Marketing is a challenging field. When designing their marketing plan, marketers must balance the need for creativity, financial constraints, and channel selections.
Your audience, however, will ultimately determine how successful your marketing will be. Your promos and adverts will probably go unnoticed if you are not correctly targeting your buyer persona. If you’re not marketing at all, why bother?
But the distinction between target audiences for corporations and consumers varies the greatest. While some businesses cater to single customers, others do so for businesses and groups.
Compared to marketing to individual customers, marketing to businesses is significantly different. B2B marketing, a whole distinct approach to marketing, was created for this reason.
B2B Marketing: What Is It?
Business-to-business marketing, or B2B marketing, is exactly what it sounds like. It involves promoting your good or service to another company. However, it’s crucial to remember that even if you are providing a good or service to other companies, you are dealing with a person who runs that company. Therefore, it is appropriate to think of B2B marketing as focusing on the people who make decisions about purchases for their company.
Steps to B2B Marketing
Marketing is audience-dependent. Even though B2B and B2C marketing are different, there are differences among B2B marketing materials.
This section will discuss numerous B2B marketing techniques you may use to target a particular business audience. Make sure you comprehend the B2B buyer’s journey before we continue. Keep in mind how each phase may influence your marketing tactics and how you put them into practice.
You should follow a few stages while developing your B2B marketing strategies before moving on to implementation.
Conduct a Study of the Competitors
Conduct a competitive analysis to examine the market and discover what other companies are marketing to your target market. When examining competitors, keep an eye out for the following:
- Competitor product offers
- Competitor pay-per-click strategy and outcomes
- Competitor marketing materials and social media presence
By understanding these factors, you can identify your competitors’ SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Establish Your Brand’s Positioning First
You must be completely aware of your brand positioning to develop a successful plan. This assertion captures the who, what, when, and how of your brand identity or how consumers see your company.
You’ll be prepared for the following phase once you create a brand positioning statement that your staff and potential customers can support.
Determine Who Your Target Market Is
Find the people truly in need of the goods or services your business offers. You may utilize that knowledge to develop customer personas and comprehend the purchasing process, which is a helpful tool for any marketing.
Research Potential Marketing Channels
Your competition study will show you the various marketing channels your rivals successfully employ and the ones they haven’t used.
You can diversify your B2B marketing portfolio and connect with the firms you need to once the earlier steps in developing your B2B marketing strategy have been finished. Investigate channels, methods, and technologies to maximize your leads and customer funnel based on your customer segmentation and competitive analyses.
B2B Marketing for Beginners
/0 Comments/in B2B, Marketing /by Sudip MuttMarketing is a challenging field. When designing their marketing plan, marketers must balance the need for creativity, financial constraints, and channel selections.
Your audience, however, will ultimately determine how successful your marketing will be. Your promos and adverts will probably go unnoticed if you are not correctly targeting your buyer persona. If you’re not marketing at all, why bother?
But the distinction between target audiences for corporations and consumers varies the greatest. While some businesses cater to single customers, others do so for businesses and groups.
Compared to marketing to individual customers, marketing to businesses is significantly different. B2B marketing, a whole distinct approach to marketing, was created for this reason.
B2B Marketing: What Is It?
Business-to-business marketing, or B2B marketing, is exactly what it sounds like. It involves promoting your good or service to another company. However, it’s crucial to remember that even if you are providing a good or service to other companies, you are dealing with a person who runs that company. Therefore, it is appropriate to think of B2B marketing as focusing on the people who make decisions about purchases for their company.
Steps to B2B Marketing
Marketing is audience-dependent. Even though B2B and B2C marketing are different, there are differences among B2B marketing materials.
This section will discuss numerous B2B marketing techniques you may use to target a particular business audience. Make sure you comprehend the B2B buyer’s journey before we continue. Keep in mind how each phase may influence your marketing tactics and how you put them into practice.
You should follow a few stages while developing your B2B marketing strategies before moving on to implementation.
Conduct a Study of the Competitors
Conduct a competitive analysis to examine the market and discover what other companies are marketing to your target market. When examining competitors, keep an eye out for the following:
By understanding these factors, you can identify your competitors’ SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Establish Your Brand’s Positioning First
You must be completely aware of your brand positioning to develop a successful plan. This assertion captures the who, what, when, and how of your brand identity or how consumers see your company.
You’ll be prepared for the following phase once you create a brand positioning statement that your staff and potential customers can support.
Determine Who Your Target Market Is
Find the people truly in need of the goods or services your business offers. You may utilize that knowledge to develop customer personas and comprehend the purchasing process, which is a helpful tool for any marketing.
Research Potential Marketing Channels
Your competition study will show you the various marketing channels your rivals successfully employ and the ones they haven’t used.
You can diversify your B2B marketing portfolio and connect with the firms you need to once the earlier steps in developing your B2B marketing strategy have been finished. Investigate channels, methods, and technologies to maximize your leads and customer funnel based on your customer segmentation and competitive analyses.
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Do you demo software?
/0 Comments/in B2B, Marketing /by Rebecca CaroeAt first glance this may seem a somewhat naïve question – why wouldn’t you want to see how software works before buying?
If you work in B2B marketing for software brands, you will know how few people actually demo software. So is offering a demo still a valid part of the marketing mix?
This article was prompted by a survey I did which asked the question illustrated below. Did you request a demo from sales. And it made me realise that I had not done that for some time.
A survey asking about demos for software
Should marketers stop doing demos?
The quick answer is… it depends.
Your customer journey determines where and how a demonstration of the functionality of the software is appropriate. And if you haven’t reviewed your customer journey recently, I recommend doing this.
Customers change – behaviours alter and marketers need to stay up to date with current trends.
What replaces a demo?
Lots of B2B Marketing collateral is designed to answer questions and showcase software features. Prospective customers may find that they get all the answers they need from your videos, or blog posts. Have you found any recent customers who bought without a demo? Go and interview them about why and how their purchase decision was made.
Listeners to the State of Demand Gen podcast will be no stranger to the concept that forcing customers into a “pipeline” whose course is determined by the brand, rather than the prospect, is a surefire killer of sales leads.
The thesis that you let the prospect push themselves along their discovery pathway at a speed that is appropriate for them, is the best way to close more business. This thesis does depend on you having a strong brand presence in the target audience’s “line of sight”. And for that to happen, your brand needs to have already been active in marketing both above-the-line and below-the-line for some time in all the channels which could be relevant to your audience.
This isn’t an impossibility to achieve within a few months but as we all know, SEO rewards incumbent brands more than newcomers and so sometimes innovative (and manual) approaches are needed to start brand building with a new audience. Contact me for a case study of brand building for a startup.
Talk to me
No, I’m not breaking the rule of letting the customer set the pace by pushing for you to get in touch with me! When you are ready you’ll reach out.
In the meantime, consider the following aspects of B2B software marketing – and if you aren’t fully confident you have got them covered, or know how to produce, manage and measure them, then maybe pick up the phone to me.
And why did I find writing that list so cathartic? I’m doing a training course on B2B marketing for SMEs and this will form the core of what I’ll be teaching. Sign up for Small Business Marketing 2022 – Foundations and Best Practice if you want to join in September.
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When the Olympics can’t use good English
/0 Comments/in B2C, Copywriting, Social Media /by Rebecca CaroeI love the Olympics – it’s been my “thing” since Sydney and I have travelled to watch most of the Games since that time.
And I follow a lot of sport on social media as well – so when I saw Paris 2024 had a Twitter account, I started to follow them too. It’s two years out from the Games now and I love the gradual build up of excitement, plus the news about how the preparations are going.
But Paris 2024 has got really irritating.
Tweeting to your audience
I do know that you should speak to your audience where they are hanging out. And so Twitter is a good choice for Olympic fans like me.
For an international sporting event, held in France, I’m going to guess that English will probably be the second most used language for fans – possibly the first if a lot of folks travel from outside France to watch. And so why, oh why does @Paris2024 not have a native English speaker on their team to do the translations?
In following their tweets they were mostly in French – I speak passable schoolgirl French and so could understand much of what was being said. But then English language tweets started coming out on the account. When one announced a “club” where I could register for advanced ticket information, I was quick to act.
The experience fell flat.
Customer transparency
Naturally I clicked through to register for the Club – but the landing page was beautifully designed (love the font) but lacking in two aspects of English communication
Being a bit keen, I rewrote the introduction text and tweeted it back to @Paris2024 to illustrate how it could be improved. They blocked me. FFS that’s just childish and frankly, from a super fan like me, going to really put my back up.
I’ve reproduced the tweets lower down just so you can see whether I did a good job of improving the copy.
Secondly the privacy notices which are probably ore important from a marketing communications point of view were unclear.
I signed up for the “club” and so hope to get information about buying tickets. But what do all these acronyms mean? What if I do not tick either box? Will I get any emails about how to buy tickets? What marketing messages am I missing if I don’t check the box? And who are these partner organisations?
If I’d been copywriting this page I would have written out the names of the organisations in full IOC – International Olympic Committee – and used similar language in both check box messages so it’s clearer to the user what they get or do not get when selecting each one. I am guessing the second statement is for the Paralympics. Can you see the inconsistency in messaging?
Ambiguous email opt in statement from Olympics Paris 2024
Sport Fan Engagement Strategies
Sports fans are a committed bunch – it takes a lot to put us off your brand. And engagement with fans makes community building in public spaces a great way to sell tickets.
Paris 2024 missed a trick here.
If I was in charge of social media for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games I would do 3 things
And they should also get some hashtags going… and when tweeting about Rowing in Great Britain, tag the team (@BritishRowing), write in English as well as French, and choose a photo to illustrate the tweet which actually has a British athlete in it.
The first tweet announcing the club for receiving email updates
Others agreed that the English could be improved
My improved copy for Paris 2024 landing page
And I got blocked for my troubles.
I love rowing and this thread about the history ended with a photo which didn’t include any British athletes. Nor did they tag @BritishRowing
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Ways to increase interest in your restaurant
/0 Comments/in B2C, Marketing, Marketing ideas /by Rebecca CaroeHow To Increase Interest In Your Restaurant
If you’re currently running your own restaurant establishment and want to increase the level of interest you’re getting in your business, then take a look at the following post. We’ll be listing some top tips on how to make your restaurant stand out more to the public and increase your revenue. Subjects we will cover include marketing, making changes to your menu, and how location affects your business. Keep reading to find out more.
Offer Deals And Incentives
One way to help gain more customers is to offer discounts and incentives. For example, you could run a buy-one-get-one-free offer on drinks and cocktails, or discounted meals on certain nights of the week. This will help to create a buzz around your restaurant as you’ll be offering something unique. Marketing the deals and incentives you have on offer will help to generate interest in your business and widen the audience of potential customers. If you want more of an idea of what deals and incentives will appeal to customers best, then consider running a survey through your website or social media pages. This way customers will be able to help you decide by suggesting what would appeal to them the most.
Invest In Marketing And Advertising
Well, we would say this wouldn’t we – but an ongoing programme of promotions and brand awareness is critical for long term restaurant marketing success. When it comes to generating more interest and increasing the number of customers you get, marketing and advertising are key tools to use. Whilst initially spending more money on marketing and advertisements may come at a cost, you should see it as a long-term investment in your business. As marketing can help you to target more customers and generate more business, ultimately it can end up making you more money. Good marketing strategies to use for restaurant advertisement include having active and engaging social media pages, a high-quality website, and advertising on other websites. And don’t forget Google My Business – keeping your listing up to date with new photos and post announcements weekly is really important for local marketing.
Change Up Your Menu
Part of the reason you may be seeing less interest in your restaurant is that customers have grown tired of your menu options or there aren’t enough options available. Changing up your menu can help to solve this problem and generate more interest from customers. You don’t necessarily have to make grand changes to your menu. Simply adapting the dishes you have on offer can make a big difference to the interest you get from customers. Try using high-quality ingredients such as locally sourced meats and organic vegetables. You can use this as a selling point for your menu as your customers will know they are receiving good quality food. If you’ve been running the same dishes from your menu for a while, making changes and being more innovative with your menu options can help create more interest. When you make menu changes make sure you advertise this so that your customers are aware. For example, posting images and content on your website and social media.
Redecorate Your Premises
It’s important to remember that the food your restaurant is serving isn’t the only factor that can affect the customer’s opinion of your establishment. Even if you’re serving great food, customers can be put off from coming back to your restaurant if you don’t create an overall high-quality dining experience. The way your restaurant is decorated could be off-putting for customers and make them less likely to enjoy their experience whilst being served. Especially in this day and age where people like to post about their experiences on social media, having an aesthetically appealing restaurant can help generate more interest. If you renovate your restaurant and make it a good photo opportunity, you can quickly begin trending on social media as customers post about your restaurant. This makes it more desirable to attend, meaning more customers and higher revenue.
Change Locations
The location of your restaurant business could also be leading to a lack of interest from customers. When it comes to choosing where to eat, many people need a venue to be conveniently located for a number of reasons. For example, customers might require ease of access and parking facilities. It could also be due to how you’re located in regard to other businesses. Some customers might be looking to go out for drinks before or after their meal.
If you’re in a more secluded location, this can make it inconvenient for potential customers so they may look elsewhere. If you feel your location may be holding your business back, then consider moving to a different location that could offer more benefits for your restaurant. Try and look for premises that are within your budget, but also offer you aspects that can help to boost your business. For example, premises that are located near to other points of interest or businesses but not too close to direct competition. Premises that are highly visible and that will have plenty of nearby footfall are also good options.
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SaaS affiliate marketing
/0 Comments/in Marketing /by Rebecca CaroeIf you are marketing a SaaS product you should totally consider two types of marketing
There’s a difference although they can overlap.
A channel partner is a business who has a similar customer base but is selling something different but complementary to yours. They are motivated to sell your SaaS because it enhances their product or service.
Affiliate sales are from businesses who have a similar customer base but is in need of an upsell, a new income stream, or a “way in” to a new customer. And so they promote your SaaS alongside their own business. Frequently these are firms with a good audience or mailing list which they want to monetise.
Affiliate services
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Demand Planning on Inventory Management
/0 Comments/in Sales /by Rebecca CaroeAs a manufacturer or service provider, your sole responsibility is to ensure that your product and service development is aligned with customer needs and desires. As a result, demand planning and optimization should ensure that marketing and sales are in sync with customer expectations and demand. Once you’ve determined what customers want and which products are in high demand, it’ll be much easier to procure materials on time and optimize your production to reduce lead time.
Any business seeking to increase customer satisfaction must invest heavily in software that assists in tracking sales trends and capturing customer needs. Customer surveys are also critical because they enable you to identify customer interactions with your products and brand, allowing you to reengineer and optimize your production and service delivery.
Customer and Sale Metrics Guide Demand Planning
Once you’ve established some metrics for customer satisfaction with products and services, you’ll be able to determine where and how to adjust the products. Additionally, such knowledge will assist you in optimizing your procurement process and product sourcing in a cost-effective and timely manner.
Consider the following scenario where you anticipate a large volume of products based on historical sales patterns. Analyzing sales patterns can assist you in planning optimal stock quantities, inventory levels, and quarters.
Demand Planning on Inventory Optimisation
The most critical aspect of supply chain management is inventory management. When one speaks of inventory management, they refer to the entire process, from the acquisition of raw materials to the sale of intermediate and finished products.
You can purchase inventory and store it optimally through proper optimization. As a result, demand planning facilitates the efficient management of supply chains. Additionally, demand planning can align high-level and high-volume business planning with demand and product forecasting to reduce inventory costs, shorten lead times, improve service levels, and boost profitability.
Effective inventory management enables a business to obtain the optimal quantity and quality of raw materials with the least disruption to future costs and time to avoid product delivery delays. One of the factors that contribute to delivery delays is a shortage of raw materials, which can occur due to poor planning. Delays in the delivery of products and services can give customers a negative impression of a business, resulting in customer attrition. Therefore, it is critical to maintain an optimal inventory level available for sale in unexpected orders.
Demand Planning in Warehousing
Pay-as-you-go is one of the best on-demand warehousing models promoted by digital payment platforms. Electronic commodity marketplaces and Airbnb exemplify on-demand warehousing. Electronic platforms enable service delivery and product distribution to expand and grow without exposing a business to risks associated with fixed costs.
As a result, demand planning in warehousing is effective in platforms such as e-commerce retailers that face high levels of uncertainty. Through on-demand warehousing, retailers can rent small sections of warehouse space across multiple marketplaces, and we can facilitate simple product and service delivery to customers.
The benefit of on-demand warehousing is that customers only pay for the space they use rather than being locked into a long-term lease. However, one of the drawbacks of this dynamic concept is that market conditions determine pricing and no one is guaranteed a specific spot in the warehouse.
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Balancing Direct & OTL marketing
/0 Comments/in B2B, Direct Marketing /by Rebecca CaroeThis is a write-up of the B2B Marketing Disrupted event 31st March 2022 hosted by the New Zealand Marketing Association.
The second Marketing Disrupted featured both Account Based Marketing and Breakthrough Brands – the balance of the direct and above the line which all B2B marketers know is a true juggling act – but still within our job description!
Account Based Marketing from scratch
Andrea Clatworthy from Fujitsu UK set out a deep dive case study into how she started an ABM programme. Her honest insights into the realities of changing a longstanding business model were refreshing.
Her definition of ABM is right people, right message, right time and Fujitsu also uses the 3 Rs – Relationships, Reputation and Revenue to further refine the scope of the programme.
This is a strategic approach with sales and marketing working together to open doors and increase engagement with stakeholders in specific identified accounts, with a view to increase Relationships improve Reputation and ultimately generate Revenue.
The triangle of ABM in Fujitsu is based on a top layer of One-to-One ABM using key accounts each with an individually customised account plan. Below this is the One-to-Few layer which is a mix of new and existing accounts, clustered by similarity with modest personalisation in the marketing mix. And at the bottom of the triangle is One-to-Many with a focus on new accounts, broad programmes with light personalisation using technology to enable scale.
The first 18 months were critical to the success of Andrea’s transition – she started with the sales account plan which uses a robust 6-step process which everyone now follows. Back-up resources in a portal with how-to guides, policies and guidelines was a key part of the success. Andrea also outlined how to secure buy-in and her 12 week ABM launch plan slide is worth a careful read.
Building a meaningful brand
Deconstructing what lies behind a well-known brand gives marketers insights – seeing the process which led to the outcome can help you work out how to implement it in your own firm.
James Kyd of Xero ran through 6 traits of breakthrough brands. Each trait has a behaviour allied with it. I found this very useful because it allows you to see if your marketing activities are delivering the behaviours you desire.
Accountants are a key audience for James, he selected them because they’re a growth driver for Xero software sign ups. His over-riding campaign plan tells stories about accountants. And these get told from the outside-in (case study videos) and also inside-out from within the accounting community (surprise gifts).
The 6 traits are:- Build from a cult following, Commodity as a status symbol, The rise of the B-corp, Un-capitalism, Open source generosity and Remodelling the category.
A key position for Xero is to advocate on behalf of accountants – doing the things they individually cannot. An annual state of the industry research study is not only good for PR it helps accounting firms to benchmark themselves. The other big pillar of the activation is the Xerocon conference and event. James says this will be back as an in-person event this year. It will continue to celebrate the passion accountants bring to their work and to create memorable experiences for participants. These are two ways Xero connects in person with its customers.
And isn’t it nice that a brand still does in-person events?
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NZ Tech is our new export story
/0 Comments/in B2B /by Rebecca CaroeMany of you know I work with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. I’ve been doing B2B marketing digital implementation coaching projects with businesses who export.
I am delighted to find that Technology is now a sizeable export sector for the NZ economy. The razzamatazz launch was last week, but the reality is in front of me daily.
Local investment
Startups are getting funded – overseas money and home-grown angel groups are active, growing and increasing in sophistication.
Both these numbers speak to the aggregate – I see the specifics in my clients. Innovation continues as firms prove the concept locally and quickly look overseas for expansion. I think lockdown and covid has accelerated this trend – many don’t wait for the full MVP at home nowadays.
Sustainability matters alongside growth
Investors do care about the medium term future – who wants an investment to fall off because of climate change? The ‘clean, green NZ’ banner may not be as universal, but we are still incorporating those principles into the businesses which get launched from a New Zealand base.
In summary, I’m delighted that these stats are proving what I see on the ground. If you are exporting, or an overseas reader of this blog – take a look at what NZ tech firms can offer your business. You never know, we could end up working together!
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Unsubscribing and deleting databases
/1 Comment/in Data, Direct Marketing /by Rebecca CaroeHave you checked you whether your CRM allows users to completely remove themselves from your records?
I find this a frustrating issue as a marketer.
I want to know that you once had a relationship with us; but I respect your choices (and privacy legislation).
A Pleasant Surprise
When I received a notification that “You haven’t logged i for a while, would you re-verify your email address?”.
I hastened to click through and was delighted to find the option to completely delete my profile from their site.
Does your CRM allow customers to delete their profile?
CRM advantages for Marketers
Despite the irritation this causes me (I have a genuine desire at all times to know the “universe” of possible customers for my business) the outcome has its advantages.
So check for yourself, can customers self-serve and remove their profiles from your site? Have you planned regular database cleaning to keep your CRM up to date?
Resources and additional reading
Should I delete or unsubscribe from the mailing list?
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