Tuesday, April 29, 2014

5 Steps To B2B Marketing Success

5 Steps To B2B Marketing Success image Screen Shot 2014 04 29 at 3.13.20 PM e1398798900247

Here are five simple steps to help you and your company achieve B2B marketing success:


1. Define: Strategic goals, objectives, strategies and tactics.


Once you define your overall social media marketing goals (increase sales)and determine your specific objectives (grow LinkedIn page followers), take the focus to your strategy and tactics. Your strategy could be creating thought leadership content around X topic and one of your tactics could be posting at least one piece of content every week day. Defining these steps will help you to succeed. You don’t have to be on every platform because not every social media outlet is right for every business.


2. Build: The right person has to be in charge here.


This person will be posting on your behalf and they should know your plan, know your voice and know how to effectively report problems. This person should have a good grasp on the vision, goals, objectives, strategies and tactics in place; and they should be able to measure the success of them.


3. Select: What platforms are right for your company? LinkedIn is one of the top B2B social media marketing tools every company uses. It’s a great place to start to establish your thought leadership. Some B2B companies have also seen potential sales leads from LinkedIn.


Have you given thought to Pinterest? Creating custom graphics and sharing your blog posts and thought leadership pieces with an image to Pinterest might make sense for your company as visual media continues to rise in popularity. Check it out: General Electric is succeeding on Pinterest and Maersk is leading B2B on Instagram. Research begins with Google, we all know that. Participating on Google+ can increase your search ranking and generate leads as well.


4. Create: Blog posts, custom photos, videos, infographics and other pieces of content to educate people on what you do. You should be educating buyers here. Some of your audience and buyers may not be social, but when they search for you, they will find your visual content you are creating. Whether you’re creating demonstrative YouTube videos or hosting live Q&A Twitter chats, the goal is to educate buyers.


5. Embrace. Build your partners into your social media marketing plan as a part of a partner amplification strategy.


  • Connect with all of your active partners online.

  • Share your partners’ posts.

  • Like partner photos.

  • Comment on partner blog posts.

Partners can help you to reach new audience members you’re already trying to target within your own industry. You can help each other out. Partner amplification and engagement should be an ongoing priority for your plan.


5 Steps To B2B Marketing Success image BmVBD5dCAAAPfYy 600x450Remember:


Whether it’s a good B2C or a good B2B practice, what people really want to see is H2H. Bryan Kramer talks about this in his book There is No B2B or B2C: It’s Human to Human: #H2H.


People will always want to talk to other people. While the concept of H2H marketing is nothing new, we should always remember that we are simply people talking to people.


So:


  • Make a plan

  • Get creative

  • Put your team in place

And you will success for your B2B company in the social media marketing space.


Source: B2C_Business



5 Steps To B2B Marketing Success

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