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Tag: b2b marketing

B2B Social Media Marketing: A Strategic Approach for Niche Industries

For many marketing folks, organic social posts are the bane of their job. Company leaders want to see activity, lots of it, and it better be good. But your customers don’t seem to care that much, and it’s hard to get follows and likes. The algorithm keeps changing, and those who do follow the brand often don’t see your posts. It’s even harder to get activity that legitimately impacts sales.

Does it matter if someone from Illinois likes your post if you’re only selling in California and Idaho? Or if tons of apartment dwellers follow you, but you sell lawnmowers? For a B2B business, it can be even harder. You’re told you “need” followers and to produce lots of content, but why? It isn’t driving sales.

READ: A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Marketing — Embracing The Wild West of the Internet

Plus, it’s wildly time-consuming, no one internally has the bandwidth for it and it can be expensive to outsource. Especially if you’re posting varied content, on multiple channels, several times a week or even daily. The truth is that social media marketing sounds fun, and to many brands it’s imperative, but in reality, it’s hard to find the right formula.

Nearly five billion people are using social media, a massive number that gets bigger every year. With access to that many people, why are some brands only getting 10 likes on a video post they spent several hours and a decent budget on?

The truth is, the social media merry-go-round can be fun for brands with deep pockets that sell to consumers, but sometimes it’s not so easy for small brands, those that market sensitive or less engaging products (like wealth management or health insurance), or for companies that are looking to connect to other businesses. When we compare B2B brands and brands with less cultural panache to global consumer brands with strong loyalty and recognition, we set impossible expectations.

READ: Don’t Get Left Behind — Top 8 Social Media Trends for 2023

Not every company will get brand advocates to consistently like and share content from social media. Certainly, humor can be used, and there are clever ways to make more engaging content, but if you’re selling professional accounting services, let’s acknowledge you will not likely get the same consumer love on social media that Nike gets, and that this is actually okay. An accounting firm probably doesn’t need to create content that goes viral with teenagers. It doesn’t make sense to put time toward a goal that’s not helpful to the overall mission.

So, for brands that need an alternative approach to social media, what are some options to stay relevant, keep a strong social presence, and not be in the constant burn of content churn? One thing we recommend is, don’t chase what you don’t need.

You might not need a presence on Pinterest, or to post on X every day. Just because “everyone” else is doing it, doesn’t mean that’s the right use of your resources. If you sell breakfast, by all means, make a post on National Pancake Day, but if you sell sprinkler systems, don’t scramble to try to make a pancake connection. Forced content can feel inauthentic to audiences.

Consider this, write an annual social media plan (or hire someone to write it) and create the bulk of your branded social content as an efficient, consolidated project. That way, your core content library for the year is handled, and you can leave room to fill in where it makes sense with new ideas, relevant current event-focused posts, and company news. You can also concept key social campaigns in conjunction with corresponding advertising campaigns (if you utilize paid media), and block those in throughout the year.

 

Cassie Augustine headshotCassie Augustine is co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Articulation in Denver, providing insights that turn consumers into brand advocates.

Is B2B Email Marketing Dead? 

Email marketing in the B2B sphere is one of those constantly-analyzed topics in the modern marketing world. However, in the past few years, B2B marketers have been getting more into social media and influencer marketing, calling into question the efficacy of email marketing. 

Marketers may be experimenting with and incorporating modern marketing channels, but email marketing remains one of the most effective methods of B2B marketing today. 

READ  — 12 Ways to Repurpose Social Media Content for Email Marketing 

In Short: No, Email Marketing Isn’t Dead for B2B Businesses. 

Recent B2B email marketing statistics reveal that “77% of B2B companies use an email marketing newsletter as part of their content marketing strategy, and 79% of B2B marketers find email to be the most successful channel for content distribution.” 

So, no. Email marketing isn’t dead for B2B businesses. It’s still one of the most cost-effective ways to personally connect with decision-makers and drive sales. In addition, you can build excitement about your products and services, boost your credibility and improve brand recognition. 

A Guide to Effective B2B Email Marketing 

You can approach email marketing in many different ways. But these best practices will ensure your efforts are productive. 

Define Your Purpose

Sending your subscribers random emails almost guarantees you end up in their spam folder. They may even get so turned off by the inconsistency that they tell others about it, diminishing your brand’s reputation. 

Defining the purpose of each email campaign and individual email is critical. Attaching a “why” to your email marketing strategy is also essential. Document what you’re doing and why you’re doing it to help keep you organized and focused on the tactics that will get you results. 

Segment Your Subscribers 

You probably already have a growing contact list. If you don’t, work on gathering contact information for potential clients (ethically, of course). Then, once you have a handful of contacts, start segmenting them. 

Organizing and segmenting your contacts allows you to send your customers the most relevant emails at the best times. You can segment your contact list by gender, location, behavior, and where they are in the purchase cycle. You can also segment your list by a person’s role in the decision-making process. 

After segmenting your contacts, create personas. Personas are fictional representations of your ideal customer in each audience segment. Reference these personas to personalize your emails. 

READ — 10 Ways to Boost Your Email Marketing List

Personalize Your Emails 

“Personalized emails deliver a 6x higher transaction rate,” according to data on email personalization. This shows that when customers feel like you really know them, they’re more likely to engage and make significant purchases with your business. 

So, utilize targeted email campaigns to deliver more personalized experiences. Each email should tell a story and address a relevant pain point your customer is experiencing. Use keywords to grab their attention and ensure your tone is appropriate. Focus on bettering the overall customer experience with each email. Make sure to use what you know about your customers to create campaigns and individual emails they can truly resonate with. 

Direct Traffic to Your Other Marketing Channels

Email marketing is a critical part of your overarching B2B marketing strategy. But it’s just that, a part of it. Your customers will likely need more ways to connect with your business to deepen their relationship. 

So, directing traffic to other marketing channels in your emails is brilliant. For example, B2B blogs are fundamental in keeping customers updated, fueling thought leadership and growing a robust content library for your clients. You can use email marketing to redirect customers to your blog to learn more about a particular topic or your business. Find ways to weave in your other marketing channels in your email campaigns so your customers can enjoy an elevated experience. 

Don’t Forget About Analytics 

If there’s one thing you must never forget regarding email marketing, it’s data analytics. Launching campaign after campaign without understanding if what you’re doing is working is highly unproductive. 

Use data analytics tools to find out what’s working and what isn’t with your campaigns and individual emails. For example, study how customers engage with various calls-to-action (CTAs). Additionally, see which messages are getting the most engagement and analyze how accompanying visuals impact results. 

When you know what’s wrong, you can fix it. Conversely, when you see what works, you can duplicate it. 

Take an in-depth look at the benefits of B2B email marketing and use the tips above to ensure you effectively incorporate it into your marketing strategy. 

 

Indiana Lee Bio PictureIndiana Lee is a writer, reader, and jigsaw puzzle enthusiast from the Pacific Northwest. An expert on business operations, leadership, marketing, and lifestyle, you can connect with her on LinkedIn.

Why story-based marketing works

When I was in 3rd grade, I had an experience I should have learned from sooner. It had nothing and everything to do with marketing.

My class had been learning about plant biology—specifically how plants draw water up from their roots into their leaves through transpiration and cohesion. (Yes, I had to look that up.)

To demonstrate this visually as a sort of quasi science experiment, my teacher brought two bundles of white carnations to school, which we’d be dying by adding food dye to the flower vases. You probably remember doing something like that in elementary school.

It was also decided that we’d vote on what color to use, because…America.

Someone piped up first with the idea of making a rainbow bouquet by mixing all the colors together. Naturally, everybody thought this was a great idea.

When I pointed out why this was actually a dumb idea, people said, “You just don’t like the idea because you didn’t come up with it, Johnny.”

I was overwhelmingly outvoted.

Well, you know what happened? The “rainbow” experiment failed; all of the flowers turned brown. That’s what happens when you mix more than two or three colors together. It was very frustrating. And I’ve been a curmudgeon ever since.

In business—and B2B marketing in particular—we know what we bring to the table and we too often talk about it in purely rational or rhetorical terms. Nobody forgets to mention their credentials. We realize that we have to be able to rationalize our pricing.

There are also tangible things that demand our attention day-to-day. We’re wrapped up in the nuts and bolts of running our businesses. So we can fall into a very analytical mindset, and it shows up in our marketing.

You get in your own way a lot by doing this.

As entrepreneurs, we’ve all gotten pushback on our ideas. Some of it was useful, earnest criticism. Some of it revealed blind spots. But some of it was just reactionary: “If it ain’t broken, why fix it?” It’s very frustrating when you can’t convince someone of an idea with obvious merits.

When our marketing is based on rational appeals or marketing rhetoric, we get dumb objections, just like I got dumb objections when I tried to explain basic color theory to my class. The idea of a rainbow bouquet was enticing enough to get them to ignore reason, and I didn’t have a good story to counter it. I had facts.

Rational appeals don’t work well in sales and marketing, just like they didn’t work on my classmates all those years ago. People buy on emotion and rationalize it after the fact. They buy because they feel some sense of shared purpose, warmth, or trust.

Forget about your “what” for a little while. Sure, your credentials, product features, years in business, processes, and “commitment to quality” (or whatever) are all important.

But when your “what” gets in the way of your “why,” you’re missing out on some of the greatest opportunities to differentiate yourself. Your would-be customers end up with an inferior vendor who knew how to communicate more simply, tell a story, and connect on a deeper level.

Story-based marketing works where rhetoric fails because it’s imbued with emotion. Whether they know it or not, humans make decisions on emotion. You do. I do. Your clients do.

I have a lifelong grudge against carnations. I can’t rationalize it away; I can only laugh at it. Don’t be like I was. Learn how to tell a good story that brings your marketing to life.

Or hire someone who will (ahem).

John Garvey is a copywriter, marketing consultant and StoryBrand Certified Guide. Garvey helps purpose-driven entrepreneurs elevate their marketing through storytelling, humor, and clear strategic messaging.

Get a free copy of John’s marketing guide, 7-Point Checklist for Websites that Convert, by using this link or texting “Garvington” to 33777.

Should you elevate your marketing with humor or play it safe?

Suspicion creeps into relationships little by little.

My wife started taking a Wednesday evening painting class a few months ago (before the End Times). At first, I was supportive, but every week she left a bit earlier and came home later. Finally, I decided I’d had it. She came home over two hours late one night and I confronted her.

“Sara, is there something I need to know?” I asked. “You have this new group of friends I’ve never met, you’ve been really distracted lately, you duck into the other room to read texts and you come home later every week. What’s been going on?”

“Oh honey,” she said. “I should have let you know. I was on my way to class tonight and an emergency came up at work. I’ve been at the office scrambling to fix someone else’s mistake before a big client meeting in the morning.”

“Oh, so you haven’t been out with your boyfriend?” I replied.

“Of course not!” she said in a tone suggesting what an extraordinarily stupid question it was.

“If I had been with my boyfriend, I would have come home with a smile on my face.”

Ba-dum ching!

While this isn’t the kind of joke you’d tell in a marketing campaign, it has all the elements needed to demonstrate the relationship between humor, persuasion and memory.

Incongruity-resolution theory

I just made your brain do a bunch of work without realizing it. If you “got” the joke, it because your prefrontal cortex kicked into high gear, allowing you to reconcile a preconception with a punchline that defied it. Either I was being neurotic, or my wife was attempting to keep an affair under wraps. A blithe confession would seem off-script. (By the way, this joke was fictitious.)

Scientists call this incongruity-resolution theory.

Our prefrontal cortex interprets and moderates complex social situations, and it sends signals to the nucleus accumbens and the supplementary motor area of the brain, which play their own roles in humor and laughter. The prefrontal cortex jumps into action as soon as we hear someone mention a rabbi and a priest walking into a bar.

Humor tricks your brain into doing all this extra work, but it feels like play.

The ‘guffaw cocktail’

If you’ve ever laughed at a bad joke out of kindness, you intuitively know that laughter is a social signal of acceptance. Here’s why that matters from the standpoint of both trust and memory.

When we laugh, we release oxytocin, which is simplistically referred to as the “trust” hormone or the “cuddling” hormone. Not only does oxytocin boost trust, it improves short-term memory. Even without necessarily needing to elicit laughter, humor releases feel-good neurotransmitters (such as dopamine) that also improve learning retention. If you tell a joke at the beginning of a presentation, or a transition point, it has been shown to improve attentiveness and learning.

Humor is like supplemental oxygen for your brain.

There are obvious caveats to this. It’s just wrong to try to make light of some things, and humor runs contrary to the image you probably want to achieve if you have a luxury brand. Trying to sell an $1,800 pen? Trying to raise awareness about childhood malnutrition? Keep the googly eyes at home.

But appeals to logic are overused and overrated, even in logic-driven industries like logistics and professional services. Although we may think otherwise, we make decisions on emotion and intuition. We only rationalize them after the fact.

Elevate with humor (when you can).

In summary, jokes defy expectations; good jokes delight. Humor involves complex, cognitive processes that make your brain do a bunch of work without you realizing it. And because you did all that work, your brain assigns a high value to the information.