Understanding B2B Marketing

Ø             What is B2B Marketing?

The term B2B stands for Business to Business Marketing. The exact meaning of B2B is that the target audience will be another business. If any company sells their products or services to another company they should be using B2B marketing.

Ø             B2B V/S B2C

There is a huge difference between B2C and B2B because in B2C the business is done to the customers/individual, not to the companies or big firms. This type of marketing is done to shopkeepers, retailers, or a single customer.

 The B2B market runs on the basis of Incentives and ROI as compared to B2C. B2C basically runs on the basis of emotions, fun, and bonding between the customer and the seller which helps the B2C markets run in an efficient way.

In B2B markets, the selling of the products is difficult and the products are supplied in bulk or we can say it is an expensive form of marketing. So the buyer has to make sure everything about the product or the company or the main thing is trust, the seller has to make trust in the buyer so that buyer should buy the product easily but it to build the trust takes a lot of time it may take weeks, months or a lot of years in the market.

For instance, Amazon is the perfect example for B2C as they use digital marketing as the key component to selling their products, they display their products online and sell them individually to the customers and they are also encouraging the sellers to tie up with them and can sell their products.

Ø     The Marketing Funnel: B2B TO B2C

The Marketing Funnel is a tool that helps the customer journey to break down into stages. With the help of this tool, marketers can segregate the idea about which marketing channel is best for them. This helps them in creating cohesive digital marketing strategies to sustain themselves in the market.

The traditional marketing funnel has several stages:

·      Awareness

·      Interest

·      Consideration

·      Intent

·      Evaluation

·      Purchase

1. Awareness:  This is the very first stage in the traditional marketing funnel and it is the most important stage to get a hike in your business. If the customer is asking for a solution or demanding any unique service related to product and if no one knows about your company then it is the perfect time to give him the best services because from this stage only you can stand as a trustworthy authority and it can make a good company name in the market and also to the customers.

2. Interest: The customer is researching for the product in the market or learning about the products that are available in the market.

3.  Consideration: In this stage, the consumer has found out the product in the market to buy for the company or business but the customer is still researching about the seller’s company. That means they need some social reviews and evidence just to make sure that they are buying the product from the right place or not.

4. Intent: The intent is that the customer has decided to buy the product. In the B2C market, the product is packed or delivered in a cart whereas in B2B the products are shown to the company and sometimes some of the sample products are sent for demo purposes.

5. Evaluation: This is the final stage where the customer makes his final decision to buy the product or not. The customer may have any other references or choices about the products. At last, they review all the products they have researched and finalized the product.

6. Purchasing: This is the end stage where your hard work pays off and the customer finally buys the product.

Ø            B2B Journey

In B2C the marketing goes very well without facing as many difficulties compared to B2B.

In B2C there is less consideration and deals are done in an informal way, so the chances of doing business in the B2C market results as good.

In B2B the deal is being done from business to business and is done in stock that buys a bulk amount and there are a lot of difficulties sellers have to face because companies have to pass through each and every stage in a formal way so the chances get less and it takes a long time. So, there is an additional post-purchase stage in the B2B marketing funnel. IN this type of stage the product is opposed and there is focus towards the sale in ongoing service. Rather than up-sailing other services this stage is more focused on the customer retention stage. That’s why B2B companies find their own buyer journey which is different from others which helps them to attract a larger target audience.

Ø            B2B Traditional Marketing

In Traditional Marketing, the marketing was done in an old traditional way, i.e. at the time when there was no internet. The channels of digital marketing are:

·                    Direct Mail

·                    Print Advertising

·                    Radio Advertising

·                    Television Advertising

·                    Word of mouth marketing

·                    Telesales

·                    Trade Shows

The exclusion of word of mouth means most traditional marketing channels, are outbound marketing channels

At that point in time, the business advertisements are done in the hopes of leads. Cold-calling or direct mail are old-fashioned which are not followed nowadays.

In older times outbound marketing was not also successful because the target audience was not available on that and outbound marketing tactics created many problems. But still, some of the big brands still advertised their products on televisions, etc. that was so expensive at that time but consumers want to gain more knowledge about the brand or the product. From this point, Digital Marketing originated.

Ø            B2B Digital Marketing

B2B comprises of two components i.e. Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing

In inbound marketing, the marketing is done online and the target audience comes to us. We don’t have to go anywhere they come by themselves so it is very profitable and time-saving and the main thing is, it is much easier to achieve rather than being in outbound marketing.

Digital Marketing also is expensive marketing but it has an assurance that you will be getting a profit and in digital marketing the more you invest, the more profit you get. So, it is much easier for businesses to see the profit through analytical data rather than in old traditional marketing where we guess or take an approximate/rough idea.

The most popular B2B digital marketing channels include:

·                  SEO

·                  Content Marketing

·                  Email

·                  Social Media

·                  PPC

1.            B2B SEO: Search Engine Optimization refers to the process of improving and optimizing your websites for search engines such as Google, yahoo.

Different types of SEO:

v   Technical SEO: Technical SEO is the components of your website or we can say it is like the nuts and bolts of our websites but we don’t focus more. They are the bits that are happening like mega taps, site maps, and HTTPS. All these signals indicate the quality of the website to Google.

v   On-page SEO:  As the name suggests that on-page SEO means everything is on paper, including images, copy, header tags, and many more.

v   Off-Page SEO: As the name clarifies that everything is away from the website. The main factor affecting off-page SEO is how Google views that link. This refers to when your website links to your own.

Ø             B2B Content Marketing:  There is an idiom that says “Content is King” that means if we the content in a precise and crispy way that attracts the business proprietor, it may make the mind deal with other businesses that helps to increase the business as well as marketing

Ø             There are Two types of B2B content writing :

·                    On-page Content Writing: To do on-page content writing first of all we have to search for the keywords that enhance the company’s name and demand and it is presented on some online pages or websites so we have to make a website and blogs and we can present it through our blogs, this is the consideration stage and interest.

·                    Off-Page Content Marketing: It helps to increase the marketing in an odd way of other sites linking to you. The off-page marketing is done through the medium of:

v                 White papers

v                 Videos

v                 Podcasts

v                 Case Study

v                 Infographics

v                 Webinars

Ø B2B Email Marketing: Over a decade back when social media came into existence some of the marketers claimed that the email marketing technique will be deprived soon, but this doesn’t happen but at a minor percentage the use of the technique has gone down but it doesn’t affect the market at a high rate. Emails offer great engagement and subscriptions for B2B marketers.

In B2C the mails are done in an informal way but in B2B mails are done in such a way that includes the complete information about the product or company

Ø             B2B Social Media Marketing

According to the survey, it seems that B2C’s think that social media is the best platform for them, for example, Amazon where they directly deal with the customers without relying on a particular brand. Whereas B2B’s convey that social media marketing is not their type of marketing because they have to directly deal with other businesses and they have to give an outlook and show everything to other businesses with whom they are dealing and they mainly focus on dealing with a particular brand. For B2C businesses, social media marketing delivers great quality and conversions. B2B is mainly focused on brand awareness and authority.

Ø             B2B PPC Marketing

PPC stands for pay-per-click as it is a paid form of digital marketing. There are the various platforms of PPC marketing

·  Search Ads

· Display Ads

· Social Ads

Social Ads:

Search ads are ads that are seen on search engines while we are searching something on search engines like Google, Safari, etc. These types of ads are presented mainly by B2B and if we click on those websites this helps to increase the traffic and it is the type of promotion. In search ads, there are keywords on which we have to focus so that we can attract the audience.

Display Ads:

These types of ads are graphically designed ads and are promoted all over the search engine not only to the target audience. These ads are done by a decision by the company, they only want viewers to not forget about their product and company so they repeatedly promote these ads.

Social Ads:

Social ads are the ads that are advertised on social channels. Mainly they are done on Facebook. Sometimes we see a video before that and an ad is placed that can also help B2B to get the promotion.

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