Tips For Reaching Customers As a B2B Brand This Year

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B2B marketing is particularly tough. B2B companies don’t receive as much help from word of mouth as B2C companies. In addition, content marketing is a bit harder to get right, with only 20% of B2B marketing experts claiming to have an effective content strategy in place.

However, B2B marketing isn’t all bad. In fact, existing B2B companies are becoming more customer-centric and investing more time and resources into today’s marketing efforts. With less than two-thirds of B2B companies satisfied with the results of their current marketing efforts, more can be done to reach customers and retain them.

To help you, I’ve outlined some tips for reaching customers as a B2B brand in 2017.

1- Implement A Chatbot Into Your Strategy

When it comes to B2B marketing, new techniques are being discussed on a daily basis. Take the chatbot, for example. The chatbot is new to the marketing world, yet it’s already making strides towards becoming a tool that marketers can’t afford to not implement into their strategies.

If you are a B2B marketer, you’ll most likely be using a range of inbound marketing techniques to reach your customers, with the ultimate goal of educating them about your products or services. This has been made easier by the new and improved chatbot.

Bots play a key role in B2B lead generation, allowing you to:

• Automate and improve your customer care services


• Streamline your sales operations


• Simplify specific tasks, such as taking orders and payments

Using a chatbot as a supplement in your B2B marketing and sales strategy could hugely complement your efforts. Thankfully, they’re also easier than ever to create. Aside from the improvements in the artificial intelligence (AI) that powers them, bot-building platforms allow you to create a chatbot that:

• Integrates with your social media profiles


• Takes orders directly from Facebook, Messenger, and comments


• Works with all the major payment systems


• Pushes personalized offers, promotions, and deals to customers, on demand

2- Focus On Acquiring Positive Reviews And Testimonials

Consumers no longer trust outbound marketing techniques, as they don’t like forceful advertisements. They want to make their own decisions and learn from sources they trust. The majority of B2B customers now rely on other consumers’ opinions before coming to their final buying decision.

As a result, invest more time into leveraging your testimonials and reviews as an active part of your marketing campaigns. Millennials, the next big generation to dominate the market, like to know what they are buying and they don’t stop at the first blog post or advertisement they see; instead, they read reviews and rely on customer references to make their decision, so encourage your happy customers to leave you a review when possible.

3- Host Customer User Groups nd Events

By hosting customer user groups and events, you will gain valuable feedback from your customers and you’ll have the opportunity to tell them more about your company and brand as a whole. Word of mouth isn’t easy in the B2B world, so it’s important you create your own opportunities.

These events are meetings between you and your customers, either digital or in-person, that will help you learn more about what your target market wants, needs, and expects from you. Most importantly, they’re a key way for you to turn your current customers into brand advocates.

4- Engage In Advocate And Referral Marketing

Similarly to acquiring positive reviews and testimonials, advocate and referral marketing is about getting your current clients to share their positive experiences working with your brand. Brand advocates aren’t like influencers; you most likely already have their contact details because you’ve worked with them before and you shouldn’t have to pay them.

There are a number of tasks you could ask your customers to undertake as brand advocates, for example:

• Posting on social media


• Sharing information relevant to your brand


• Liking your posts


• Leaving reviews


• Responding to comments left on forums


• Participating in a case study you’re putting together


• Attending your webinars


• Referring other potential customers


• Speaking at your events

If you have customers that want to become serious advocates for your brand, create a mix of educational and fun requests and reward their efforts with the odd free product, voucher, or special membership. It’s a two-way street, so remember to give as good as you receive.

5- Create Interactive Newsletters

Unlike popular belief, newsletters are still a valuable way to reach consumers. In fact, they could be taking center stage by breaking away from their traditional formatting and becoming more interactive. While many believe newsletters are going out of fashion, B2B companies can leverage these in a way that is nearly as beneficial as social media marketing.

With an e-newsletter, your B2B company can:

• Be at the forefront of your customers’ mind when they open their email


• Create a direct link between their emailing platform and your website landing pages


• Gain valuable data regarding your marketing campaigns

6- Open Honest Dialogues With Your Audience

It’s important that aside from giving your customers the chance to easily review your products and services, they also feel they can converse with you honestly. Online customer communities are a great way for you to open honest dialogues with customers who’d prefer to stay anonymous.

Anonymity allows them to give you more honest feedback without the pressure of anyone knowing their identity. It’s a more democratic way for you to gather information. To top it off, more B2B companies are creating these types of forums, or communities, because it’s the easiest way for them to gather a steady stream of precise information on various matters without having to develop regular polls and other types of surveys.

7- Upsell And Cross-Sell Your Products And Services

If you’re a B2B company that isn’t pouncing on every chance of upselling and cross-selling to customers, you are missing out on big opportunities to drive more sales; after all, selling to an existing customer is far easier than starting from scratch.

Cross-selling and upselling should be a major part of your marketing strategy. To do so, you need to stop limiting yourself to your first sale. Bring together your marketing, sales, and customer care teams to expolore new ways to improve your sales funnel.

Although your various buyer personas aren’t necessarily interested in the same products or services, some could relate to one another, making them appealing to more than one of your audiences. Who knows, you may even discover a whole new idea for a product or service that you’d never thought of before.

Finally…

Using the right tools and methods to reach your customers is the only way you can continue to grow your business, and in turn, your sales. By using some, if not all the tips outlined above, you’ll not only make your customers your brand’s primary advocates, but also create an image of yourself that is trustworthy and honest, a crucial selling point among today’s consumers.

Source: B2C