7 B2B Marketing Tactics That Work Every Time

Is your business searching for new clients and customers? Whether you offer a high quality product aimed at existing businesses or a consulting service, marketing your latest product or service to B2B customers isn’t always easy.

From content marketing to trade shows, many of the staples of B2B marketing seem easy yet require a well-planned strategy to be successful. When you get this strategy right, the return on investment for your business can be absolutely massive.

In this blog post, we’ll examine seven business-to-business marketing tactics that, if approached properly, can generate lucrative sales leads, produce thousands of sales and help your business rapidly scale up its revenue.

Content Marketing

From blog posts to detailed how-to guides, content is a fantastic tool for expanding your business and acquiring new customers. We spoke to Michael Brenner, Head of Strategy at NewsCred and B2BMarketingInsider, who explains the value of content marketing:

"I believe content marketing can save marketing. As opposed to the ads we all tune out of, content marketing is how brands can get their audience to tune in, on their terms, and at a much lower cost."

The key to effective content marketing is creating content that isn’t just useful to the general public, but useful to your target customer profile. What knowledge can your business provide that solves the problems your target customers face?

From how-to guides showcasing how your accounting software can help businesses spend less to Top 10 lists that feature your product or service, great content always attracts the attention of people and brands you’re seeking as customers.

From how-to guides showcasing how your accounting software can help businesses spend less to Top 10 lists that feature your product or service, great content always attracts the attention of people and brands you’re seeking as customers.

54% of users don't trust "sponsored content." #ContentMarketing conundrum via @jpundyk http://t.co/t8LrmDHkhk

— Social Media Today (@socialmedia2day) August 2, 2014

From how-to guides showcasing how your accounting software can help businesses spend less to Top 10 lists that feature your product or service, great content always attracts the attention of people and brands you’re seeking as customers.

Infographic Distribution

Got facts, figures and interesting pieces of information about your industry? Instead of publishing research in your brochures and prospectuses, turn interesting data on your industry into an infographic and start a conversation.

Infographics are visual representations of important information and data. Think of them as online brochures – eye-catching documents packed with useful information about your industry, new technology or an important issue.

Dave Chaffey of SmartInsights.com explains:

“We’re still big fans of infographics for growing awareness amongst our B2B audience, but they need to be high quality, useful infographics that take days to research and create. Simple infographics which are created in a free tool in an hour are never going to get shared or attract links.”

The key to creating a successful infographic for B2B marketing is quality. When you put time and effort into the design and content used in your infographic, it becomes far more likely to reach a wide audience.

#B2B infographics http://t.co/iTBau7XVQM 78% of marketers see #infographics gaining momentum — IDGConnect Marketers (@idgconnectm)

LinkedIn Outreach

If your target audience is active on LinkedIn, using direct sales tactics on this social network can be a hugely effective lead generation strategy. LinkedIn allows a sales team to bypass the slow, gatekeeper-heavy email and phone sales process.

Since you don’t need a prospect’s email address or phone number to connect over LinkedIn, using the social network to connect with potential customers bypasses a lot of the traditional costs of direct B2B marketing.

The downside of this is that a heavy-handed approach to LinkedIn outreach has the potential to come off as spammy. Robert Koehler of LinkedIn Sales Solutions offers an insider’s perspective on LinkedIn outreach in this article on FunnelHolic.com.

Trade Show Marketing

While LinkedIn outreach and content marketing are low-cost, low-risk marketing methods, trade shows are far from inexpensive. Who says it’s impossible to generate 500 leads in an afternoon?

With the right sales team and an eye-catching display, your B2B business can fill its sales funnel for the entire year with a single successful trade show. Because of this, it’s important to have a budget and detailed strategy ready before you exhibit at a trade show.

Do you want to learn how to prepare for your next trade show? Our Expert Guide to Exhibiting at a Trade Show covers the basics of making sure your show is a success, from budgeting for the event to promoting your booth using social media.

Social Media

If your business offers a product or service aimed at tech-focused businesses, social media could be a fantastic marketing platform. From Facebook to Twitter, the most popular social networks are packed with potential customers and clients.

Social media marketing also has great synergy with content marketing. When your business is producing great content aimed at your target audience, social media can be a fantastic distribution channel to increase your traffic (and in turn, your sales). Like any other type of B2B marketing, social media only works every time when you prepare a strategic plan.

Learn how to put together a plan, team and toolset for your social media campaign in Fast Company’s excellent social media B2B guide.

Direct Mail

From postcards to brochures, classic direct mail marketing tools certainly aren’t out of date. With the right message, a direct mail campaign can help your business get in touch with prospective clients and customers with ease.

Like any form of direct sales, the key to direct mail success is offering value for your target customers. From free trials to custom quotes, find something you can offer for little to no cost that provides huge value to prospects, and then offer it. Direct mail can also complement content marketing.

If you’ve created a white paper to market online, why not adapt it into a short B2B informational resource and send copies to businesses you’d like to gain as clients or customers?

SEO (and SEM)

What are your target customers searching for? Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a great B2B marketing tactic for businesses whose customers frequently use Google to track down quotes, products and information.

SEO (and its paid equivalent, SEM) is a great complement to content and infographic marketing. Combine a great blog post with effective SEO and your business can reel in traffic for years – traffic that can easily be converted into subscribers and sales.

Like direct mail and content marketing, SEO needs to be approached with the right strategy in order to be effective. Short-term SEO tactics can bring in business in the immediate future, but often hurt your online visibility over the long term.

What’s your favourite B2B marketing tactic?

Are you a B2B marketer? From direct mail to LinkedIn outreach, have you tried any of the marketing tactics in this guide? If you’ve got a favourite B2B marketing tactic, tell us how it’s helped you grow your business in the comments.