B2B Branding Introduction
If you run a B2B startup, you are familiar with the challenges that come with it from what decision to make to what action to take. It is not easy to be decisive, but that is what is required as a startup founder, CEO, investor, CMO, or marketing manager. You get paid to make the tough decisions, including whether or not to pay for advertising or marketing campaigns.
B2B companies sell products or services to other businesses (and sometimes to consumers, too). Paid marketing at a B2B startup can be more tricky than a B2C startup given end users are usually buying on behalf of the organization. And it gets even more confusing if we are talking branding, marketing, and advertising for a B2B2C organization.
Meaningful Marketing Metrics
B2Bs use a lot of metrics that analyze their target audience before pitching and selling a product to them. B2Bs can attract both inbound (when the customer comes to you) and outbound (when you contact the potential customer lead) by:
• Defining its target customer
• Using the appropriate communication channels
• Maintaining communication
B2Bs (business to business companies) first consider the size of their audience before they start marketing and pitching them. They filter by SMB / SME small and medium businesses (0-100 employees), mid-market businesses (100-1000 employees), to enterprise businesses (1,000 employees and above).
Effective business-to-business marketing depends on the size of the audience as marketing is not a one-size fits all process; it is not possible to design a strategy that works for every size audience. Without understanding your target audience, marketing strategies will be ineffective.
All You Need To Know About B2B Marketing
To make the most of any B2B marketing strategy, it is important to consider the goal you wish to achieve. Is the strategy designed to just create visibility? Is it to drive partnerships and collaborations with other businesses? Or is it just simply to maximize profits?
B2B startups unlike B2Cs (business to consumer models) focus on strategies that help them to pitch their products and services to businesses that need them. The end goal of doing this is so that they can gain visibility and make profits.
The primary goal of every business is to maximize revenue and profits. Marketing strategies are used to reach your target market and drive awareness of your brand, product, and service. Strategies used differ from one business to another and are dependent on some basic factors.
Factors that cause marketing strategies to differ include goals, purchase motivation, purchase purpose, purchase process, content, and the people involved in the purchase.
Factors Impacting B2B Marketing
1. Marketing Goal
The marketing goal of B2Bs is to acquire and retain (high-value customers) which are other companies. Customers will typically be focused on understanding the business case of using your product, the ROI, efficiency, and expertise. Ensure that your marketing strategies communicate these values to your prospective customers. You will need industry benchmarks and KPI as well to help you reach your marketing goals, even if you run a top crypto forex MLM company.
2. Purchase Motivation
Customers are not primarily influenced by emotion in B2B marketing. Instead, they are affected by reason, costs, and ROI - i.e. how companies can make more (financial) gains through their products and services.
3. Purchase Purpose
B2Bs tend to retain customers longer than B2Cs. Most times, the engagement with their customers is often long-term because of purchase purpose. Once customers have found what they are looking for, they won’t leave unless they are enticed by a better deal or better value elsewhere. In addition, switching costs in B2B solutions are usually higher than B2C solutions. Constant contact, feedback, and service with your customers is important to ensure client loyalty.
4. Purchase Process
Unlike B2Cs, purchases are not made directly. Specific employees in the company may be buyers for different types of B2B products. For instance, a Procurement Manager may negotiate deals for enterprise-wide software whereas a Design Manager may buy design software for their specific team. This way, relationships are enhanced and intensified between both parties.
5. Content
Creating quality content (that informs and convinces) for B2B marketing is very important. Like direct consumers, the customers also need to be educated about new products and solve their problems.
6. People Involved
B2B customers are not the sole decision-makers. They are often representatives taking instructions from the decision-makers. Make sure you understand the buying process and the key influencers and decision makers in the process to drive effective marketing and sales.
Free Forms Of Marketing
There are many B2B startups on a budget out there as well looking for free advertising avenues. Some top free forms of marketing with potentially no direct costs include:
• Word of mouth and other referral channels that spread of your brand, products, or services. This is especially important for businesses like restaurants and video games.
• Content marketing that leads to organic rank on Google (while “free” this does entail spending time and/or money on building and promoting content.
• Barter based partnerships with other brands where instead of paying money, you barter on other things like cross-promotions.
But a lot of these free marketing and advertising options still take time, energy, employees, and maintenance. Remember that time is money, even when it comes to ads and branding.
If you don’t already have such channels set up and working for you, you’ll need to resort to paid marketing to start feeding your top of the sales funnel.
When B2B Startups Should Resort To Paid Marketing - Pay To Play
There are several strategies that B2B startups can engage to drive sales. While some of these strategies can be free, there will come a time when the need for paid marketing will be very important. Sometime you have to pay to play, and you have to spend money to make money. Some paid marketing strategies that you can engage for your startup include:
4 Top Paid B2B Marketing Strategies
• Email Marketing: It was reported by Content Marketing Institute in 2023 that 81% of B2B marketers consider email newsletters as their most used form of content marketing. This means they are tapping into the 3.9 billion daily email users. Email marketing isn't new or glamorous, but it is one of the most dependable channels for scaling and ROI.
• Digital Marketing (SEM): This is about having a digital presence. Without one, people will wonder what your business is since everyone is present online. Don't be that business that is still stuck in 1999 saying that they don't need a website or online presence in 2023. Get a website and ensure it is SEO-optimized. Search engine optimization is one of the best organic marketing tactics you can use for your business website and brands on Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex, YouTube, and DuckDuckGo. Define your audience and run PPC campaigns if you want to take the paid advertising route. You may want to bid on high volume, high purchase intent keywords that will help your potential users become aware of your service when they are searching for a solution.
• Social Media Marketing (SMM): This form of marketing is not quite emphatic for B2Bs as it is for B2Cs. Yet, social media is a powerful tool for creating brand awareness and management. The followers you have might be the key to connecting you with businesses in need of your services. You can focus your paid ad spend on channels like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, Pinterest, Snapchat, and of course Facebook to some extent with expert digital marketing guidance from Appetite Creative.
• Content Marketing: Content available to B2Bs includes blogging, podcasting, newsletters, and even vlogging. Content marketing can drive traffic and convert leads when backed up by analytics. Once you have content ready, promote the content through sponsored channels such as Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Medium, Blogger, WordPress, Soundcloud, Mailchimp, and Google. Leverage social media for further business content growth in 2024.
Paid Marketing Potential
You could also pay freelancers to carry out these duties or to use their own digital cache to promote your company online. That is a separate or supplemental option of paid marketing and advertising for B2B startups.
Paid marketing is essential for you if speed to market matters to you and leaving things to organic or word-of-mouth growth may drive things too slowly for you to realize the potential of your business. Also, if you have a short timeline of products and services with specific goals and benefits a big paid push may be necessary to maximize exposure to consumers.
To Pay Or Not To Pay? That Is The Question For B2B Startup Businesses
But before you dive into paid marketing methods, you need to be familiar with your customers' interests and previous interactions. While paid marketing would allow you to target new customers, the old ones might be as new as gold. Again, communication with your clients is key to success. Also ensure that your applications are working correctly for paid and unpaid marketing.
Relying on paid marketing as your sole channel can be dangerous and give you a false sense of achieving product-market fit. Ultimately, you need to track your conversions from these paid channels and ensure that the customers you acquire give you an ROI that more than crosses your cost of acquisition. You also want customers that are a good fit and advocate your brand.
With paid marketing, you should be concerned about customer retention as much as customer acquisition for your B2B startup business. The right marketing strategies will keep your customers well informed of their needs that your company can meet and profit from.
B2B Paid Marketing For Startups Conclusion
Marketing is fundamental to all businesses, be it small or large. Visibility and productivity are largely determined by the quality of marketing strategy that is engaged. B2Bs can make use of paid marketing strategies like email and content marketing to be sure they are reaching their target audience. Keep these tips in mind to determine whether your specific B2B business situation calls for paid marketing or organic marketing strategies. And make sure to read more B2B startup insights right here on Marketing Masterminds!
