortunately not the only place where effective B2B sales can be made. What does this mean? An effective advertising campaign is an activity that makes use of all available channels of communication with customers. Our offer of renting space on Paczkomat® machines will help to acquire them. We offer three types of service:
- wrapping of parcel machines;
- display of advertising on the screens of Parcel Machines;
- the use of Parcel Machines for sampling, i.e. sending advertising material (e.g. product samples) to their customers.
Would you like to know the full offer, price list and also the details of cooperation? Visit inpost.pl/advertising or leave a contact for yourself via the form below.
Advertising your company with InPost? Always a good idea!
Take a minute to leave your contact details and we’ll prepare a tailored offer for you.
There are plenty of possibilities:
- Branding on Parcel Locker machines
- Ads displayed on Parcel Locker screens
- Sampling of promotional products
- Banner ads on the InPost website
- Advertising in the InPost newsletter
- Push notifications in the InPost Mobile app
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