What is B2B marketing?

B2B Marketing Overview is all about inspiring action. Your job is to communicate the value of your product or service in a way that motivates people to learn more, start a trial, or make a purchase. However, exactly who those customers are can change your marketing — business-to-business (B2B) marketing requires a slightly different approach than business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing.

Business buyers tend to follow a more extended and convoluted way to buy than individual customers. Research shows that most organizations take at least three months to reach a purchase decision. Business buyers must gather input from numerous individuals inside, consider factors like combination and information security, and assess the buyer’s profit from the venture (return on initial capital investment). As a B2B marketer, you need to know what this process looks like for your ideal customer and tailor your efforts to each phase of their buying journey.

Before you create your marketing plan, you need to understand the nuances of B2B marketing. That way, you can build a strategy that successfully reaches planned clients on legitimate channels—with information that will resound best.

The history of B2B marketing

Early B2B marketing was called “industrial marketing” up until the 1990s. It was driven primarily by sales teams. Only some B2B organizations had marketing departments to create leads and support possibilities through the deals channel. All things being equal, outreach groups depended on cold pitching, regular postal mail, expos, or promoting in-exchange distributions to arrive at expected clients. They fabricated individual associations with possibilities — still a center rule of viable B2B promoting — to impact buy choices.

In the 1990s, the proliferation of the internet altered the landscape. Businesses could reach prospective customers online via advertising, email marketing, and other digital marketing tactics. However, even with these new ways to reach customers, the long and complex sales process combined with a lack of advanced digital marketing tools meant that sales continued to serve a primary role in the buyer journey. The goal for B2B marketers at the time was to generate leads and refer prospects to the sales team. From there, sales would guide buyers through the rest of the process.

This marketing-to-sales handoff structure still exists in many enterprises, but B2B marketing teams now play a more active role in delivering quality leads. Today, buyers want to research (or even purchase solutions independently) before interacting with a salesperson. So, as a B2B marketer, you need a strategy for separating your business on the web and drawing in potential purchasers when they initially start to explore arrangements and items.

B2B marketing vs. B2C marketing

B2B marketing today looks a lot like B2C marketing. Both invest in the same fundamentals — generating brand awareness, making data-rich decisions that inform digital tactics, and using personalization to engage potential customers.

But B2B and B2C approaches also have differences:

B2B marketing B2C marketing

Target audience Organizations of a certain size and industry as well as specific individuals within the company Individuals of a particular demographic, for example, age or location

Personalization considers an individual’s job title and authority within the organization (e.g., user vs. decision-maker) as well as a stage in the buyer journey. It also considers individual demographics and previous engagement with the brand.

Buyers need Educational ContentContent, capabilities, ROI proof, ongoing assistance, Emotional appeal, and discounts.

Calls to action: Typically, they call for a prospect to download ContentContent, join a product demo, sign up for a free trial, or request to be contacted by a salesperson. They typically call for immediate purchase but can include other CTAs like a newsletter signup or free trial.

Sales cycle: Longer, with many marketing touchpoints before a purchase is made; Shorter, with few marketing touchpoints before a purchase.

Of course, there are exceptions. Consumer marketing strategies for large and expensive items (vehicles, for example) might resemble B2B tactics—more touchpoints, more educational Content Content, and calls to action that do not ask for immediate purchase. Similarly, organizations that sell consumer goods to different organizations, such as office supplies or cleaning supplies, could follow a B2C-like methodology.

How to create a successful B2B marketing strategy

A B2B marketing strategy outlines the business goals you’ll champion and the tasks you’ll undertake to realize marketing initiatives and objectives. Because the B2B buying journey can be complex, it’s fundamental to gain a profound comprehension of your average purchaser and the means they take to arrive at a buy choice. These details inform the messaging, channels, and tactics that you select.

Follow these steps to create an effective B2B marketing strategy:

Start with your B2B marketing goals.

B2B marketing goals define precisely what you want to achieve within a specific time frame and set the direction of your work. These goals must relate to specific business-level objectives so you can guarantee your work adds to general organization achievement. Typically, marketing goals are centered around brand awareness, customer acquisition, and retention.

Know your customer

Familiarize yourself with your company’s ideal customer. Refer to your personas to identify firmographics such as company size and industry. And determine the needs and pain points of decision-makers and end users within the organization. For example, decision-makers might be more concerned about security and price, while users care about specific functionality.

Document the buyer’s journey.

Map the journey your typical customer takes when making a purchase. Traditionally, the buyer’s journey is broken down into four phases:

• Awareness: Prospects have a problem to solve but may not know your company or product exists.
• Consideration: Prospects become aware of your product and wonder if it can solve their problems.
• Conversion: Prospects who want to purchase are ready to decide which company to purchase from.
• Loyalty: Customers have purchased and may require incentives to maintain and grow their accounts.

Within each phase, you need to know the prospect’s behavior. What information are they seeking? Will motivate them to move to the next phase? What might block them? These answers will help you determine which channels, tactics, and messaging to include in your strategy. Your organization might already have this mapped out. If not, work with sales and customer success teams, conduct external research, or talk to customers directly.

The B2B buyer journey is rarely linear. You will likely need to engage buyers multiple times within each journey phase. You may also find that a prospective customer seems close to deciding only to loop in a new stakeholder at their organization, resetting the need for more time and information.

Solidify your B2B marketing messaging.

Craft messages that will resonate with prospects during each phase. For example, buyers typically research a specific problem during the awareness phase. Messaging should focus on the benefits of using your product. You can tailor critical points to show how it meets the needs of both users and decision-makers.

Map tactics and channels to each buyer journey phase

Determine the marketing mix you will use to reach buyers. Some channels and tactics may be better suited for one phase over another. For example, thought leadership content is typically developed for prospects in the awareness phase, whereas account-based retargeting ads are designed for repeat website visitors.

Here is a simplified buyer’s journey for a software product mapped to marketing tactics:

Buyer journey phase Buyer’s action Information is needed for marketing content and tactics.

Awareness: The buyer has a problem but may need to be tuned in to know if your solution exists. They research their problem and how to solve it. Information about their problem, drawbacks of not solving it, and ideas for how to solve it. Content:

• Blog posts
• White papers
• Ebooks
• Infographics

Promotion tactics:

• Paid search
• Organic search
• Social media ads

Consideration The buyer makes a list of tools to explore and gets stakeholder buy-in to proceed. They may test solutions at this point, such as signing up for a trial account or attending product demos. How does your solution solve specific problems and its benefits and outcomes? Content:

• How-to guides
• Product demo videos
• Product comparison charts

Promotion tactics:

• Retargeting ads
• Social media ads
• Email campaigns

Conversion: The buyer narrows their list and asks detailed questions about features and use cases. Finally, they will make a decision. Product details — features, pricing, data security, and integrations Content:

• Case studies
• Customer testimonials
• Pricing information

Promotion tactics:

• Retargeting ads
• Email

Loyalty After purchase, buyers look for support — getting started, training their team, and making the most of the tool. Support and ongoing guidance Content:

• Support articles
• Tutorial videos
• Product announcements

Promotion tactics:

• Email
• Organic social media
• In-app notifications

Other tactics:

• 1:1 support calls
• Team training

Tracking and adjusting your B2B marketing efforts

Maximizing the results of your B2B marketing strategy requires constant adjustment. Digital marketing is relatively straightforward to measure — you can attribute leads, conversions, and website traffic to specific campaigns. If a tactic or channel is not yielding the results you expect, reallocate your resources towards those that are.

However, once you add in a buyer’s offline behaviors (information received by word-of-mouth or the tendency to switch from a mobile device to a desktop), measuring every action within the sales funnel becomes more difficult. Focus on the key performance indicators (KPIs) that matter most to your company and be nimble — experiment with different channels, messages, and tactics.

Keeping track of the high-level procedure and every one of the nitty-gritty strategies can be challenging. Sophisticated B2B marketing teams use road mapping software to show how their campaigns and daily work connect to top-level goals. Once you can visualize a plan and monitor its progress, you can better evaluate what is working and what is not.

Conclusion