What is different about marketing a B2B company?

As you consider hiring a marketing consultant to help you reach your customers, it’s essential to ensure they understand the nuances of marketing for different audiences. If you’re audience is other businesses, your marketing tactics will be very different than someone trying to reach consumers.

Here are some of the differences.

Buying cycles

The buying cycle of your customer affects your choice of marketing tactics.

For example, if you offer an inexpensive and consumer-oriented product, you might find people make a purchase immediately. This means a paid search (or even paid social) campaign can generate immediate results: they see your product, and buy it (without much consideration).

However, if you offer an expensive and business-oriented service, you might find that it takes someone months to make a purchase decision. While a search or social campaign can reach these customers, you won’t get an immediate sales lead every time. Instead, consider “dating” your customer for a while, before asking them to “marry” you: invite them to join your email list or follow you on social media, to determine if they should take advantage of your services.

If you don’t consider your buying cycle in a marketing campaign, you will draw incorrect conclusions from your data. For example, a B2B company might think its SEO campaign is not generating leads. However, it may be introducing a vast range of potential customers to its solution. Those customers might not be ready to commit to your business. Set up soft leads (such as email signups) to measure interest. With that, you might find your email list converts at a very significant rate, as you gradually convince them they need your services.

Working with a sales team

B2B companies thrive (and survive) by their sales teams. When you hire a marketing company, look for one with experience working closely with a sales team.

“These leads are crap!” – Every sales team ever.

At first, every sales team thinks the website leads are terrible. In fact, they might be (especially at first). However, if you are working with a marketing company that has B2B experience, you might find that experience can be beneficial.

For one, as a business’s website finally becomes visible, the first people to find it are often spammers. Next come irrelevant leads, as Google (and your website) learn to describe what you have to offer. Eventually, with continued effort, your actual customers will find your website- and the good leads will start coming in at a steady stream. That’s just reality. Experienced marketers can guide your sales team through this transition.

At the same time, a marketing team experienced in working with a sales team will also listen to them- even if they’re complaining. There’s value in their complaints. That value can translate into better website content or third-party promotional options, and even expedite the time it takes to distinguish between spam and legitimate leads. Marketers without B2B experience working with a sales team can overlook this treasure trove of advice.

But it worked for me

Over a post-golf beer at the country club, your company’s president learns about a new marketing tactic that worked for another company. Your president returns on Monday to task you with a new tactic: it “worked” for them, surely it will work for us.

I know all the kids are obsessed with Snap-Tok [sic] and another company generated hundreds of thousands of engagement last week- but that doesn’t mean it will “work” for you. Besides, what does “work” mean? Can you spend “engagements” to pay your creditors?

A productive B2B marketer knows that what helps you reach a consumer audience won’t necessarily reach businesses. They will ask questions to ensure that any new tactic reaches your customers —and not get distracted by vanity metrics that make a particular platform sound impressive.

This is because a B2B marketer understands web analytics. They can use the available data to measure not just impressions, engagements, or rank, but also whether a marketing channel contributed to closed deals. Since B2B marketers understand long buying cycles, they can put the data into context, allowing you to make data-informed marketing decisions rather than relying on advice from those who may be overly enthusiastic or boastful about their own companies.

When searching for an internet marketer, ensure they understand the nuances of B2B marketing.