What is B2B Marketing?

People tend to use B2C, or business-to-consumer, to describe marketing strategies targeted at companies to sell them products or services. We’re talking about things like, say, Google Ads for plumbing contractors or CBD oil for yoga studios. But “business-to-consumer” is not only a horrible mouthful; it’s overly broad.

B2C is marketing to consumers. B2B is marketing business-to-business. The two are not interchangeable. We’re going to tell you why.

What is the Difference Between B2B and B2C Marketing?

B2B marketing is differentiated from B2C in several different ways. The most crucial difference between the two designations is who you are marketing to when you use these strategies.

B2C sales tend to be individualized instead of at the company level. For example, an AdWords campaign aimed at plumbers in New York City is B2C.

B2B sales are aimed at businesses, not individuals. The B2B customers you are targeting are other companies. For example, an AdWords campaign aimed at plumbing contractors in New York City is B2B.

Types of B2B Marketing

Now, let’s get into the various types of B2B marketing. We’ll look at the many different ways to use this term in your business and how it can help you grow your brand.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This is probably one of the most well-known forms of search engine marketing. It is the process of optimizing your website and content to rank high in search engine results.

This is most often done by adding Meta tags, creating a sitemap, or building links from other websites to yours. This form of marketing can be beneficial for companies that sell their products on their own websites, but it can be applied to any business.

2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Also known as paid search, this strategy is a type of advertising on a search engine’s website or platform. It works by allowing you to bid on keywords so that your ad shows up at the top of the results page when someone searches for those terms.

3. Content Marketing

Content marketing is the process of creating relevant, high-value content that your target audiences will enjoy or find useful. You then publish this content on your website or share it with customers in an email newsletter format.

4. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is the process of leveraging your business’s social profiles to get more traffic, leads, and engagement for your brand.

5. Email Marketing

This type of marketing features email newsletters sent to your subscribers regularly. This is an ideal form of marketing if you have a list of people who have opted to receive direct communication from you.

6. Social Listening

Social listening is the practice of monitoring what people are saying about your brand, competitors, and industry online. This can include tracking keywords in social media posts, hashtags on Twitter, or using Google alerts to track relevant information.

7. Trade Shows

While trade shows may be more popular for B2C companies, they are still an excellent option for B2B marketers. Trade shows are a perfect way to find new leads and build relationships with existing customers if you have the budget.

8. Google Ads

Google Ads is an online platform to buy ads at popular search engines like Google, YouTube, and the Microsoft network. If you’re using it for your B2B company, there are some key benefits to keep in mind:

• You can quickly connect with new customers and leads
• You can use geo-targeting to connect with people local to your business
• Your keywords are more targeted than organic searches, which means you’ll spend less money on clicks that don’t convert

9. Google My Business

Google My Business is a free tool that allows you to create and manage your presence on Google Search and Maps. It’s a perfect option for brick-and-mortar businesses that want to attract customers with local searches. It can also help you rank organically in search engine results if done correctly.

Other forms of online marketing can help you grow your business, but these are some more popular options.

B2B Marketing Process: How Does it Work?

B2B marketing works by creating content that appeals to buyers at every buying cycle stage. The process has 3 main elements as follows:

1. Awareness Building

It’s essential to have both awareness-building and demand generation activities in your B2B marketing plan. Unlike consumer companies, most business customers are not aware of what they need when they initially find you.

They may already understand their problem, but they don’t know how to solve it. In these cases, your content should help prospects better understand their issues and options.

2. Demand Generation

Once they’re aware of what they need and want, B2B buyers will typically research a few brands before making a purchase decision. This is when demand generation comes into play – you can generate demand by running ads, sending out eBlasts, and hosting webinars.

As buyers evaluate their options, they’ll look for proof that your company is credible, has a track record of success, and can solve problems effectively.

3. Lead Nurturing

When your prospects are finally ready to make a purchase, it’s time for nurturing activities like e-mail marketing and lead nurturing emails to help them move further down the funnel and become potential customers or partners.

As buyers progress through the buying cycle, it becomes more crucial to deliver content that appeals to each buying cycle stage. On average, it takes seven or eight interactions with a buyer before they become a customer.

If you can align your B2B marketing efforts with this buying cycle, you’ll have a much better chance of closing deals.

Creating a B2B Digital Marketing Strategy

Now that you understand how B2B marketing works, it’s time to create a plan. Here are four essential components of any successful strategy:

1. Set Goals

Before you do anything else, you should set goals for your B2B marketing efforts. The easiest way to do that is by referencing the buyer’s journey, which will look different for each person.

First, identify the goal at the awareness stage – for example, you might want to gain more website traffic so that more people come across your content and learn about your offerings.

Then, think about what you need at each of the following stages: Awareness: More website visitors, social media followers, and email subscribers. Consider Google Analytics to find out which content is most popular and where there are holes in your strategy.

2. Define Marketing Channels and Content

After you’ve set goals, it’s time to choose the specific avenues you’ll use to create awareness, generate demand, and nurture leads. For example, with so many options available today, you can create a content strategy that includes videos, podcasts, white papers, and blog posts.

3. Set a Budget

It’s essential to invest in your B2B marketing efforts so you can attract more leads and turn them into customers. Be sure to include a budget for all of the above activities – from paid ad marketing campaigns to inbound marketing.

4. Make a Plan and Execute

Once you’ve defined your goals and channels, it’s time to put together a plan that outlines when each effort will begin and end, along with which team members will be responsible for each one.

Once the plan has been approved, you can start executing B2B marketing activities like lead nurturing emails and blog posts.

5. Brand Messaging

Another vital part of your B2B marketing strategy is thinking about how you’ll communicate with prospects and customers.

Your messaging should be consistent across all channels, which means that it needs to align with where people are in the buying cycle (i.e., awareness stage message won’t resonate with someone who’s already decided she wants to move forward).

6. Track and Report Results

The best way to improve your B2B marketing strategy is by tracking what’s working (and what’s not) so you can make changes along the way.

The easiest way to do this is through a reporting tool that lets you track metrics like website traffic, social media following, and the number of leads generated.

From there, you can see where your efforts are paying off so you can focus on the channels and content that are most successful at reaching potential customers.

In a Nut Shell

To create a successful B2B marketing strategy, begin by identifying the goal of your efforts and brainstorming channels and content that align with it. Then, set a budget for each strategy and start executing your plan.

Finally, make sure to track and report on results to improve what’s working and make changes where things aren’t.

But did you know that the Internet is a fast-moving and ever-evolving industry?

How you appear online is just as important as how you appear offline to your target audience, existing customers, and partners. 

This blog will look at different aspects of web presence and help you get it right.

What is Web Presence?

Web Presence is something that most website owners often neglect. The reason is that they don’t know what Web Presence is and how it can help them in the long term.

Well, web presence is something that defines your company on the internet. Hence, if you want to be successful, you need to improve your online presence.

A website is only good if it is well-designed and properly maintained. You need to have a good web presence that always works to make you look like a trustworthy company.

Web Presence is the term used to describe a website visitor’s complete experience with your website. It’s all about the look and feel, the usability, and the technical issues that may come up and make visiting your website a negative experience. 

Web Presence plays a huge role in search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). Your web presence will be favorable if your website is easy to use and people like your website design.

Why do you need a Web Presence?

Chances are, if you’re thinking about starting a business, you’re going to need a website. If you’re already in business, you will also need a website. 

In fact, at this point, if you don’t have a website, you’re putting yourself out of a vast amount of potential business. More and more people are turning to the internet for information about products and services before buying.

 In fact, according to an online report from Pew Research Center, 47% of people surveyed turned to the internet for information about a local business before visiting the business itself.

That’s almost half of all people who use the internet! In other words, if you’re not online, you’re missing out on a lot of business.

Unfortunately, most companies don’t realize that they are missing out on a lot of business by not having a web presence on the internet. Some people think they can do without a website because they don’t have the resources to develop one.

But the truth is that you don’t need to spend a lot of money on a website. All you need is a robust web presence management system.

How Does Web Presence Management Work?

Web presence management is the most critical service provided to companies today. It is the process by which a company manages its online reputation.

It involves the following steps:

• Monitoring various web presence solutions like social networking sites, forums, blog posts, and online directories. 
• Creation of a company’s online identity. This is done by taking advantage of popular social media sites and creating effective web design and content.
• Optimize your website by using the right keywords. This is ensuring your content ranks well on search engines
• Marketing strategies, including email marketing, online advertising, and more. 

Web Presence Management is an integral part of your business, no matter your size or what you are selling.

Here at AllDigital, we use web presence management to help us increase the traffic that is coming to our website. This can be in search engine optimization or making sure that we have a solid conversion rate.

Steps to Create an Effective Web Presence

1. Be Present 

Having a website is the first step in having a web presence, but it’s not enough. You’ve got to actually put some effort into being present on the web. When people search for your products, services, or industry, you want them to find you. This involves building a strong foundation of backlinks, finding relevant niche communities, and building a consistent brand presence.

2. Connect to the Real World 

In the online world, if you build it, they may just come. However, in real life, your web presence is only as good as how much effort you put into connecting with people. You need to build relationships. Making a personal connection between your website and the community around it should be among your top web presence goals. This will help establish trust and give visitors a reason to stick around.

3. Create Content

A website without compelling content is a lot like an empty shell. Content gives web presence a reason to exist beyond being a landing page for services and products. Make sure you’re producing valuable content with people coming back for more. In this way, your site becomes the hub of everything related to your business or industry.

4. Answer Main Questions

 Most of your visitors are probably visitors because they have questions that need answering. When someone is looking for a product or service, it’s not really about finding one company over another. It’s about finding the right company for their problem. If you can be that face to solve problems, then people will seek out your business.

5. Impress Visitors 

Once people are drawn to your site, you’ve got to impress them. Do this by making sure that the design of your website is aesthetically pleasing and functional at the same time. Make sure it loads quickly for mobile users, and use clean colors to draw attention.

6. Create Calls To Action

Everyone who visits your site should have a clear idea of what you want them to do next. This could be subscribing to your newsletter, checking out a social media account, or even placing an order. Whatever that call to action is, make it crystal clear and offer incentives where possible.

7. Don’t Forget the Mobile

In this day and age, it’s not enough to have a website that works on desktops or laptops. You need to have a significant mobile presence as well. People are increasingly using their phones to find solutions, so you don’t want to lose out. Make sure your site is not only responsive but also easy to navigate and quick to load

8. Local SEO

Local SEO has always been a very important factor for small businesses. It has become even more significant since Google’s universal change in the search algorithm. 

If you are looking for ways to increase web presence for free, Google Local SEO is your best bet. Make sure though you have a Google My Business page.

9. Be Flexible

Businesses and industries change over time. You’ve got to be flexible enough to adapt to changes taking place around you quickly. Keep an ear to the ground for industry news and trends. That way, even if something does catch you off guard, it probably won’t take you by surprise.

More Importantly, Be Patient 

A web presence is crucial in business success, but building one takes time. It’s not something that happens overnight, and it takes even longer if you’re trying to do it on your own without professional help. Make sure you have the time and patience to put in the effort, or at least the willingness to outsource the work. Contact AllDigital to help you get started.

In a 2016 statistic that is even more important to online business owners, 39% of people in a study of 1000 smartphone users were influenced in their purchase decisions by a relevant search on Google.

Clearly, an online search is more than a quest for information. It’s an opportunity for eCommerce website owners to boost their sales.

But as we all know from using search engines, they often pull up thousands of results for just one search term.

How can a single eCommerce website rank among the first of so many?

By using the power of SEO.

Why Is SEO Important For Ecommerce?

Simply put, Google and other search engines utilize an algorithm that analyzes how well each website is optimized for specific ranking factors.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a strategy that digital marketers and business owners use to improve their website’s compliance with these algorithms and factors.

When you learn to optimize your website for the algorithms, you’ll find that search engines can do wonders for bringing droves of new potential customers to your website.

Below are the top 3 ways that search engines drive more sales to your SEO eCommerce websites.   

1. Ranks Relevant Keywords Higher In Search Results

Keywords raise your eCommerce sales by increasing the number of organic clicks and visits to your website.

Here’s how it works: keywords are specific search terms that internet users enter to find information, products, or services.

When you feature keywords that are relevant to the products you offer prominently in your web content, Google is more likely to rank your website higher in the results for searches with those same keywords.

That’s why it’s important to conduct keyword research. This research will tell you what terms people are most likely to plug into the search engine when they’re looking for your type of business or product. Then you can use them in your web content to appeal to the widest range of customers.

2. Ranks High-Quality Content Higher Than Content Full Of Errors

If you want to increase the number of customers visiting your site, you need to work on the quality of your web content.

One of the factors Google uses to rank search results is the length of time internet users visits a particular website. For obvious reasons, people won’t stay long on a website that has several misspelled words and grammatical errors. Or simply, if the ranking pages are not the answer for the search intent then people will not stay or like the page, eventually, search engines will find much better articles/web pages.

By providing content, posts, and pages that address people’s intent relevant to your e-commerce website, products, and services you can now have a good chance of ranking in SERPs. Gaining FREE organic clicks, visits, and conversions!

The better your content is written, the longer that people will stay on your website, and the higher it will rank in search results.

3. Attracts New Customers With Google Ads

An attractive advertisement is an effective use of search engines for eCommerce. Google Ads allows you to promote your products and services directly to users on the internet, as well as gives your website a major lift in relevant search results.

They’re also quite effective: as of 2020, Google Ads receive 65% of the clicks from search terms that include buying keywords, such as “where to buy” or “for sale.”

Use SEO As The Driving Force Behind Your Digital Marketing Campaign

SEO is the most essential tool in your toolbox for attracting and converting new eCommerce customers. Use it as the driving force in your digital marketing campaign.