Business to Business (B2B) service oriented businesses tend to have different marketing needs compared to (Business to Consumer) B2C and product oriented companies. As a result, their online marketing efforts take on a slightly different focus than the other type of businesses. So how would a B2B business approach online marketing online? Below lists a few different area on how a service oriented business would focus their online marketing efforts to get the most return on investment.
1) SEO – Search Engine Optimization
This is still a very effective method to get more exposure for and traffic to your website therefore generating more leads for your business. Ranking for specific keywords is powerful because you are able to specifically target your marketing based on the keywords people use to find your services. If they come to your website from the search engines using your targeted keywords, you can be certain they are interested in your services. Once they get to your website however, you still have to convert the visitors into leads and customers. There are many web conversion tactics that are outside the scope of this article that you can engage in which will increase your percentage of ‘converted’ visitors on your website.
2) Social Media
Social media is a very powerful way of connecting with your target market. For B2B businesses, it is very imperative to know which networks will work best for your because not all networks are the same. In my experience, I have found that while Facebook can be a great resource for generating leads, it depends upon the type of business you have and who your target audience is. For more BtoB service oriented businesses, LinkedIn is usually a better solution because members on that site are more focused on the purpose of doing business instead of just socializing. There are many different strategies that one can implement on LinkedIn to get new clients/customers, and all of the good ones will include first being of service to your specific network before you convert your network into potential customers or clients.
3) Press Releases
Press releases are a great way for businesses to announce their new offering and services to their target market. There are several press release submission sites and you should determine which ones have conditions that you require. Some things you should look at before deciding on a specific service include where your submission is submitted, if the service allows links in your website, and if they allow linked hypertext in the body of the press release.
4) Partnerships
Partnerships are a great way of connecting to your market in a very targeted and easy way. One way to use partnerships powerfully is to find one or two other service providers that provide similar services to you that your target market also uses and combine them to offer a more comprehensive solution. One example would be a graphic designer and a web developer, or an accountant and a tax attorney. The both offer similar services that a client would need and can easily partner together to offer a more comprehensive and valuable solution for their clients/customers.
5) Webinars
Webinars are a great way to market higher priced services to your target market. In this case, you do need to have all of your marketing & followup processes in place before creating and giving the webinar. This includes your marketing, signup process, webinar presentation structure, call to action, and followup process. Most opportunities are lost by not having a good followup process after the webinar. In today’s world, so much information is bombarding everyone, it has become just too easy to forget things you may have wanted to follow up on. There are those attendees on the webinar that would be interested in taking action, however for some reason, they aren’t ready in the moment. If you don’t follow up with your attendees after the webinar, they forget to take action, and you now have lost potential sales.
These are some ways in which B2B service oriented business can market to the target audience online. There are some similarities to how a BtoC business would market online to their target audience, yet the differences are just as important to have a successful experience online. The main concept to understand is knowing where your audience is online, how they make decisions based upon what are your service offerings and how well you can connect with your target audience.
