Shaking up your marketing strategy is a valuable initiative for any business looking to diversify its brand, reach different audiences or reconnect with current customers. Experimenting with marketing methods isn’t something reserved for B2C, but B2B companies tend to fall behind in adopting new tactics that could drastically improve both their marketing and sales efforts. The best way to promote growth, especially for small B2B companies on a limited budget, is to first talk with your internal team to brainstorm the areas that need the most attention – think stale email marketing campaign, tired brand awareness strategy or out-of-date website – and kick off your improvement initiative by developing a list of current pain points.
To revive ineffective areas, consider some of the methods below that many B2B companies miss in their yearly planning. Each is a unique and often overlooked way to revitalize your brand, boost your presence in the market and differentiate yourself from competitors.
1. Rethink Your Outreach Strategy
In 2015, text message marketing company Tatango found that the average SMS marketing click-through rate was 36% – nearly ten times that of e-mail marketing.1 If you’re struggling to see results from recent email marketing campaigns, SMS marketing may open up some new ways to connect with your audience.
The open rate of text messages is significantly higher than that of email, and because the content of a text is extremely basic compared to the average email, it draws more attention to hyperlinks and the message it conveys. This increases the likelihood that your customer will click where you want them to and even respond if appropriate. Text messages are effective in communicating quickly digestible information that can lead users to your site, provide helpful resources like whitepapers and case studies or distribute surveys that gauge customer satisfaction and company perception. SMS is also effective in sharing urgent information, sending confirmations and special offers and reminding attendees about upcoming events, tradeshows and webinars.
It takes the average person 90 seconds to respond to a text message and around 90 minutes to respond to an email.2
Here are a few SMS marketing tips to keep in mind before you give this method a try:
- Create clear calls-to-action and simplify your message
- Respond to consumers in a timely manner
- Use a URL shortener for links
- Schedule and automate texts and avoid overuse
- Segment your audience and consider timing
2. Engage with Industry Influencers
In a world where knowledge is power, why not learn from the best? Keeping up with industry leaders updates you on the latest in the field, helping you to create current and meaningful content for your customer base. Pay more attention to how the top dogs market themselves and borrow from their strategy. If they’re using trending social media tactics such as live video updates and expiring content, consider following suit to connect with your own audience in innovative ways.
To make the most of these thought leaders, do more than just observe and take notes – strive to engage with industry leaders. Start a dialogue on one of their LinkedIn posts rather than simply hitting the “like” button. When sharing posts from their blog, add your own analysis of the topic and encourage readers to participate. These small actions can have big payoffs, potentially building strategic relationships and generating opportunities for partnerships and other meaningful business deals.
3. Adopt a Mobile-First Mindset
In a recent Google Partners Connect Livestream on mobile, Google reported that more than half of all web traffic comes from smartphones and tablets. We’ve already spoken about why the mobile-first mindset is gaining traction in the B2B marketplace, but mobile-first design specifically is now a must-have for businesses in any industry. Ensuring that your site is accessible and responsive on the go should be a top priority if you want to increase web traffic and start converting quality leads.
In their livestream event, Google found that long load times can actually prevent a user from visiting your site ever again. This means that one glitch on your site could cost you a customer for life.
If the above fact seems drastic to you, keep in mind that most websites take around 9 seconds to load while the average human attention span clocks in at about 8 seconds. It’s essential that your business makes a good first impression on visitors to your site and creates a pleasant mobile user experience that feeds the sales cycle. Here are some other ways to start adopting a mobile-first mindset:
- Create your content from a mobile user’s perspective by optimizing PDFs and landing pages
- Continuously improve your social media strategy and include visuals and interactive content
- Work on your website’s UX to improve organic page rank and other important SEO KPIs
- Invest in developing and updating great mobile products (EHRs, CRMs and e-commerce, etc.)
4. Have a Conversation with Customers
Automation technology has made communication effortless, introducing tools that can flawlessly execute many marketing tasks to save marketers time and money. Although automation is valuable and efficient, it often comes at the cost of implementing effective personalization. Personalizing messages today has to mean more than inserting your customer’s name at the top of an email; it means starting a conversation that makes your customer feel like a priority.
If you’re worried that this is impossible to do for your large customer base, we assure you it’s not. Start out by writing blogs that tell stories in a humanized way and emails that ask questions and encourage readers to respond or engage. Invite your customers to reach out to you and be sure to respond to feedback when it’s provided. Send out surveys at least once a year, including a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey, to ask your customers if you’re exceeding their expectations and get insight into their challenges and needs. Adding these personal touches will help your customers to feel heard and appreciated.
Another technique to initiate conversation between you and your customers is adding a chat feature to your website. Make representatives from your company available during business hours and work toward 24-hour chat support as a long-term goal. Communicate with your customers openly and authentically to form long-lasting relationships that lead to repeat business.
5. Share More Curated Content
Content curation is an easy way to share relevant articles and resources with your customer base. In fact, we’ve curated content in the form of a blog post many times to share great content marketing, technology and healthcare resources with our audiences. Providing links to related articles that might pique the interest of your readers will prompt them to learn more about a topic that relates to your products and services.
But doesn’t this just divert users away from your site?
Well, yes and no. Here are a few benefits to sharing curated content on your marketing channels:
- Curated content provides an outside perspective on the subject you’re covering, often validating and strengthening your main points.
- Sharing content from other companies (excluding close competitors!) helps you build brand awareness and trust.
- Outside sources may offer a more in-depth analysis of the topic, filling in the gaps where your expertise is limited and thus providing the most value to readers.
- Outbound linking helps with SEO by allowing your site to appear more dependable and credible in the eyes of Google.
Think of content curation as a complement, not a substitute, to your content offering.
Do you need help executing any of the tips we’ve mentioned? The experts at Sagefrog can help! Contact us to schedule a free consultation and build a marketing strategy that fits your needs and top objectives.
Are you interested in B2B marketing services? Contact Sagefrog Marketing Group today.
1. The Average SMS Marketing Click-Through Rate is 36%, Tatango
2. 9 Amazing Mobile Marketing Statistics Every Marketer Should Know, HubSpot
