It depends on exactly what your situation is. Anyone who offers you a one-size-fits-all "solution" is just blowing smoke and will make you lose a lot of money.
Even two companies in the same industry will have a different "best way" to improve their marketing.
Remember, marketing is an INVESTMENT when done properly, but an expense of done incorrectly or without the proper skills.
Feel free to do some research on me and, if you're interested, I'm more than happy to discuss this with you personally.
There's no one best way to improve marketing in every situation. These are some of the things I would do with a new client who wanted to increase B2B sales:
- Map out the business's current sales and marketing systems. Put metrics in place. Find out what is working and what isn't working.
- Look closely at the systems that are working right now to see if they can be optimized. For example, if sales are mostly automated using SEO/SEM, landing pages, self-service sale, etc., typically small improvements in ad copy, landing page design, landing page copy, and sign-up flow can achieve significant increases in conversion.
- Interview customers to understand their current process for identifying deciding they want your kind of your product, finding vendors, evaluating options, etc.. Dig deep and really understand their needs.
- Develop a marketing strategy that provides an education of interest to all prospective customers in the market, not just those who are ready to buy now. Put systems in place for ongoing market education and building a list of people who are interested in what the company has to say. Develop a strategy for converting these interested people into customers when they time is right for them.
- Implement systems to get ongoing feedback from prospects and customers, e.g. live chat on the website, automatic follow-up emails, scheduled phone check-ins.
- From prospect and customer feedback, along with staff interviews, identify customer service practices that are harming the company's reputation, or not doing enough to promote the company. Correct these problems with improved corporate messaging and staff training.
- Based on the market, implement one or more new sales / marketing channels that are appropriate, e.g. direct sales, public relations, advertising in different media.
- For a business with salespeople (outbound or inbound), examine current sales practices and training to identify weaknesses. Create new training to correct them.
I'm very happy to do a call if you'd like to talk in detail about some specific ways to improve the online marketing of your particular B2B business.
That question is too vague to answer.
Which B to which B? What is being done so far that needs to be improved?
The best ways to improve my B2B online marketing are as follows:
1) Research: Research is the bedrock of any modern marketing effort. From marketplace research to brand research, detailed scientific studies will help you make more informed decisions. They will give you an objective basis for your marketing and provide you valuable baselines for measuring your results. By conducting research, you will know your clients better — which puts you in a position to serve them better. Market research also gives your insight into how your processes are performing. You will know which aspects of your firm are performing most successfully and develop a better understanding of which services you should offer.
2) Niche-driven Strategy: One of your most important business considerations – period – is specialization and niche targeting. Our research has repeatedly shown that the fastest-growing firms tend to be specialists in a carefully targeted niche. This should be an area of the industry that you understand thoroughly, a space in which you can become an undisputable expert and leader. Specialization makes all your marketing efforts easier because it tends to define exactly what you do and immediately distinguish you from the competition. A specialization is a differentiator that proves itself.
3) A High-Performance Website: In today’s professional services marketplace, your firm’s website is one of your most crucial assets. It is much more than a digital billboard or brochure, as some firms believed in the past. A successful website is the hub of a firm’s online presence and an information-rich projection of its expertise into the marketplace. Your website is a critical tool for building visibility. Potential clients search online to find service providers, and they need to be able to find your firm’s website in order for you to have a chance at winning their business. Plus, your website enables you to demonstrate your firm’s expertise and become well-known throughout the marketplace.
4) Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Your target audience must be able to find your site for it to be effective. That is where search engine optimization comes in. This is such a key piece of the online marketing puzzle that in our studies, high-growth firms list it as the most effective online marketing technique available to them. Though SEO is a complex and evolving discipline, it ultimately consists of two primary components.
On-site SEO uses targeted keyword phrases to communicate the concepts on your site that matter to your audience. These keyword phrases typically focus on your services and expertise.
The purpose of on-site SEO is to communicate to search engines what your website is about. This allows search engines to produce more relevant results to searchers. And when audiences search for insight on your area of specialty, they will find you.
Off-site SEO takes the form of links to your website, either through outside engagement or guest articles in other publications, for example. These efforts work to increase your site’s authority as a widely recognized leader on your topic.
5) Social Media: If you needed any more proof that social media is here to stay for professional services firms, we have got you covered. Our research has found that over 60% of buyers check out new service providers on social media, making it a more commonly used source of information than formal referrals and recommendations. Even the nature of referrals has changed in the wake of social media. A recent study on referral marketing has found that 17% of expertise-based referrals are made based on interactions on social media. Put simply, social media is an accelerator for the reach of your reputation, expertise, and content. It allows you to network and connect with valuable contacts and influencers, as well as monitor your brand by social listening.
6) Advertising: There are several platforms on which your firm can advertise effectively:
a) Industry publications and websites
b) Social media
c) Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Google Ads, as well as Bing and Yahoo
d) Retargeting – A cookie-based technology that uses a simple JavaScript code to anonymously “follow” your audience across the Web and serve relevant ads
Advertising does not just promote your services – it can also play an important role in driving content downloads, increasing both your expertise and visibility.
It is important, however, to use forms of advertising best-suited to professional services. LinkedIn, retargeting, and other industry-focused advertising tend to work best, because they allow you to most directly target appropriate industry audiences, which leads to more conversions, higher click-through rates, and lower cost per download. Search engine marketing (SEM), on the other hand, often can be more expensive and harder to target for professional services’ purposes. Similarly, Facebook ads tend to be less effective because the platform is used at a lower rate by professional services buyers than other social media networks. However, it is important to remember there are many variations of each of these advertising types. Professional services firms might find them successful depending on budget, ad purpose, targeting, and industry niche.
7) Referral Marketing: Studies of referral marketing strategies in professional services have revealed an important new facet of the practice – over 81.5% of providers have received a referral from someone who was not a client. Where do these referrals come from? The vast majority are based on a firm’s reputation for specific expertise. By using content marketing in conjunction with the rest of the tactics in this list, you can build a brand with a widespread reputation for specialty in your area – and an understanding of your expertise even among audiences that haven’t worked with you directly. This brand recognition can lead to referrals and new business.
8) Marketing Automation, CRM, and Lead Nurturing:
a) Marketing Automation: Marketing automation replaces high-touch, repetitive manual processes with automated ones – supported by technology solutions. It brings together all of your online marketing channels into one centralized system for creating, managing, and measuring programs and campaigns. As with any technological tool, it’s essential to select the right marketing automation software for your firm. Make sure the size, complexity, and scalability of a prospective solution is a good match for your needs.
b) CRM: Another essential software is a Customer Relationship Management System (CRM). Many firms use a CRM to track and organize opportunities and client information. In short, a CRM will help you stay organized and connected, no matter how sophisticated your operations grow. Your CRM serves as the database for all the information you collect about opportunities and clients, including specific interactions with them. The information can be entered, stored, and accessed by employees in different firm departments, synchronizing efforts across your firm.
c) Lead Nurturing: But CRM is not the end of the story. Remember the lead-nurturing content funnel? Your website is one critical piece of that puzzle – and email marketing is another. Targeted, analytics-driven email marketing campaigns allow you to deliver soft and hard offers for specific buyer roles, tailored to a buyer’s particular place in the buying process.
9) Testing and Optimization: Testing and optimization allow you to iterate your marketing efforts and make ongoing decisions based on hard data rather than intuition.
Just as research is the bedrock of your marketing, testing and optimization is your continuous guide. You should never stop testing your marketing campaigns and adjusting them accordingly. This includes:
A/B testing of emails, landing pages– Using A/B testing tools (like Optimizely or Unbounce), learn which of two emails or landing pages converts users more successfully based in variances of language, design, or other elements.
Email and landing page rendering– Use tools like Email on Acid to test how emails will render on different devices and platforms, ensuring that they look and function as they should.
10) Analytics and Reporting: Similarly, it is critical to analyse the right metrics to measure results effectively. You will need tools in place to collect accurate data on all your efforts, from your website to social media to SEO. Google Analytics is an essential tool for measuring and analysing your site traffic. MOZ can help you study and improve your SEO results, while tools like Hootsuite provide detailed social media analytics. Analytics and testing help you understand what is working and what is not. Embrace them, use them. They will help you turn your marketing efforts from an art form into a science.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
