9 Tips for a Stellar B2B Marketing Strategy

Marketing to another business can seem complicated. When your buyer is another corporation and not an individual, it can be difficult to create a strategy that really resonates with them. But if you’re trying to get new business from your B2B marketing strategy, your campaigns may not need to be that different from a B2C campaign.

Creating a stellar B2B marketing strategy is all about appealing to your ideal buyer. When you understand their problems, present a strong solution and provide them with above-average customer service, you have a recipe for success. But that can be easier said than done.

If you’re looking to create a B2B marketing strategy for your business, here are nine tips to follow.

1. Create a Buyer Persona

For a B2B company, your ideal customer is not only the company but also the decision maker of the business. To get a business to buy your products or services, you need to connect with the human on the other end. This means creating a buyer persona that identifies who that individual is.

Referral Saasquatch provides us with a few examples of how to create a buyer persona. These buyer personas identify who the buyer is, what they do at work and what personal career problems your products or services can help them solve.

2. Develop Your Brand Messaging

Your brand messaging gives your company a unique voice. It provides you with an opportunity to connect with your audience and show your personality. Through humanizing your brand and showing you’ve thought long and hard about how you’d like to position yourself, your brand messaging can give you a better opportunity to establish trust with your buyer.

MailChimp, for example, recommends matching your brand messaging to your audience to create a "brand personality" that resonates with them.

3. Identify Your Goals

For your marketing to succeed, you need to define what makes it successful. If you simply say you want to reach more leads, how will you know if you’ve accomplished that goal? Are you looking for one new lead or thousands of new leads?

Brian Tracy, a professional business coach, attributes his success to setting goals. By setting goals, you’re able to look at the big picture in bite-size pieces. You know you want to reach your ultimate goal eventually, but setting smaller goals can encourage you to get there faster.

4. Conduct a SWOT Analysis

A S.W.O.T. analysis allows you to identify the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats to your company in your marketplace. A business may choose to do a S.W.O.T. analysis before developing their marketing strategy because it allows them to get a better idea of what is already out there and how they should position their brand.

When completing your S.W.O.T. analysis, take a look at your brand and what challenges you may face during your marketing campaign. Through recognizing those difficulties before your campaign is live, you can develop a backup plan. This will keep you on course and ensure you’re prepared if you run into any problems.

5. Create a Content Calendar

A content calendar is a staple for any marketing plan. As a way to oversee your entire content strategy, you can ensure you’re staying up-to-date and you’re covering all the appropriate and necessary topics. You and your team can check the calendar to see what needs to be posted or what content needs to be created.

There are many different tools available to you for creating a content calendar. For example, Survey Gizmo decided to use GatherContent to help them create a content calendar and strategy for their business.

6. Share Helpful Videos and Guides

You want to ensure the content you post is helping to educate your target audience. Provide them with helpful how-to videos or guides that allow them to better understand what you offer. When you host these instructions online, your audience can find them any time of the day.

Playworld provides a great example of how-to guides for potential customers to reference. These guides can be easily downloaded at the visitor’s leisure so they can research the company on their own. For busy B2B buyers, this can be extremely helpful.

7. Focus on Building a Relationship

For a B2B marketing strategy to be successful, you need to develop trust with your target audience. This means you need to be available to answer questions, address concerns or solve problems whenever they arise. When you provide a personal approach, your buyer will feel like they are your priority.

Cisco used social media to improve their relationship with B2B buyers. By listening and engaging on their social media platforms, they were able to gain feedback on their business, understand what challenges their audience faced and make changes to proactively improve their brand.

8. Identify Your KPIs

Your KPIs, or your key performance indicators, help you understand whether or not your marketing strategy is meeting its goals. The KPIs you measure will relate to the overall business and marketing goals you established.

For a B2B marketing strategy, you’ll want to look at the number of leads you’re bringing in, the sales growth you’re experiencing and how many people are engaging with your content. Consider the ratio of people coming to your website versus the amount of people contacting you. Think about what unique KPIs you should be tracking for your business.

9. Analyze and Make Adjustments

Marketing is difficult, but one of the best things about it is that you’re not stuck with it forever. If you create a bad marketing strategy, simply change it to better fit your audience’s needs. Be prepared to identify mistakes, listen to how your audience is responding and make adjustments if needed — even if it means ending the campaign early.

Even some of the biggest companies out there have made marketing mistakes, including Kayak, Walmart, Malaysia Air and more. But when each of these companies made a mistake, they found the problem and made an adjustment. Pay attention to your audience — they’ll tell you whether or not something is working.

Creating a strong B2B marketing strategy is crucial for your business success, so put in the time and effort to make it strong. Take these nine tips with you and make them your own. After all, your marketing strategy should be unique to you and your business.