How can I reach the appropriate person in B2B marketing when many business don't have a specific department that would hire my services?

Hi I have ben working in the field of Mobile Marketing since 2008 and even though most of our activities has been targeted a consumer market the mechanism is much about the sam. If you could provide me with some words about what type of products you are trying to sell to whom - I'd be glad to help out. BR/Anders

Good question - digital B2B is definitely a particular challenge. One factor that determines the approach is the nature of your potential buyers' online habits. For example, if a significant percentage of your potential buyers use X social network, it makes sense to develop strategic marketing on X social network. This means the first step in the process is defining your digital target market. You may have a good idea what your target market is offline, but you've got to hop inside their heads when they get online, either on a desktop or mobile. It's true that there are myriad other ways to find your target market online beyond social media, but the value of social media lies in how most users declare who they are (and what their buying habits are) on their social networks (bio keywords, friends, hashtags, and other content they interact with). In order to define your target market online, I recommend three different strategies: 1. Manageflitter (manageflitter.com) and Followerwonk. These tools are for Twitter only, but that's ok because Twitter is amazing. ;) Using the "Bio keyword search" or "account search", type in words your potential buyers might use to describe themselves. (You can also narrow it by location, which sounds valuable to your South Africa specification). For example, your buyers might place "CEO" or "Owner" in their bio. (I have no idea, just giving an example). You will be able to view, classify, and interact with all the accounts on Twitter who match your specifications. 2. The other tool that aids greatly in target market definition online is Facebook Graph Search. It is a newer function of Facebook. Here's how you can take advantage of it: a. Find a very popular Facebook Page of a competitor or industry partner (or your own Facebook Page, if it has 500+ Likes). Let's say the page is named "Industry Partner" b. Type in the search bar: "Magazines people who like Industry Partner like" or "Websites people who like Industry Partner like" or even "Restaurants people who like Industry Partner like". With a large enough data pool, Facebook Graph Search provides an incredible amount of marketing insight: where your potential buyers eat, what they read, what websites they visit. Repeat this process on as many relevant pages as possible. If you find 3 websites they tend to like (ones that keep popping up), consider advertising via Google Adsense on those sites. Reach out to the admins of the sites (you may be able to find them by searching the site name on Twitter via Manageflitter or Followerwonk) and see if they are open to advertising or partnership opportunities -- perhaps a guest blog about how YOU are singlehandedly revolutionizing the industry. There are more ways to accomplish what you are looking for, but I hope these help. I guarantee they're highly valuable for how much time they take. Let me know if you would like more information. Thanks, Evan

Without a dedicated advertising budget, you're going to have to put in a lot of man hours with guerrilla marketing at first. I would create a quick 5-10 slide PDF highlighting the benefits of the service and the real value to your clients. This can be at the ready as a followup to actual conversations you have with prospects. Your biggest challenge will be teaching people about this new way to buy and so develop your sales conversations around combating that challenge. Is it easier? Faster? Cheaper? Safer? Think about what the normal process is and then position your product as a much better alternative. A good printed sales sheet could go a long way too!

How to sell to retailers? As a former Retail Buyer from Target, here's my suggestion. You need to first ready your sales communication and materials to explain how 1) You will drive sales at their stores (best told through sales traction and history in comparable or slightly smaller retailers than the one you are targeting 2) Demonstrate how you will support sales with a marketing plan. Marketing mitigates sales risk and that's a retailer's #1 concern and 3) Prove you will deliver flawless vendor execution. There are many hiccups that happen along the supply chain and it takes an experienced company to flawlessly deliver inventory to the right stores/DC's in the right quantity on the right day. The best way to prove this is by showing that you are currently working with retailers of the same magnitude. So in short, you have to scale up slowly - from small retailers to larger retailers - in order to manage risk, build sales traction, build brand awareness, and manage cash flow. How to contact them and sell to them? Use Linked In to find retail buyers. I have a short video on how to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwbfUMRHiq0 Trade shows are also effective; you can get the mailing address of retail buyers in attendance plus meet them face to face if they come to your booth. Also, network within your industry. You'll find your peers are wiling to trade buyer lists with you. But in short, don't bother reaching out to a retail buyer until you have talking points that address those 3 things I mentioned above all. I'm happy to do a clarity call if you have follow up questions.

I'll give you some generalized advice from what you've provided but first I need to explain some of the reasons why this is tough for anyone to answer... First, without knowing how many customers you already have it's tough to strategize a 100% increase. If you have 1 customer, it's different than 100,000. Second, we need to know how long it took you to acquire the customers you have. A 100% increase could be substantial and if it took you 5 years to get 50,000 clients, it's unlikely that you'll get another 50,000 in 3 months. Third, without knowing what you are spending on SEO, Adwords and remarketing and subsequently what you're able to spend additionally, it's difficult to advise you. For instance, if you have a $1,000/mo ad budget I might advise one thing, whereas if you have millions of dollars to spend, I might advise something else. Fourth, and finally, for now, without knowing your current and target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition), it's difficult to advise you on what new strategies or tactics to introduce. All that said, I'd start by running a test remarketing campaign across every social channel that allows it. This will mirror your adwords retargeting efforts by re-engaging people who are you've already had an interaction with. IT should make your SEO and PPC efforts more effective. Next, I'd make sure you truly understand the reasons why your current clients chose you and ensure that your marketing message reflects those attributes. After that, I'd create some awareness advertising campaigns on social media, with the client-informed marketing positioning, targeted toward a lookalike audience of your current customers. Upload an email list of current customers and create a lookalike audience. Show them videos introducing yourself and then run a remarketing campaign to video viewers. Finally, a highly targeted direct outreach campaign on Linkedin featuring case studies of the value you bring to your existing clients is never a bad way to work on bringing in new sales. Let me know if you'd like to discuss this further on Clarity.