marketing

4 Tips for Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketing

b2b marketing tips

Most of the time when we talk about small business marketing, we’re talking about business-to-customer (B2C). You have a product or service, and you’re marketing it directly to the end user. The person who bought your handcrafted sweater is the person who is going to be wearing it or giving it as a gift.

Business-to-business (B2B) companies are built differently. They’re marketing their products or services to another business. They’re the ones who make the seatbelts for airlines, the steering wheel in your Prius or the software you use at work.

B2C and B2B companies are two very different business models, which means you have to market them two very different ways.

Here are our best tips for B2B marketing.

Knock on the Right Doors

Anyone can walk into a business and try to make a sale. But a perfectly on-point pitch doesn’t matter in the slightest if you’re not talking to the right person.

The receptionist doesn’t have the ability to purchase your software solution. The intern can’t hire your janitorial company. The nurse’s assistant who takes your height and weight isn’t in charge of pharmaceutical decisions.

Marketing to the wrong person just wastes time, money and energy.

Instead, know who makes the decisions before you ever walk through the front door. LinkedIn in particular makes it easy to contact the movers and shakers of the company, with four out of five members at least partially responsible for making purchasing decisions.

Know Your Product or Service

It seems basic, but you’d be surprised how many B2B marketers hem and haw their way through a presentation once the questions start coming.

To be successful, you need to know your product inside and out. Every spec, every measurement, every selling factor – everything. If you can’t answer a question, your target won’t have an issue finding someone who can.

Market to Logic, Not Emotion

For the average person, a purchase is based on emotion. The product or service you offered made them feel something.

Businesses don’t rely on emotions. They want facts and figures. How can your product or service make their lives easier, how simple is it to implement, how cost-effective is it and what’s the potential return on investment?

Because of this, your B2B marketing materials must be more in-depth than they would be if you were marketing directly to customers. Other companies don’t want a candlelight dinner; they want a power lunch, complete with white papers, product demos, and all the stats, facts and figures you can throw at them in the time it takes them to finish their martini.

Create Case Studies

If you’re selling cupcakes, it’s fine to tell a curious customer that most people think the pumpkin spice is delicious.

If you’re looking to secure a multimillion-dollar contract to build space toilets, what “most people say” isn’t going to matter nearly as much as “this specific company used our space toilets and here’s what it did for their business.”

This is where case studies come in, and it’s in your best interest to have a few on hand. A case study is an in-depth look at a real business who used your product or service and how it met a need or solved a problem, all backed up by real-life, verifiable data.

You can find some great (and free!) case study templates here to get you started.

Is Your Business Looking for More Out of B2B Marketing?

B2B companies have it a lot harder than B2C businesses. It’s not like selling a handcrafted necklace or signing someone up for your Jelly of the Month club. In order to be successful, you need the right contacts, the right knowledge, and a healthy dose of stick-to-it-ness!

Do you need some help making the introductions? Call on Mischa Communications! We’ll show you how to market your small business to absolutely anyone! We’re ready when you are.