The one and maybe the only thing B2B marketers aren’t short of online advice on how to promote product and service. And as an obvious result, there are a lot of misconceptions and myths about what B2B Marketers should and shouldn’t do.
Most of the people think that B2B marketing is very different compared to B2C marketing.
But, it’s not.
B2B marketing is not just about a company to buy your offerings. It’s because, at the end of the day, you are not selling to a business or a company. Such entities don’t make the big decisions themselves. But, the people in them do. Such people are commonly known as decision makers and most of the B2B enterprises have a formal buying committee having multiple people on the board, also known as contacts, especially in account-based marketing (ABM).
Just like B2C, You’re selling to People
As of now, there are some decision-makers sitting in their office thinking, “Who should we partner to increase our distribution network? What should we look for? What are the mistakes that we should avoid?” As a result, they are frantically searching on the web trying to look for an answer or solution?
They are one who you are selling to.
Get to know more about them. Who are they? What kind of role do they play in their organization? Are they the Founder or CEO? Are they head of sales or marketing? What do they struggle with on a daily basis?
Then, ask yourself a very basic question, “How can I provide value to this person?”
This is where many marketers get wrong.
Your goal here isn’t to sell them on just about anything. The chances are, they already know about the products or services you offer just by having a quick look at your company website. Your goal here is to get the person trying to search for their own answers to say; “I trust you. You would make a valuable partner.”
As that’s what’s they are trying to look for- someone they can trust.
Going Viral Isn’t What Builds Trust
This is the other big mistake that marketers commonly make.
Going viral sure does get a company famous, but it doesn’t help your case to build more trust.
And all too often, the thought process is something as follows; “I want to market to B2B companies. I’m in the business of selling A, B, and C- and I am interested in selling only to other companies.”
The immediate afterthought is a mass exposure that has to be ratified by a ridiculous and not to mention an arbitrary number of views. And the thought process continues; “How do we get 10,000 followers on social media? How fast can we get to there? How do we go viral?”
The main goal is to market to those decision makers, and yet, they choose to invest all their energy and time into optimizing for more exposure, instead of targeted messaging. They spend so much money on social media ads and influencer marketing and some even use Twitter bots to follow as well as un-follow thousands or even millions of people. Meanwhile, they are not doing much to showcase their own expertise.
You should rather have just few thousand organic, targeted followers that can truly reciprocate the value you provide, instead of having a million of followers that are mostly spam, and some scroll past what you put out, kinds of followers.
And getting those decision-makers to pay attention to you should be your main focus. Although, the only way to get their attention to you is to offer them some sort of value in return.
We Encourage Every CEO, Founder, and Leadership Executive to Share their expertise
The decision makers need more answers, instead of just more options.
Write and share an article that directly addresses your target decision maker’s biggest pain point. And if you actually want to get highly targeted with it, connect with them on social media, especially LinkedIn, send them a link to the article you just published, saying something like; “Hey, You are an XYZ Manager in the IT Industry, and we wrote this article because it is something we’ve learned while working with the managers and CMOs a lot. And I thought you would find it very resourceful in dealing with your ABC pain point.
This is how you start a meaningful conversation that could also help you to build meaningful connections.
More often than not, they’ll think; Wow, you just taught me something new. It is actually very helpful. And I just love this article. Thanks a lot.”
Maybe, your article was exactly what they were looking for. And you helped them to resolve their pain point, building trust among them.
You don’t need thousands or millions of social media followers to build a profitable company, especially when you are marketing in the B2B industry. And you don’t even need thousands or millions of people reading your article. What’s really important is that you share your expertise in such a way that easily resonates with your targeted audience, the people that are actually responsible for making purchase decisions at their company.
At the very least, write the article in such a way that even if your article doesn’t reach those people directly, the message of your article should be so clear that whoever does come across your article, maybe an HR manager or an intern, will have to pass it to the CEO, founder, or someone who is making those B2B purchase decisions.
There’s room for silly creativity
The reality is that B2B marketing can be as silly and fun as B2C marketing.
Many marketers believe that since B2B marketing targets their prospects in a work environment, they are required to present content in a formal way.
Sharing the advantages of a B2B product or Service isn’t limited to whitepapers, brochures, and long PowerPoint sales pitches. You can be entertaining and funny while still presenting your content with valuable information that is much more likely to be consumed when people are actually looking forward to seeing it.
And one of the best ways to have some fun with B2B marketing is let people see behind the scene, especially on social media.
And one of the best examples of this is the way General Electric uses Vine and Pinterest to showcase their product and service to their audience around the world. They don’t just showcase their internal processes, but they even showcase the scientific methods behind their innovations. They make science and technology visual and very interesting or every one, consumers and businesspeople alike.
And if the solutions that you offer to businesses, directly affects their customer’s experience, you can easily leverage to your advantage in marketing as well.
Success in B2B Isn’t only About Pure Exposure
It’s not just about going viral, nor having a million views on your article, or even about getting popular.
It’s about writing something resourceful or sharing something that easily conveys about who you are as a person; “This is the way we do business.” And by offering that value for free, you position yourself as an industry thought leader. Not to mention that you inherently build trust.
And that’s how you stand out in the crowd.
