Selling B2B products or services is always tricky regardless of the medium you use.
The sales cycles are longer, the decision makers are harder to reach and you don’t even know when a sale that you’ve worked so hard towards may drop.
Digital Marketing, as a medium, offers umpteen promises, but can it really deliver from a B2B point of view?
Can you really be successful selling B2B products and services with Digital
Marketing?
If those are the 2 thoughts running behind your head, then you’ve come to the right place.
Digital Marketing, is definitely a powerful medium for you to get more business knocking on your door whether you’re B2B or B2C.
However, it doesn’t work for all kinds of products or services.
But here’s the thing – Digitization and Digital adoption is happening at a rapid pace across several industries.
Even amongst industries where people went the old fashion (word of mouth route), people are starting to use the Internet to research on solutions, finding better providers and making the switch.
For Example:
Recently, I met a friend who was into Fiber Optic Panels and patch panels – whose end users are Project Managers at big Corporations that are working on setting up massive server/cable infrastructures.
And what he mentioned to me surprised me completely.
It appears that – a lot of these project managers – despite having some companies empaneled already on their list of Suppliers, are looking out for external providers Digitally who can provide cheaper prices and higher quality.
Fiber Optic Panels & Patch Panels, was such an unlikely industry.
Most of the target audience – the Project Managers – relatively older folk with little or no social media presence and a lot of field activity – are now starting to use Google and other social media platforms to find cheaper and better solutions to execute their work.
And that’s exactly how many industries are changing.
Even the most obscure of industries that you think wouldn’t go Digital – is now going Digital.
So if you have the following question in your mind, “Will Digital Marketing work for B2B Leads & B2B Sales?”
My answer to this question is a STRONG resounding YES.
How well Digital Marketing performs for your B2B operation depends on your type of business and the strategy you’re using.
You’ll have to talk to an expert who’s really good at Digital Media to understand and decipher a strategy that will work for your business and execute that consistently.
Not all businesses can benefit from the same B2B Digital Marketing Strategy.
For each business, the strategy is different and will have to be customized.
With that said, I’m going to outline a Typical Digital Marketing Strategy that will work very well for all B2B Businesses.
This will have to be further customized based on the business and a few elements may have to be added or removed.
However, if you use this approach, most B2B based businesses can increase their leads, sales & skyrocket their growth with Digital Media.
Here’s my recommended B2B Digital Marketing Strategy For Increasing Leads, Filling Your Pipeline & Converting Sales.
Create A Specialized Online Marketing Funnel To Take Prospects From Cold To Warm
A marketing funnel is structured approach to take people from a stage where they’re unaware of your product or service to the point where you educate them and they’re almost convinced to purchase your product/service.
In the B2B World, the ultimate goal of your Online Marketing Funnel has to be the following:
- Drive people to schedule a Consultation Call or a Meeting where your
prospect can learn more about yourself - Now, before you get people to schedule a Call with you or express interest to have a call with you, it’s important to presell them Digitally by establishing your credibility and adding value
- It should NOT be a simple – fill out your form for a special quote (while this can be implemented for smaller campaigns, I don’t recommend it long-term)
- Your entire Online Marketing Funnel must do most of the education and the selling, with Content so that the prospects are primed and ready to buy when they get on a call with you
- How can you do that? That’s where an Online Webinar/Whitepaper comes into play.
Create A Lead Magnet That Solves A Specific Pain Point Users Have
Now this is really dependent on who your decision maker is, and the type of
content they are likely to consume.
The whole purpose of a Lead Magnet – which could be an Online
Webinar/Demo/Whitepaper – is to deliver value to your prospect by solving a specific pain point with content and introducing your business and product/service to him/her.
Whether it’s an online webinar or a whitepaper – is dependent on the pain point that you’re trying to solve and the time your decision maker as.
For example:
Business Category: Financial Consultant who helps makes startups investable. Lead Magnet Type: Webinar
Webinar Title: 5 Startup Fundamentals To Follow To Raise Venture Capital & Achieve Series A Funding In Less Than A Year.
Webinar Content: Focus on delivering value to your end user, showcase the Key Principles/Fundamentals they need to follow, back it up with Case Studies that you’ve helped or other models & then offer to have a Consultation Call with you to see how you can help them.
Another Example:
Business Category: NABH Accreditation Consultants
Lead Magnet Type: WhitePaper
WhitePaper Title: How XYZ Hospital Increased Revenue By ABC Percentage With NABH Accreditation
Whitepaper Content: Showcase information on how the hospital increased revenue post the accreditation, the processes involved and how you can help with NABH accreditation, feature the other clients that you’ve worked with and mention if they are interested, they can get in touch with you for a call.
There’s NO one size fits all – Lead Magnet for all businesses. It really depends and varies depending on the end user and how they’ll prefer consuming content.
But the end goal is to give away something of value – that will build credibility, trust and introduce them to you as a Credible Brand.
Once you create your Lead Magnet, build a specialized landing page for it – so you can give people access to your Lead Magnet only when they enter their name, email and phone number (and some other details).
Create A Compelling CTA So You Can Move Towards A Sales Call Or A Meeting.
The sales call or meeting is going to be the start of your sales cycle, and will help you close the deal.
In some scenarios, if you manage to build trust, credibility in the
Webinar/Whitepaper, you may end up converting in the first meeting itself.
However, in many scenarios, it doesn’t happen that way – as the first meeting – is a formal meeting of sorts, and you’ll have to discuss pricing and there may be multiple decision makers at your customer’s end who may have to take a decision.
Therefore, the sales meeting is going to be the beginning of your Sales Cycle although – many of the leads you have here will be MORE qualified than most leads that you’ve worked with – in the past.
The whole goal of your Lead Magnet – webinar or whitepaper is to sell the call so people take up on it.
Build A Series of Email Follow Ups.
Now, just because – they opted in for your Lead Magnet – and you gave them immediate access – doesn’t mean that they’ll have gone through the content right away.
People have busy lives today, and it’s even more so in the case of B2B decision makers.
Therefore, it’s important to follow up via email and do some soft follow ups
(perhaps by phone if necessary) to see if they consumed the content.
You don’t pitch your product or service – until they consume your content –
because they need to see your value.
If they don’t see your value, they’re going to look at you as another VENDOR – which is something you want to avoid.
So build a series of email follow-ups to get people to consume the content, and then once they consume, repeatedly follow up with them so they schedule a sales call with you.
You can do this manually or automatically. I recommend a mix of both – as that’s a good strategy.
Drive Traffic To Your Landing Page With Organic Content Marketing & Paid Ads
The next step is to drive traffic to this specialized landing page which offers your Webinar or Lead Magnet – with organic content marketing and paid ads.
Depending on the medium your target audience uses, you may use Facebook Ads, Google Ads or LinkedIn to reach out to your audiences.
Paid advertising is a different ball game altogether and you have to have a clear budget plan if you’re going to pull it off.
I recommend talking to a Paid Ads expert before taking any decisions or
implementing any of that.
With organic content marketing, you can put a solid content strategy in place and begin executing it one after another by creating content around your prospect’s needs, desires and pains and pitching them to attend your webinar or take up your whitepaper.
The more consistent you are with it, the more traffic you’ll receive. The more traffic, the more qualified leads – which in turn will convert to more sales on the backend.
… and this is simply ONE of the ways to run a successful Digital Marketing campaign for a brand that’s into B2B.
There are other methods too – but this one is something that’s VIABLE, EFFICIENT and gives you UNIQUE positioning in your industry over other businesses.
If you want to know more on how you can increase your sales for your B2B business then register for 1-1 free strategy session with our expert.
