Marketing to individual consumers may not be easy, but business-to-business marketing can be a tough sell. No matter what a company offers, it can usually persuade people that it would be a good idea for them to purchase its products by appealing to their personal tastes. On the other hand, most companies run on tight budgets and would be out of business if they didn’t make smart choices when selecting another business to fulfill their needs.
This means that organizations looking to replace current businesses’ suppliers need to go above and beyond what would normally be expected in a traditional marketing atmosphere. This mindset should inform all small business marketing strategies for organizations that do business primarily with other companies. Here are some tips for making B2B sales and branding a little bit easier.
Search engine optimization (SEO) should never be ignored, but emphasis should be placed on other inbound and internet marketing techniques. SEO looks for large volumes of website hits, which are necessary to achieve a certain number of conversions to sales. Conversely, businesses don’t usually get as much traffic but can typically glean more revenue from each transaction. This means that any internet marketing methods that strengthen existing connections should take precedence over gaining as many new customers as possible. Social media is a good way to keep in touch with past and potential customers. Organizations can inform other companies about promotions, changes to products and special events.
Promotional products are excellent for raising awareness among individual consumers, but the opportunities to give them away and have a strong impact on leadership decisions are much greater with business-to-business interactions. Providing an entire company with promotional mugs, pens, calendars or other branded items allows them to be concentrated in one place where their messages will be more difficult to ignore. Additionally, the act of donating so many useful tools to an organization ensures that one’s business will be thought of well. If a company can offer so much for free, it stands to reason that for a low cost, its services will be even more valuable to an organization.
Marketing and advertising directed toward consumers must often take the form of passionate, artistic arguments in favor of improving one’s life. A few select products and services notwithstanding, most marketing that appeals to individuals is emotional and more difficult to articulate quantitatively. However, businesses will have staff members dedicated to weighing the costs and benefits of using different products or services. When marketing to such an entity, be sure to include demonstrable advantages to doing business with one’s organization. Actual numbers that represent savings, time frames and calculable figures that company leaders will recognize should be liberally used when reaching out to fellow members of the business community.