Post by lizaseo11 on Nov 9, 2024 6:49:33 GMT
The difference in promoting B2C and B2C companies on the Internet is fundamental. It would be a mistake to hire marketers who only have experience working with online stores. Also, an SEO specialist and contextual specialist will not be able to cope with a large-scale project that requires an understanding of the specifics of concluding large transactions.
How do regular marketing agencies work? Website development, landing pages, SEO promotion and contextual advertising . This chain of actions brings fast and confident results, confirmed by many years of practice.
However, if such an algorithm is applied to industrial and manufacturing companies, there will be no result. Even taking into account high advertising and promotion costs, getting targeted traffic in the b2b sphere is much more difficult than in regular B2C sales. What factors will influence conversion and contract conclusion, we will consider in this article.
B2B Marketer – A Rare Profession
First of all, do not rush to rejoice if a digital agency promises you quick results and sales. Be careful when planning a strategy, as marketers with B2C experience most often do not understand the specifics of working with large industrial facilities and equipment. Your website will have completely different processes that differ from regular purchases in small and medium businesses.
The first reason why shopify website design it is difficult to promote b2b projects is the inability of marketers to work with such a scale of transactions. There are hundreds of targetologists and contextualists on the labor market now, who have completed a training course in 1-2 months and are ready to take orders for advertising inexpensively. However, they have neither the experience nor the knowledge to consistently implement a strategy, and they do not know how to develop a strategy itself. They are taught only the simplest steps - how to create an ad, select keywords and set rates. These are just basic concepts, which are clearly not enough for work.
The B2B market of specialists requires experienced personnel who are able to work with long transaction cycles and complex needs of the target audience. Selling a crane or setting up an advertisement for shampoos is a completely different level of thinking and scale of the employee. Considering that unique products are promoted in B2B, it would be a mistake to demand even a very good marketer to understand the technological processes of production and application of your equipment. Here you need to spend time and effort on training and preparing the personnel who will be involved in advertising and promotion.
Marketers and sales managers must be patient enough to get results from online promotion. The deal cycle can last for months, and such waiting and uncertainty reduce employee motivation. Understanding all the processes of negotiations and decision-making will help to endure this waiting period.
All the time while the client is studying your product, it is necessary to contact him. Timely processing of objections will help speed up the decision-making, and "warming up" the interest will maintain interest. It should be taken into account that it is very difficult to measure conversion during long negotiations, this will affect the prompt correction of the strategy and the introduction of changes.
Peculiarities of working with target audience in B2B
Production can have a wide target audience, each segment of which has its own characteristics. For example, a simple example would be the implementation of information security systems for the banking sector. Here, everyone knows who the target audience is - these are banks, and you need to work with them. And if we are talking about construction equipment and special equipment, then there are already many consumers, each group of which has its own requests and interests. Wholesale siding sales will be even more difficult to promote, since the target audience is divided into dealers, builders, architects. At the same time, you need to speak to each group of consumers in the language of their business in order to establish long-term cooperation. Here, it will be difficult not only to organize communications, but also to build an advertising strategy. Technologists and engineers should come to the aid of marketers in such a project, who will suggest the right "pains" of each category of consumers.
In b2b, decisions are made by a group of people, so all information is carefully analyzed and studied by specialists. The opinions of financiers, engineers, technologists will be taken into account, but each of them is guided by their own requirements. Multi-level approvals, preliminary negotiations - all this must be done before getting an appointment with the head of the company. Not every manager or salesperson is able to withstand such a long selection.
Where does B2B promotion begin?
Let's note the differences that characterize the strategy of organizing the promotion of b2b goods and services. The basis should be the goals of the enterprise and the goals of the project, to which all the actions of the advertising and marketing department (or contractors) will consistently lead you. Depending on what stage of development your enterprise is at, the sequence of steps will differ.
The promotional actions will be completely different if you set different goals. Compare:
Creating a recognizable brand,
Strengthening the brand,
Expansion of dealer networks,
Increase market share,
Launch of a new product on the market,
Customer retention and repeat sales,
Market capacity research.
This is a short list of goals that need to be realized in the b2b sphere at different times and stages. It is important to understand that the role of the Internet is much broader than just a sales and advertising channel.
How to best promote complex, expensive products and services
If you want to save money, try to understand logically where it makes sense. For example, selling a crane or luxury real estate on a one-page site is unreasonable. Such a site does not inspire confidence, does not carry enough information and does not look respectable. Usually, one-page sites are used for quick sales of inexpensive goods, and not for large objects worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In the b2b sphere, examples of finished projects and official customer reviews are mandatory. Moreover, all this data must be carefully formatted so that they do not look fake. In addition, be sure to use professional articles and reviews from your company's experts, which will be published in specialized media (online and offline).
No matter how complex decision-making algorithms are present in your business, the participants in negotiations are still living people. That is why so much importance is now attached to the communication skills of employees who communicate with clients. All the efforts of marketers, the right strategies, large advertising budgets will be wasted if the sales manager does not respond to calls and customer requests on time. It will be useful to organize call listening, which will allow you to track the efficiency of work. This can be done using IP telephony or an SRM system.
Website for a B2B company – what should it be like?
The primary issue when developing a website should be the TASK that needs to be solved. That is, you need to start developing a website with the goal you are striving for. Only in this case will the result be achieved. A pretentious website design and a large amount of animation will be a mistake. Young developers who are passionate about gaming applications suffer from such excesses. Calm colors, discreet design, convenient navigation, accurate presentation of technical information, high-quality photographs, up-to-date price lists, professional descriptions of the characteristics and properties of goods are an absolute advantage for a website of a large company.
Show production workshops, equipment, warehouses. Photos of the company's executives and TOP managers will show the "human" face of your business, and contacts for each department will simplify communications with clients. A website that lists 1 contact phone number and 1 office email looks stupid. This is inconvenient for clients, since the B2B sphere has quite specific communication needs. Going through the entire chain of corporate PBX switches will be tiring, especially if a large client or company executive is on the line.
How to measure the effectiveness of B2B company promotion
Other approaches are used to evaluate the results of website and project promotion in B2B . We cannot evaluate the results in the number of requests from the website or customer calls. Positions in search engines also do not give a complete picture for achieving goals.
What we have in B2B business:
Long chain of sales touches.
Long approval periods.
Many people involved in making a decision.
No direct sales.
Difficulty tracking traffic sources.
The impossibility of quickly assessing the effectiveness of advertising channels.
There is great uncertainty in achieving the results of negotiations.
Since the results are delayed in time, the analytics will lag. Each project needs to define its own evaluation criteria, and they should be sufficiently objective and adequate. It would be a mistake to demand the conclusion of a contract within 2 weeks after the launch of advertising if the transaction cycle is 5-6 months. A marketer is not able to speed up the process of negotiations and approvals, so it is important to take into account the specifics of the business. A business consultant who is able to organize effective communications at a high level of strategy complexity can come to the rescue in these matters.
How do regular marketing agencies work? Website development, landing pages, SEO promotion and contextual advertising . This chain of actions brings fast and confident results, confirmed by many years of practice.
However, if such an algorithm is applied to industrial and manufacturing companies, there will be no result. Even taking into account high advertising and promotion costs, getting targeted traffic in the b2b sphere is much more difficult than in regular B2C sales. What factors will influence conversion and contract conclusion, we will consider in this article.
B2B Marketer – A Rare Profession
First of all, do not rush to rejoice if a digital agency promises you quick results and sales. Be careful when planning a strategy, as marketers with B2C experience most often do not understand the specifics of working with large industrial facilities and equipment. Your website will have completely different processes that differ from regular purchases in small and medium businesses.
The first reason why shopify website design it is difficult to promote b2b projects is the inability of marketers to work with such a scale of transactions. There are hundreds of targetologists and contextualists on the labor market now, who have completed a training course in 1-2 months and are ready to take orders for advertising inexpensively. However, they have neither the experience nor the knowledge to consistently implement a strategy, and they do not know how to develop a strategy itself. They are taught only the simplest steps - how to create an ad, select keywords and set rates. These are just basic concepts, which are clearly not enough for work.
The B2B market of specialists requires experienced personnel who are able to work with long transaction cycles and complex needs of the target audience. Selling a crane or setting up an advertisement for shampoos is a completely different level of thinking and scale of the employee. Considering that unique products are promoted in B2B, it would be a mistake to demand even a very good marketer to understand the technological processes of production and application of your equipment. Here you need to spend time and effort on training and preparing the personnel who will be involved in advertising and promotion.
Marketers and sales managers must be patient enough to get results from online promotion. The deal cycle can last for months, and such waiting and uncertainty reduce employee motivation. Understanding all the processes of negotiations and decision-making will help to endure this waiting period.
All the time while the client is studying your product, it is necessary to contact him. Timely processing of objections will help speed up the decision-making, and "warming up" the interest will maintain interest. It should be taken into account that it is very difficult to measure conversion during long negotiations, this will affect the prompt correction of the strategy and the introduction of changes.
Peculiarities of working with target audience in B2B
Production can have a wide target audience, each segment of which has its own characteristics. For example, a simple example would be the implementation of information security systems for the banking sector. Here, everyone knows who the target audience is - these are banks, and you need to work with them. And if we are talking about construction equipment and special equipment, then there are already many consumers, each group of which has its own requests and interests. Wholesale siding sales will be even more difficult to promote, since the target audience is divided into dealers, builders, architects. At the same time, you need to speak to each group of consumers in the language of their business in order to establish long-term cooperation. Here, it will be difficult not only to organize communications, but also to build an advertising strategy. Technologists and engineers should come to the aid of marketers in such a project, who will suggest the right "pains" of each category of consumers.
In b2b, decisions are made by a group of people, so all information is carefully analyzed and studied by specialists. The opinions of financiers, engineers, technologists will be taken into account, but each of them is guided by their own requirements. Multi-level approvals, preliminary negotiations - all this must be done before getting an appointment with the head of the company. Not every manager or salesperson is able to withstand such a long selection.
Where does B2B promotion begin?
Let's note the differences that characterize the strategy of organizing the promotion of b2b goods and services. The basis should be the goals of the enterprise and the goals of the project, to which all the actions of the advertising and marketing department (or contractors) will consistently lead you. Depending on what stage of development your enterprise is at, the sequence of steps will differ.
The promotional actions will be completely different if you set different goals. Compare:
Creating a recognizable brand,
Strengthening the brand,
Expansion of dealer networks,
Increase market share,
Launch of a new product on the market,
Customer retention and repeat sales,
Market capacity research.
This is a short list of goals that need to be realized in the b2b sphere at different times and stages. It is important to understand that the role of the Internet is much broader than just a sales and advertising channel.
How to best promote complex, expensive products and services
If you want to save money, try to understand logically where it makes sense. For example, selling a crane or luxury real estate on a one-page site is unreasonable. Such a site does not inspire confidence, does not carry enough information and does not look respectable. Usually, one-page sites are used for quick sales of inexpensive goods, and not for large objects worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In the b2b sphere, examples of finished projects and official customer reviews are mandatory. Moreover, all this data must be carefully formatted so that they do not look fake. In addition, be sure to use professional articles and reviews from your company's experts, which will be published in specialized media (online and offline).
No matter how complex decision-making algorithms are present in your business, the participants in negotiations are still living people. That is why so much importance is now attached to the communication skills of employees who communicate with clients. All the efforts of marketers, the right strategies, large advertising budgets will be wasted if the sales manager does not respond to calls and customer requests on time. It will be useful to organize call listening, which will allow you to track the efficiency of work. This can be done using IP telephony or an SRM system.
Website for a B2B company – what should it be like?
The primary issue when developing a website should be the TASK that needs to be solved. That is, you need to start developing a website with the goal you are striving for. Only in this case will the result be achieved. A pretentious website design and a large amount of animation will be a mistake. Young developers who are passionate about gaming applications suffer from such excesses. Calm colors, discreet design, convenient navigation, accurate presentation of technical information, high-quality photographs, up-to-date price lists, professional descriptions of the characteristics and properties of goods are an absolute advantage for a website of a large company.
Show production workshops, equipment, warehouses. Photos of the company's executives and TOP managers will show the "human" face of your business, and contacts for each department will simplify communications with clients. A website that lists 1 contact phone number and 1 office email looks stupid. This is inconvenient for clients, since the B2B sphere has quite specific communication needs. Going through the entire chain of corporate PBX switches will be tiring, especially if a large client or company executive is on the line.
How to measure the effectiveness of B2B company promotion
Other approaches are used to evaluate the results of website and project promotion in B2B . We cannot evaluate the results in the number of requests from the website or customer calls. Positions in search engines also do not give a complete picture for achieving goals.
What we have in B2B business:
Long chain of sales touches.
Long approval periods.
Many people involved in making a decision.
No direct sales.
Difficulty tracking traffic sources.
The impossibility of quickly assessing the effectiveness of advertising channels.
There is great uncertainty in achieving the results of negotiations.
Since the results are delayed in time, the analytics will lag. Each project needs to define its own evaluation criteria, and they should be sufficiently objective and adequate. It would be a mistake to demand the conclusion of a contract within 2 weeks after the launch of advertising if the transaction cycle is 5-6 months. A marketer is not able to speed up the process of negotiations and approvals, so it is important to take into account the specifics of the business. A business consultant who is able to organize effective communications at a high level of strategy complexity can come to the rescue in these matters.