Incentive advertising concerning the b2b sector has always belonged to the most difficult – indeed, it is easier to offer a product to users with little knowledge than to those who are well-versed in it. Some people prefer to sell on personal contact without advertising, arguing, not unreasonably, that it shortens the buying cycle.
But as studies show, properly tuned targeting advertising can show good results and for expensive products, where the decision to buy takes months, and enjoy a high conversion rate. The specialists of T.A.MONROE digital agency will tell you how to go about it
Difficulties of advertising in b2b
To study this sphere is more difficult than business to consumer. And before launching an advertising campaign, it is necessary to know the existing offers of competitors and study their marketing strategy.
Difficulties are caused by working with a complex product – an internet marketer cannot identify the queries by which it is searched for, and determine what influences the decision to buy.
Difficulties encountered are as follows:
- The preponderance of personal professional connections over advertising – Potential customers are not only interested in the product, but also the reputation and professionalism of the company.
- Long transaction cycle. Wholesale purchases and vendor selection are decisions that are never made overnight.
- Incorrect targeting of advertising relative to the individuals on whom the decision depends. Whereas in b2c, the decision depends on the potential user, here it’s more complicated – employees select the product, and the decision to buy depends on the director or owner. Targeting advertising to him makes no sense – this person will not respond to it, because he is unlikely to know all the nuances and features of the product.
- The need to distinguish between requests from the field of b2c and b2b. For example, “buy in bulk + product name” – always falls into the promotion of low-frequency queries. Therefore, in the attraction of customers use the usual search engine queries from the category for b2c. This leads to the fact that the landing page hits clients in both categories, and the advertiser webmaster receives untargeted traffic. If you are interested in both categories of customers, you need to overcome the difficulties of filling the page with content – it is important to comply with the criterion of relevance to either category, given that their interests do not overlap.
- The high cost of attracting a customer. This is due to the fact that it is not possible to set the exact targeting of customers, and non-targeted traffic negatively affects the cost of the application.
- It is impossible to promote with advertising innovative and complex products, as well as complex solutions – if there are no requests for them, product advertising will simply be useless.
What works in b2b without fail
This industry is closely tied to personal contacts. They can be easily transferred to the field of the Internet – webinars, online conferences give good results, which allow to gather a warm base of clients, and then establish communication with them. Another option is to attract users working in this area – lead magnets.
That’s what any form that collects contact information is called. But for someone to want to share personal information, you need to make an effort – to create useful content that will be of interest to users.
For the professional circle, it is useful to create thematic platforms for advertising, where professionals can be attracted. Such a technique gives an opportunity to increase brand awareness and develop one’s image to an expert level. Working in this direction allows you to earn a name with a specialized audience, as well as to earn a reputation as not a one-day butterfly.
Research is a fail-safe technique among professionals. By showing them the nuances of the product, the advantages, the features of the work and additional benefits, you can earn high reviews and win over potential customers.
Secrets of advertising for b2b clients
The main difficulty in targeting is the separation of b2b and b2c traffic.
It can be solved in several ways:
- Fine-tuning geotargeting. To do this, you need to collect the addresses of firms that are exactly the potential customers of the company, and set up retargeting based on their location.
- Look alike – you can start such targeting if the company already has an established base.
- Targeting by position – identify the category of people who are looking for a product and set up an advertising campaign for them.
- Targeting by events – a way to attract likely customers through seminars, conferences, round tables, presentations, trainings. All you need to do is find open groups with a list of participants and spar the audience for your advertising purposes.
Step-by-step attraction
The b2b market has a large list of products and services that are not sought on the Internet for a variety of reasons. Advertising such products means attracting a non-target audience and wasting your budget and advertising effectiveness. To find potential buyers, you should go the other way – using product content, personal communication.
The steps of such attraction are as follows:
- posting an interesting expert article on the social network – you can read it to the end only after receiving the text to the e-mail;
- having received the client’s address, the company heats him up with an interesting email newsletter;
- then the customer receives a commercial offer and is likely to take a targeted action.
Along with this simple method, there are more sophisticated ways to attract a b2b customer. For example, you can research the market to identify the target audience. Then create a landing page with research content, the full version of which can be emailed to you.
The next step is to go deeper, to organize a research webinar. Users can be attracted through advertising, emails, cold calls. The next step is to hold business events on the topic. Then – launching a sales mailing list for a lukewarm audience, gathered at all stages.
Conclusion – advertising in b2b works
As practice shows, advertising in b2b works, if you know its principles and approach it competently. Yes, the stages and quality of work with the audience will be very different from b2c.
The long cycle of the deal, not formed demand for the product and its complexity – this imposes a mark on the advertising campaign. Therefore, such campaigns require an individual approach – thoroughly test all the methods and techniques regarding their effectiveness in your area. And the results will not be long in coming.
