Robert Afsari is the founder of Campaign Creators, a web design and SEO company that specializes in B2B marketing strategies. In the following article, Robert Afsari explains how utilizing these strategies promises an optimized sales funnel heading into 2023.
The industry defines B2B or business-to-business marketing as any content or strategy that targets an organization or business. Companies requiring such strategies sell goods or services to other businesses rather than individual consumers.
Its purpose is to ensure other businesses are familiar with an entity’s brand and the value of their product or service before converting them to paying customers. B2B marketing is worlds apart from business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, with different applications, approaches, and strategies.
All industry experts, including Robert Afsari, of Campaign Creators, understands that business-to-business marketing targets the needs, challenges, and interests of people making purchases on behalf of/for their company.
The B2B Buyer’s Journey
Companies must acknowledge the buyer’s journey to craft effective B2B marketing strategies. Like the strategies themselves, it’s different from the experience of individual consumers.
Generally, professionals buying on behalf of their organization go through three stages in this order:
1. Awareness — Robert Afsari says that the prospect experiences a problem or identifies an opportunity. They’re researching to gain intimate knowledge of the issue, giving their concern a name.
2. Consideration — The prospect has defined their issue or opportunity. They’re committed to getting to grips with the available approaches/methods for solving the named problem or chance.
3. Decision — The prospect has decided on their strategy, approach, or method. They’re crafting a massive list of vendors, products, and services that could play a part in their solution. At this stage, they’re focused on whittling the list down to make the best possible purchase.
Those forming B2B marketing strategies use the above journey as a basis, ensuring experts accurately target buyers at the optimal stage.
The Pre-Execution Stage
Before jumping straight into strategy execution, Robert Afsari encourages those looking to craft practical B2B marketing approaches for 2023 to step back and ensure:
- they’ve determined their brand position. A decisive positioning statement is enough to get customers and in-house teams on board.
- they know their target market.
- they run a competitive analysis to understand other’s products, sales tactics, content, and social media presence.
- they’ve explored all marketing channels based on the competitive analysis.
B2B Marketing Strategies to Reach Specific Audiences
Robert Afsari explains that the pre-execution stage provides the foundation for choosing specific business-to-business marketing strategies, as outlined below.
B2B Email Marketing
While some modern marketers see email as an archaic strategy, it’s one of the most effective, with 93% of all B2B marketers utilizing this tried-and-true tool. Emails increase engagement, turning subscribers into leads before finally unlocking paying customers.
Unlike individual consumers, Robert Afsari explains that businesses respond best to attractive ROI and logic. Thus, email marketing should focus on how their business will benefit (e.g., saving time or money, growing sales, etc.) from the advertised goods or services.
B2B Digital Marketing
All businesses in the modern world require a digital presence comprised of SEO, websites, paid ads, and more.
Strengthening digital marketing strategies involves:
- Creating engaging yet informative websites. Most buyers (over 80%) visit a company’s website before purchasing, especially those in the B2B sales funnel.
- Ensuring on-page and technical search engine optimization tactics.
- Running PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns that allow content to fall in front of brand-new audiences. HubSpot experts suggest including buyer data and relatable content in paid ads to ensure businesses reap the rewards.
B2B Content Marketing
Robert Afsari says that traditional PR marketing focuses on disruptive promotional material, but with content marketing, businesses can post valuable, informative articles that B2B customers are searching for.
Content marketing and SEO efforts go hand in hand by anticipating the audience’s search habits, allowing them to learn what they need to know before they know they need it.
The best B2B marketers understand that content focused on various stages of the buyer’s journey is the most effective. Plus, Robert Afsari says that incorporating different content types (e.g., webinars, videos, eBooks, etc.) works wonders.
B2B Social Media Marketing
A whopping 84% of C-Suite members and 75% of B2B purchasers use social media when buying. Social platforms are no longer geared toward B2C marketers!
That said, Robert Afsari explains that many business-to-business companies find social media marketing tricky. It’s unlikely to convert as many leads as other strategies, but it’s useful for pointing purchasers in specific directions during the first stage of the purchasing process.
After all, social platforms are formidable ways to increase brand awareness and inject personality into companies.
