Selling your services to customers is one of the most obvious business avenues to go down, but marketing your services to other businesses could prove a more lucrative option.
Not only can you capitalise on their huge annual budgets and enjoy repeat bulk orders, but you’ll be more likely to maintain long-term business relationships and enjoy continued growth.
Below, we’ve put together some of the best ways to tap into the B2B through marketing.
Attend networking events
While LinkedIn has no doubt transformed the way we connect with business contacts online, there’s still something uniquely powerful about face-to-face meetings, and networking events are a great place to start. Whether you’re just starting out in your business journey or you’re looking to grow and expand into new markets, networking events should be part of your story.
Find a local event and make the effort to attend weekly. Even if you don’t find any customers, you’ll improve your network and communication skills, and boost your name in the community.
Outsource to an agency
Marketing to a new audience can be tough, especially if you’re used to targeting consumers and are struggling to make the switch to decision-makers and business leaders. If you’re running low on time and want to ensure you’re putting across the right messages to the right people, then you should consider outsourcing your marketing to an agency that knows their stuff.
See also: The benefits of outsourcing your SEO as a small business
You could work with a B2B marketing agency such as Agency Inc, for example, who has years of experience helping businesses target the right potential customers. Putting your marketing in the hands of an expert will not only save you time and money but help get the results you need.
Maintain a blog
We’ve talked at length about the benefits of content marketing, and those benefits are even greater in the B2B community. Not only do you get to create highly impactful content that demonstrates your authority and industry knowledge, but you’ll be able to use your new blog posts as part of your sales funnel, capturing email addresses of potential new customers.
If you’ve yet to start working on a blog for your website, it’s time to get started. Most websites are powered by WordPress, which includes blogging functionality. Decide on a topic, do your research and get writing a post. You won’t find new customers through your blog overnight, but if you’re pushing out high quality, impactful content on a regular basis, you might just get there.
Offer free trials
If you’re offering a service that businesses would be interested in, like software, for example, then consider offering free trials. Not only does this give customers first-hand experience of your product, but it lowers the friction of converting, as there’s no pressure on the side of the customer; they’re free to try your product for a set period of time, and decide whether to buy it.
It’s easy to set up a free trial. If you offer leads, for example, then you could offer a free lead as a trial. If you offer social media management, then you could offer a week’s free trial. Sure, you might work for free and some businesses might not decide to buy from you after their trial, but more often than not, a trial can push interested parties into buying and becoming a customer.
Take to social media
Another great way that you can encourage businesses to invest in your products and services is through regular promotion on social media. You might think that professionals can only be found by traditional means of advertising, but you can still find success with B2B campaigns on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Decision-makers spend more time on Facebook than any other people on the platform. Indeed, the average decision-maker is twice as likely to be a daily Facebook user than any other type of user, and 1.9 times more likely to have been active within the past week, so investing in Facebook Ads to target this demographic is a sensible idea.
Twitter is another important network for B2B marketers. Twitter is primarily a mobile social network, and with more B2B buyers becoming less desktop-centric, promoting your products and services using the platform makes sense. Start by highlighting your expertise within your niche, giving people a reason to follow you on the platform. After that, make your information as easy to digest as possible on mobile, and adopt an always-on approach.
According to data from the social network, the average decision-maker who has seen an advert on Twitter four times is 335% more likely to click on a link than someone who has only been exposed to the message once, so consistency and regularity is key to success on the platform. Follow the rule of seven and make sure you’re actively engaging with the network to maximise your chances of being seen.
Finally, LinkedIn. Focus on your company page and make sure it’s as engaging as possible. Use advanced search when looking for potential new business contacts, utilising the network’s algorithms to find the most likely of customers. And don’t forget that you can save searches to use at a later date if you want to maximise your chances of success.
On LinkedIn, you should also utilise groups, joining relevant communities to post content and become an active member. Not only will this boost your personal brand, but allow you to find new contacts.
Finally, publish your own content on LinkedIn. The social network’s Pulse feature is great for exposing your brand and spending the word about your expertise, so consider cross-posting your latest blog posts on your personal LinkedIn profile if you want to boost engagement.
There you have it – just some of the ways in which you can promote your business to other businesses. Whatever service you’re offering, remember to do your research, know your stuff and always be prepared to go the extra mile to help businesses – you’ll be rewarded for it.