The acceptance rate of the business-to-business (B2B) model in today’s marketing sphere is not limited to the recognition of Internet usage to close sales. You could now do in-depth research and evaluate your competition via B2B digital marketing strategies.
Following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic years ago, businesses have now seen the need to take their transactions online. In this article, you’ll find out some of the major strategies for making e-commerce sales to other businesses online.
What are B2B digital marketing strategies?
These are the promotional or sales methods e-commerce brands use to promote offers and onboard customers operating in the B2B space. Mostly done online, these strategies are harnessed in a variety of ways, including email marketing and SEO.
Effective Strategies for Closing More B2B Sales
This section analyzes the major ways an e-commerce brand can tap into the burgeoning B2B market and make sales using digital marketing strategies.
1. Maximize Email Marketing to the Fullest
Promoting the latest e-commerce offers via email is a relevant way to stay on top of the game and make more sales. Some brands believe this is an effective way to personalize the offers and build a rapport with the decision-makers.
Getting the right email marketing software can help, but a lot of effort needs to go into the actual writing. The versatility of this approach means that it can be integrated with other marketing methods, including content marketing.
The best email marketing strategies for B2B e-commerce sales are:
- Personalization, especially by using the “NAME” tags.
- Creating retargeted campaigns to promote offers to customers who haven’t made a recent purchase.
- Segmenting the audience and sending out emails they can relate to.
- If your email software supports predictive analytics, it’ll come in handy for foretelling what customers are likely to purchase in the future.
READ ALSO: 7 Evergreen Ways to Make Money Online as a Student
2. Promote B2B e-Commerce Offers Via Content Marketing
Writing helpful content also helps to educate the target audience and increase sales. Hence, adding content marketing to your list of B2B digital marketing strategies is a good idea.
As an inbound marketing tactic, content promotion helps a B2B e-commerce brand draw in as many potential customers as possible. Different aspects are utilized to make this work:
- Blogging: This involves writing helpful and informative pieces of content around the areas of interest. It also covers the different aspects of the topics and serves as a means of increasing the brand’s awareness.
- Case Studies: these are evaluations of potential problems and how an e-commerce brand’s product or service can be a solution.
- Videos: these involve making videos (short or long) aimed at promoting the B2B e-commerce brand.
3. Use Social Media
Platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn can be a veritable medium for promoting new offers. The use of social media networks helps B2B e-commerce brands extend their tentacles and reach new audiences.
The key to getting it right is:
- Researching the platform that the target audience uses the most. LinkedIn scores highly in this area.
- Choosing a social media platform that one can be consistent with.
- Understanding the dynamics of these platforms, including the type of content that is most accepted and how the algorithm works,.
- Looking at what competing brands are doing and modelling accordingly.
4. Run Paid Campaigns
Online paid advertising on both social media and search engines helps a B2B e-commerce brand reach more people. In addition to being laser-targeted, these campaigns also turn out to be successful, if done well.
Advertising on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn with the right creative and CTA can result in a higher conversion rate.
Search engine advertising on Google and similar platforms increases the brand’s visibility to online visitors who are likely interested in the offers.
5. Set up a Responsive Website
Since most of the transactions are online, it is expedient for the brand to have a website where shopping is seamless. It goes beyond adding items to the store and keeping the site online. Making the site adaptable to a range of mobile devices and making it visually appealing is also important.
A responsive website also has these attributes:
- ADA-compliant
- Integrates a system for (product) data management
- Meets the legal requirements, especially in the targeted locations.
6. Influence Purchase Decisions with Testimonials
People tend to buy when they have been assured not just of the efficacy of a product/service, but also of the previous buyers’ satisfaction. As a B2B e-commerce brand, using customer testimonials or reviews goes a long way toward making new sales easier.
Reviews are important for these reasons:
- These are social proofs, indicating the satisfaction of previous buyers. By posting these reviews, your target audience will be further convinced to make that buying decision.
- Customer testimonials are verifiable ways for prospects to “get into the minds of previous buyers” and get a hint of what to expect after making a purchase.
To make the most of customer reviews, B2B e-commerce brands need to do the following:
- Consider incentivizing customers to make an honest review. This is because some buyers don’t lie to give feedback after purchasing. Giving an incentive might excite them to “talk.”
- Optimize the e-commerce site in a way that testimonials can be seen.
- Further, establish social proof by reaching out to industry experts to include your e-commerce brand in their reviews.
- Be proactive in responding to negative reviews and making sure the customers are satisfied at the end of the day.
READ ALSO: 9 Sites You Can Learn Web Design for Free [2024 Updated]
7. Do SEO
Search engine optimization is a set of unique techniques that web masters use to boost the organic ranking of sites on search engines like Google. The goal is to make your e-commerce site discoverable for the brand name, as well as related search terms.
Employing these strategies can be very helpful to this end:
- Creating helpful posts around popular topics or markets your brand serves.
- Ensuring the site is secured by the HTTPS protocol.
- Always write the meta title and meta description of each of the products listed on the website’s store.
- Always the H-tags. For example, H1 should be used for the product name.
- Keep the URL of products short for readability purposes.
Conclusion
E-commerce brands have since integrated the B2B model, thus, serving both customers and other brands at the same time. Doing SEO, running paid campaigns online, creating relevant content, marketing through the mail, and pushing out customer testimonials are examples of good B2B digital marketing strategies.
Test as many as possible, and when you find the one that works best, double-down to get better results.