Do you want to know why digital marketing should be at the forefront of your sales and marketing strategic planning?
Dynamics have changed, and customers now demand online services.
They want to know who you are, your value proposition, and proof that your word is true before they engage you in person.
Without an effective B2B marketing strategy, you risk missing out on market share to the joy of your competitors.
Digital marketing also allows you to build deeper relationships with customers and share thought leadership that stamps your authority in your field.
You can use digital marketing strategies to build brand awareness, increase engagement with existing and potential customers, and drive sales numbers.
Just what you need for business right? Here are five digital strategies to help you achieve these goals.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The primary goal behind the B2B SEO strategy is to create strong organic visibility in every stage of the buyer’s journey—awareness, consideration, and decision-making stages.
Done right SEO places your business in front of audiences that are actively looking for the solutions you offer. The higher the visibility, the more people become brand aware, and this ultimately accelerates growth.
Here’s how you can leverage B2B SEO
- Create buyer personas. This is the first step in creating a successful SEO strategy. Know who your target audience is, what their interests and needs are, the solutions they are looking for, and what kind of content they read.
- Understand your sales funnel. Gather analytical data from your sales and marketing teams to determine what stage leads get stuck and why?
- Identify the terms your audience uses when searching for solutions like yours. Consider both commercial search terms and informational queries.
- Put together topic clusters (content revolving around central topics) with keywords that target prospects in all stages of the purchase cycle. You’ll be showcasing your expertise and owning search results for wholesome topics, not just keywords.
- Build product or service landing pages that provide overviews into the topic clusters and link out to them. Your landing pages should inspire the user to take action.
Cold Calling
Is your team making cold calls? The most likely answer is no.
Because most sales and marketing teams would rather do anything else, including analyzing messy data than call up a stranger.
But that’s where they go wrong.
Today’s cold calls don’t have to be truly cold.
Decision-makers and brands leave digital footprints everywhere and with a little research, you can learn about your target business before calling them up.
So how about giving cold calling a shot? We have just the tips for you:
- Know the brand you’re targeting. Cold calling is explorative and selective. Pre-qualify the business on your list to know who can benefit from your offerings and who won’t.
- Know the ins and out of your offer. When you call up a prospect and want to capture their interest, it’s wise to know the value of what you’re selling and its relevance to them.
- Keep distractions at a minimum. If your attention is pulled in different directions, you’ll lose the flow of the call, skip important details, or not fully grasp your prospects’ needs.
- Aim for natural conversations rather than robotically quoting a script. Jot down the points you want to cover, questions that show an interest in your prospect’s business, and how to handle objections.
- The “nos” will come. It’s part of cold calling responses. If the prospect is reasonable, ask them why they have refused your offer and use the information to improve your game.
- Confirm the next step before ending the call, so you’re both clear on the next step. This next step could be a call reschedule, a meeting to discuss the offering or a demo.
LinkedIn Marketing
LinkedIn is a great platform for introducing your brand to potential clients, generating leads, and catching up on industry trends
With over 774 million members worldwide, the sheer volume of brands and professionals you can reach on this platform is off the charts.
How do you get your brand out there?
- Start by putting together a compelling company page. If you already have one, review it to make it captivating (don’t bore audiences). Add/update your profile image, optimize the “About Us” section with relevant keywords and fill out the other fields.
- Consider hosting live events with industry leaders to discuss topics that resonate with the audiences you want to reach.
- Build credibility by sharing images, infographics, videos, and documents that demonstrate your expertise. Don’t be that company that shares irrelevant memes to reach Generation Z clients.
- Turn your employees to brand ambassadors by asking them to talk about your company’s accomplishments, processes, solutions, and success stories
- Create a buzz around your posts by encouraging employees to interact with them in the first 30 minutes to one hour of sharing. LinkedIn considers content that receives good engagement of high quality and pushes it to broader audiences.
Reputation Management
A positive brand reputation builds customer confidence and loyalty ultimately driving sales. So you can imagine what the opposite does.
People talk about companies on social media, news sites, online forums, and other internet sources and potential customers pay attention. Ignoring these conversations in today’s competitive environment will hurt your brand.
You need to position yourself as a knowledgeable, industry-leading solutions provider for customers.
How?
- Offer great solutions and customer experience. It sounds obvious, but it’s not. If your offerings aren’t worthwhile, you won’t attract positive mentions. And the same goes for your customer service.
- Invest in social listening tools to help monitor brand mentions. These mentions provide real-time insights into what people think about your company and you can respond straight away.
- Put together a review acquisition plan. Ask happy customers to leave reviews. It will help build credibility and balance out negative reviews (if any).
- Acknowledge reviewer feedback—positive or otherwise to show that you’re an engaged and responsive company. If there’s a problem that needs to be addressed, do so promptly so you can get back in the reviewer’s good graces.
Content Marketing
Brands use content to attract, educate, engage and convert visitors into paying customers.
The content can be articles, sales memes, blogs, videos, webinars, ebooks, market research, case studies, and industry reports, and so on.
It’s a cost-effective strategy that helps support a company’s long-term objectives, whether these objectives are brand awareness, attracting leads, or revenue generation.
As effective as this strategy is, many businesses see little return since they write for themselves and not for their customers.
It’s tempting to brag about your solutions, but if you’re not answering customer needs, then the very people you’re targeting won’t resonate with your message.
Let’s look at how to create customer-centric content, shall we?
- Think about the audience you’re creating content for. Who are you targeting and do your solutions suit them?
- What problems are you seeking to solve? Look at your customer base and identify the business challenges they face. This will help you create content that resonates with audiences and addresses their issues.
- What’s the differentiator in your content? If you’re writing the same content as your competitors, audiences won’t get value from it. Research the questions people are asking and answer them in-depth.
- What content type will you use? This goes back to how well you know your customers. What content format appeals to your audience? Do they prefer blogs, case studies, interactive infographics, or videos?
- Distribution channels for promoting content. An email list is perfect for informing subscribers about freshly published content. You can also use social platforms, but keep in mind that their target audience is different. LinkedIn is great for showcasing expertise and building rapport while Twitter helps maximize brand awareness.