It’s a very difficult process to determine which businesses are offering products and services to customers directly and which ones are selling or providing services to other B2B  businesses.

B2B marketing (business to business marketing) focusses on helping businesses that sell products or provide services to other businesses, make them realise they have what they are looking for, attracting more customers and subsequently selling more.

Many people consider it’s not relevant who is receiving the product, so there are no longer b2b or b2c (business to customer), it’s always b2h (business to human) but that can be a misconception.

When people buy things on behalf of a company, they’re not buying what they would buy for themselves, or if they were the owners of that company. In the view of this, it is important to have a clear concept of what B2B marketing is and how important it can be to a business.

What is B2B Marketing?

B2B marketing carries out tasks such as: creating the product, delivering it and conveying the value and price of said product to a client or business, not to the real consumer. It also focusses on selling big amounts of the same product, if it’s a service then they would look forward to providing these services massively. Even though businesses that focus on B2B relationships have fewer customers than businesses that practise B2C marketing, the sales volume is way larger.

In the beginning B2B marketing was called “industrial marketing” because its main purpose was to attract more customers to companies that sold industrial products, meaning base materials for real production. Once experts realised the term could not involve industrial products alone, it became known as B2B marketing.

However, the passing of time led to technological advances. The arrival of internet had a big impact in B2B marketing. Articles, reviews and other pieces of information clients can get from the internet lead to a 60%-90% of the decisions being taken while online.

Nowadays businesses do not contact providers first, they check on the internet if the product is good and also the performance of the provider. Once customers have a clear idea of the companies that can serve as providers, they start calling.

That’s the reason why B2B marketing is so important, they have to sell. They have to exploit all the resources at hand in order to sell. And this is what has led to a change in the strategies used by B2B marketing businesses.

B2B Marketing Strategies

Having broken down the importance of B2B marketing in today’s businesses. It’s time to take a look at the most popular B2B marketing strategies:

1. 1. Always focussing on the client This strategy has become quite popular in the last years. The conversion was done little by little but it happened. Nowadays, customers are seen as the leading shopping force. The most important aspects about this strategy is:
      • Knowing who your client is
      • Knowing what your client needs
      • Knowing how to advertise your product to them

Once the strategy begins to deliver results, sales volume will increase. From an entrepreneurial point of view, reaching the costumer is the most expensive part of the plan but once it is done, it’s easier to profit massively from the product or service.

1. 1. Measuring the market

Everything in a business is measurable. And many companies don’t understand that well. If your budget is too tight you can’t waste it investing in something you’re not sure about the results. Make sure you’re taking advantage of the moment and go for the most profitable stocks.

1. 1. Selling too quickly is a mistake

Business to business relationships are not as fast as business to customer relationships. There are many protocols and policies on the way. That’s the reason why trying to sell from the very first moment can be an enormous mistake. First interactions with the clients must have only one purpose: earning their trust, showing them that you are truly the best option in the market. If you haven’t made that clear, don’t waste your time trying to sell them anything. That’s the main reason why B2B marketing is of vital importance right now.

1. 1. Marketing and all-in-one sales

Nowadays selling and marketing strategies are two things that go hand on hand, therefore, it’s necessary that clients do not realise when it switches from one thing to the other one. Meaning that both, marketing strategy and selling process need to be perfectly aligned in a way that client’s global experience give them a sense of trust that triggers the sale.

Having seen these strategies, it becomes obvious why investing money and time on marketing is so important. Now, let’s cover some tips that will help your B2B marketing strategy be successful:

Maximise your Online Presence
At least a 95% of companies do an online research when they are looking for a supplier. Meaning that online presence plays a major role in any B2B process. That’s the reason you should look forward increasing your visibility on the internet. How can you do that? Well:

• Doing content marketing
• Having a well-presented professionally personalised website
• Increasing your SEO (search engine optimisation) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

Increasing your Sales Volume
What moves a business and has them looking forward to keeping a business relationship with another business is not how many sales you have in a month. It’s actually how long do your business relationship with a company lasts.
In order to have a long lasting relationship with a business, you can’t focus only on the selling part. You have to make sure your post-selling assistance and the support you give to your clients is also good. Delivering a satisfying experience to the client will not only enable you to keep selling more to that same client, but will also increase your popularity as a seller.
Hiring consultants
Finally, many of the most iconic businesses in the world outsource marketing processes. In the view of how complex this process can be, it’s very difficult for a business which activities are focused on something completely different to successfully achieve a fully effective marketing process without having at least a marketing team in their company.
Hiring a consultant can be the best decision for these cases. We offer a comprehensive and cohesive range of marketing services and capabilities that enable us to help clients large and small with projects of all natures and all sizes. Contact us.