For a new business or entity in the market, brand awareness and visibility is a crucial factor. It will not happen spontaneously but with proper efforts and persistence, a business can definitely get there and reach its right and potential audiences in the market.
These aspects apply to majorly any business and brand but as we are focusing on B2B here, the buying persona, decision making, and buying intent is way different than that of B2C businesses. This is where the need of a whole new type of marketing arises – B2B Marketing.
Now what exactly is B2B marketing?
As you know B2B stands for Business-to-Business where a business caters and offers its products or services to other businesses in the industry and not directly to the individual customers. Similarly, B2B marketing is where all the process from production to development and to deployment of a product or service is targeted towards other business’ benefits.
B2B Marketing definition – It is a type of marketing where a business caters and offers its products or services to other businesses in the industry and not directly to the individual customers
Then comes the elephant in the room, marketing of the particular product or service and how all the efforts are put together in order to gain traction and market visibility. In B2B marketing, one really has to dig deep and find out what exactly the problems businesses are facing and accordingly make them feel the need of your product and how it will benefit them.
Also, B2B marketing is targeted towards the individuals of the business which is being targeted so being personal is a key here in order to make them understand what exactly is being conveyed and provided regarding the product or service. This way the other party relates better and may genuinely realise a need. Friendly bonding in B2B goes on a long way.
An example of B2B marketing is as follows – A firm has developed a software which is modern and efficient in getting work done for the employees in an organisation. This software aims to manage the details of the clients with advanced features. It is integrated with cloud based sharing too which no SaaS company offers as of now. This can be a USP of the service and will target other businesses and impart the benefits of the same in their marketing plan.
This is an example of B2B marketing where the software creator company has developed the software keeping in the challenges and needs of companies which require a CMS system and how it can improve on those aspects.
How B2B Marketing can help B2B Exports?
A B2B Business as mentioned above, is a business which is present in the market to provide value in terms of products and services to other businesses where it aims to fulfill their challenges and needs. B2B Exporters are the ones which deliver products to potential buyers in many industries namely agriculture, chemicals, handicrafts, apparels among many others.
But here’s the catch, the B2B exports – imports industry doesn’t require education and awareness regarding the products because they already deal in those and know its uses pretty well. But this can’t be said for SaaS targeted towards business as these are dynamic and have something or the other different from others.
Here reaching the end customer (business) should be the main priority and things will take off from there without much issue as long as the product is known and buyer is satisfactorily interested for its own use or in case of reselling. Infact, once you become an authoritative brand, inbound leads would be generated wherein importers directly inquire for the purchase of goods. That would only happen with methods and implementation of B2B marketing.
A B2B exports business’s motive is to reach its potential importer in a particular industry and leveraging B2B marketing methods can help in doing so slowly and steadily. B2B marketing has various aspects involved to it where the use of certain platforms can make brands achieve their marketing goals.
B2B Marketing strategies to grow an Exports business
Here are some B2B marketing activities you can implement to be a successful B2B exporter :-
1. Registering on Local Listings
Local listings are the ones which as the name suggests, lists your business in a directory with all the information and description regarding your brand. This directory shows up when a person searches and has a query related to purchase or has a buying intent.
One of the leading local listings platform is Google My Business (GMB) which shows up along with Google search result. Local listings are one of the easiest B2B marketing strategies to build an online presence where you can regularly post new offers, discounts and even events. All the basic details such as business name, phone number and address is displayed for the interested searcher to contact the business instantly to enquire about the B2B exports products.
2. B2B platforms
B2B platforms are the ones which are capable to take an exports business to a new level by implementing various B2B marketing strategies on their behalf. Apart from getting and providing right leads, B2B platforms provide trade consultancies, insights of the industry and even upcoming trends.
This is where online B2B platforms and marketplaces like Global Trade Bazaar come into the play by connecting the B2B exporters indulged in trading of agriculture products, apparels, handicrafts etc. with importers present in the market. The services of these platforms does have an impact on the marketing efforts of their clients (exporters).
3. B2B Digital Marketing
Every business, whether B2C or B2B should have a website and the ability to scale it. A website provides digital presence which is pretty much essential in this day and age where the whole market is shifting to online market.
An exports business can make use and implement digital marketing in its B2B marketing to harness the power of the same and avail all the benefits it brings. These benefits can be promotion and optimisation of website for Search Engines (SEO) in order to be able to visible to more searchers, increase reach on social media and just optimise every platform a business is present on.
B2B marketing on LinkedIn is a treasure of a source for leads and garnering genuine business partnerships.
4. PPC Ads
PPC ads are used to get leads for a particular business by creating a lead pool of targeted audiences
Leveraging Pay Per Click (PPC) ads can be a great way to outreach and get details of people interested in your products you offer. Being an outbound way of reaching targeted audience, the ads needs to be quite action taking and CTR (click through rate) oriented in order to garner maximum leads.
5. Gain success in Home market
A success run in the home market becomes crucial and should be the priority before scaling the business abroad. Fulfil the needs and challenges in the local market by promoting and it and then only decide to expand the business overseas,
6. Play the ‘Long Term’ game
Being persistent in the long term is the way to go in B2B exports. As a new exporter, don’t at all expect to gain returns in the business. Find ways and try experimenting with the promotional activities and implementing B2B marketing strategies.
Be it B2B digital marketing or traditional marketing, one has to be creative enough to expand its brand awareness in the said industry. The mindset should be to invest in the right places and have its proper B2B marketing plan set up.