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Digital B2B marketing strategies for medium-sized companies are becoming more and more critical – and the options for online B2B marketing are becoming more and more diverse.
Therefore, to stay competitive, you must develop your B2B marketing strategy.
This post gives you some essential tips on how this works: Using an imaginary mechanical engineering company, we will explain which B2B marketing strategies are suitable for medium-sized companies and how you can execute them.
B2B Marketing vs. B2C Marketing
First of all, let’s be clear there are some differences between B2B marketing and B2C marketing that need to be considered.
While B2B Marketing (Business to Business) describes business relationships between two or more companies, B2C Marketing (Business to Customer) means the relationship between companies and end customers.
We speak of B2B marketing when companies sell their products or services to other companies and have practically no direct contact with the end consumer.
The mechanical engineering sector is such a pure B2B market – or have you, as a private person, already shown interest in industrial plants manufacturing companies do.
For example, the production company “Pizza Paradies” naturally needs one or more machines for automated pizza production. Because who likes pizza without tomato sauce?
Challenges In B2B Marketing
The sample customer “Pizza Paradies” first needs fast advice from our imaginary mechanical engineering company “Rising Robots.”
First and foremost, this is faced with the challenge of explaining a complex product (in this case, the unique machine that puts tomato sauce on the pizza) and likely adapting it individually to the customer needs of the “Pizza Paradies” company.
It can also be doubtful that there are often several decision-makers in B2B marketing.
You have to explain your product to different people with very different levels of knowledge & information and master the difficulty of first finding the right contact person.
But let’s take a step back and ask ourselves how, for example, your mechanical engineering company “Rising Robots” gets to the customer, the company “Pizza Paradies.”
B2B Digital Marketing Strategies.
Marketing and advertising in B2B marketing are often carried out through higher teams, making it expensive.
But digital strategies can also be promising and also have the advantage that you can achieve a lot even with a small budget because online marketing offers a wide range, good selection options for the target group, and reliable performance measurement.
However, a strategic approach is critical here—the goal. A holistic strategy with practical objectives.
As a medium-sized company, you should clarify the following points in advance:
1. Define Target Group:
In our example of the engineering company “Rising Robots,” these are roughly medium-sized companies or SMEs that need new machines for their production.
As already mentioned, one of the most significant challenges here is reaching the decision-makers. That means, it is essential to find out who the decision-makers are and how you can access them.
2. Define Channels:
This is about the online behavior of companies. How is your target group-oriented on the Internet? What question does it have?
Important:
Be sure to approach it in a customer-centered manner! Because it’s not about YOUR product, but about how YOUR product can help customers with their concerns.
Specifically:
Why should the company “Pizza Paradies” buy the equipment for the new production line from you people? Which problem of the company “Pizza Paradies” is solved exactly by your machines?
Also, observe where your target group is active and place your content there if possible.
Think carefully about which content is relevant. There are many options, for example:
- Newsletter/mailings with the free offer of a consultation.
- Blog articles or podcasts that concern important customer topics, e.g., Small Business Marketing
- Free guides/advice that customers receive in exchange for their email address (so-called lead magnets )
- Landing pages and much more.
Also, be sure to think about using visual media. Images, videos, or even graphics attract more attention than pure text information and are therefore more likely to be remembered.
3. Plan Measures:
After you have defined your channels and goals and set your budget, you can define the content for the individual channels and carry out long-term planning – keyword editorial plan.
Your company “Rising Robots” could, for example, plan a series of articles on the subject of “Process optimization in food production” or “Emergency measures in the event of machine failures.”
Important: Don’t just focus on the product, but above all, present the brand or the medium-sized company. Of course, both should be emotionally positive so that the potential customer will remember them.
4. Customer Journey
Include the “customer journey,” the so-called “ customer journey,” in your strategy. A note is made between three phases in marketing:
- AWARENESS (awareness phase)
- CONSIDERATION (decision phase)
- CONVERSION (purchase phase)
The customer’s “journey” with your medium-sized company, here, for example, the “Pizza Paradies” company, begins at the point where they become aware that they have a “problem” or need, i.e., they need new machines must meet certain requirements.
It starts looking for suitable system manufacturers on the Internet. The mechanical engineering company “Rising Robots” draws attention to itself and ideally creates the first touchpoints (e.g., through advertisements, social media, etc.).
Thanks to infographics, helpful videos, and the free download of whitepapers, guides, and the like, “Rising Robots” will stay in the minds of those responsible for marketing and sales.
The Images Counts – The First Impression!
Whatever information you as a medium-sized company offers potential customers do not matter.
It is important that these offer added value for the customer. This should also definitely be positive. Studies have clearly shown that this also creates a positive image for your company.
Further examples of a positive first appearance:
- Personalized marketing (e.g., via email )
- Lead magnets with added value for the customer
- Take into account the customer’s communication preferences
- ensure good accessibility
- Good website usability (e.g., navigation based on customer needs; for example, transparent and uncomplicated purchase processing processes are essential in the webshop)
Of course, the reverse is also conceivable. Thanks to your good internet presence, the company “Pizza Paradies” will be aware of your offer and will be aware that they urgently need new machines to make their pizza.
But no matter which came first, after the first step (awareness), the potential customer will search deeper into the topic, obtain information and prices, and compare several providers with one another.
If you have succeeded in positioning “Rising Robots” as a positive brand right from the start, “Pizza Paradies” will always have you present during this process.
To be on the safe side, however, you should be active in this phase and develop accurate solutions to bring into play for customer needs.
It is now important to position your product as the best possible solution. If you succeed, the potential customer will ultimately decide in favor of you and your product.
As a third point, it is important that the handling (i.e., both the purchase process and the construction and installation of the new systems) is uncomplicated, customer-oriented, and problem-free.
5. Monitoring And Measuring Success
In conclusion, it can be said: Digital marketing in B2B marketing has a certain advantage: data can be evaluated much better here than in “classic” marketing, where you rarely get accurate figures as to whether and which info flyers or print advertisements have worked particularly well.
For medium-sized companies, the motto is: Observe the performance of the measures and evaluate them regularly!
Take a look at which channels have worked particularly well and generated many leads – and expand them even further in the future.
Adjust your budget accordingly and rely on the strategy that promises the greatest success.
With all strategic planning, however, keep in mind that not everything can be planned. Be brave and try different things.
Suppose you would like to take a closer look at the strategy of “Rising Robots” and learn how the company has won “Pizza Paradies” as a new customer via content marketing.
In that case, you will find the whole interesting story as a video. Here! Do you want to know more, or are you interested in further ideas on the subject of marketing for medium-sized companies?
Our marketing team supports you professionally and is happy to be there for you!
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