Robert Afsari is the founder of Campaign Creators, a web design and SEO company specializing in B2B marketing strategy. In the following article, Robert Afsari explains how leveraging these strategies promises an optimized sales funnel for 2023.
The industry defines B2B or business-to-business marketing as any content or strategy that targets an organization or business. Businesses that require such strategies sell their goods and services to other businesses rather than to individual consumers.
The purpose is to ensure that other businesses are well aware of the entity’s brand and the value of its products or services before turning them into paying customers. B2B marketing is a world apart from business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, with different applications, approaches, and strategies.
All industry experts, including Campaign Creators Robert Afsari, understand that B2B marketing targets the needs, challenges and interests of the people who buy for your company.
B2B Buyer’s Journey
Businesses must be aware of the buyer’s journey in order to create an effective B2B marketing strategy. Like the strategy itself, individual consumer experiences differ.
In general, a professional purchasing on behalf of an organization goes through three stages in the following order:
1. consciousness — Robert Afsari says prospects have experienced problems or identified opportunities. They have conducted research to gain more knowledge on the issue and have named their concerns.
2. consideration — The prospect defined a problem or opportunity. They are dedicated to figuring out the available approaches/methods to solve a given problem or opportunity.
3. decision — The prospect has decided on a strategy, approach or method. They have created a huge list of vendors, products and services that can play a role in your solution. At this stage, we are focused on narrowing down the list to make the best possible purchase.
B2B marketing strategists use the above journeys as a basis to help professionals accurately target buyers at the optimal stage.
Pre-execution stage
Robert Afsari advises anyone looking to craft a viable B2B marketing approach for 2023 to take a step back and ask:
- They have positioned the brand. A definitive positioning statement is enough to engage customers and internal teams.
- They know their target market.
- Perform competitive analysis to understand competitors’ products, sales strategies, content, and social media presence.
- They explored all marketing channels based on competitive analysis.
B2B marketing strategies to reach specific audiences
Robert Afsari explains that the pre-execution stage provides the basis for choosing a particular B2B marketing strategy, as outlined below.
B2B email marketing
While some modern marketers consider email an archaic strategy, 93% of B2B marketers use this proven tool, making it one of the most effective. Emails drive engagement, turn subscribers into leads, and ultimately, paying customers.
Unlike individual consumers, Robert Afsari explains that businesses respond best to compelling ROI and logic. Therefore, your email marketing should focus on how your business will benefit from the advertised product or service (save time or money, increase sales, etc.).
B2B digital marketing
Every business in the modern world needs a digital presence consisting of SEO, websites, paid advertising, and more.
Enhanced digital marketing strategies include:
- Create attractive and informative websites. Most buyers (over 80%) visit a company’s website before making a purchase. Especially when it comes to B2B sales funnels.
- Ensure on-page and technical search engine optimization tactics.
- Running PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns that allow content to fall in front of a whole new audience. HubSpot experts suggest including relevant content with buyer data in your paid ads to ensure your business is profitable.
B2B content marketing
According to Robert Afsari, traditional PR marketing focuses on disruptive promotional materials, but content marketing allows companies to post valuable and informative articles that B2B customers are looking for.
Your content marketing and SEO efforts go hand in hand by anticipating your audience’s search habits so you can learn what you need to know before you know it.
The best B2B marketers know that content that focuses on different stages of a buyer’s journey works best. Additionally, Robert Afsari says that incorporating different types of content (e.g. webinars, videos, ebooks, etc.) works wonders.
B2B social media marketing
A whopping 84% of C-Suite members and 75% of B2B buyers use social media when making a purchase. Social platforms are no longer for B2C marketers.
That said, Robert Afsari explains that many business-to-business companies find social media marketing tricky. It’s not likely to generate as many leads as other strategies, but it can help point buyers in a certain direction early in the buying process.
After all, social platforms are a formidable way to build brand awareness and inject personality into your business.
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