In this guide, you will find the best B2B marketing strategies to grow and scale your business. We’ll cover strategies within digital marketing, content creation, website optimizations, analytics, and attribution.
I recommend keeping it simple and focusing on 1-2 of the below strategies at a time. Remember, what gets measured gets done. So through all of this, ensure to select key performance indicators to track and manage so you know what strategies add value to your organization.
What is a B2B Marketing Strategy?
A B2B marketing strategy starts with research and setting goals and is then executed utilizing various channels, tactics, and tools. This list should serve as a brainstorming tool to help you find B2B marketing strategies that you can test and refine to grow your business. 24% of B2B marketers do not have a formal B2B marketing plan (source), so use this list to help formulate your B2B marketing strategy.
What are the best B2B Marketing Strategies?
The best B2B strategies will vary depending on your vertical and where your target audience spends their time.
If you can generate many leads but have trouble qualifying them, then a strategy focused on generating more qualified leads is better than someone who has qualified leads and needs help converting them into sales. Your B2B marketing strategy for the latter will possibly involve more efforts focused on nurturing and tools to manage your leads better.
Here is a list of 33 of the best B2B marketing strategies.
Best B2B digital marketing strategies
1. LinkedIn Ads – Highly targeted ads using LinkedIn profile attributes
With over 63 million decision-makers and ten million-plus C-level executives using LinkedIn, it makes it an excellent B2B marketing platform to reach businesses (source). In LinkedIn ads campaign manager, you can select from hundreds of LinkedIn targeting options to build your target audience. For example, displaying a single image ad on the LinkedIn feed with a compelling offer to your target audience can help acquire qualified leads.
2. Facebook Ads – Brand awareness ads leveraging demographics data
Facebook can be great for building brand awareness, engaging with your existing audience, or remarketing to users that have already visited your site. In this Facebook Blue Host Case Study, the popular web hosting service saw a 3.2 lift in campaign awareness utilizing video ads to reach their small business owner audience. Although not as robust as LinkedIn for B2B target audience options, Facebook still has multiple demographic and interest targeting options to reach your ideal audience.
3. Bing Paid Search – High intent keywords for B2B audiences
According to Microsoft search network data, 27% of searchers are senior-level business decision-makers, and they also hold ~14% of the world’s share on PC devices Source. This makes Microsoft search ads an excellent choice for advertising on keywords that your target audience would search.
4. Microsoft Audience Ads – Display ads using LinkedIn profile data
With the acquisition of LinkedIn ads in 2016, you can now leverage LinkedIn profile attributes to target your ideal audience on Microsoft’s audience network. Bing audience ads show on networks like yahoo, MSN, ask.com, etc.
5. Google Paid Search Ads – Bidding for high intent B2B keywords
The beauty of paid search ads on Google is you can show near the top of the search engines results page for high intent keywords.
First, start by doing keyword research to develop a list of keywords to bid on and test. Focus on keywords with B2B intent like “enterprise project management software” where identifiers like “enterprise” show B2B intent.
Create a relevant landing page with a beneficial call to action- like a free demo, free consultation, or a gated asset like a white paper.
6. Google Display Ads- Remarketing to your website visitors
Use display remarketing to show ads on the display network to users that have visited a particular product or service page on your site. For example, you can retarget the users on your site that visited your pricing page with ads that promote a special offer on pricing or reiterate the benefits of your service and product. The goal here is to move users from the awareness stage to the consideration and eventually the conversion phase.
7. Google Display Ads- Prospecting to potential customers
There are multiple display prospecting targeting options available for google display. You can target by placements, topics, keywords, demographics, and more. For example, with topic targeting, you can target users that matched premade category topics from Google. In addition, you can test different topics that are most relevant to your business.
8. YouTube Ads- Generate brand awareness
Over 70% of viewers say that YouTube makes them more aware of new brands, and viewers are four times more likely to use YouTube to find information about a product or service (source). Create a quality video ad and target users searching for relevant topics or channels on YouTube.
Best B2B content marketing strategies
9. Video content- Visually show your B2B product or service.
Viewers retain close to 95% of a video’s message compared to 10% from reading text. (source). Here are a few great pieces of content that are great in video form:
- Client testimonials
- Demo videos
- How-to videos
- Explainer videos
- Event recaps
- Case studies
Video services like play play can make creating videos less time and resource-intensive.
Videos can be used on websites, landing pages, youtube, and across other channels.
10. Blog Posts – Provide a valuable B2B list post optimized for search engines
Begin with researching the keywords that you want to target for your post. You can use a tool like Ahrefs to find medium volume lower competition keywords in your industry. Then work on creating valuable content around that keyword. Lists posts make great linkable assets, so you can use this to build links to the post over time.
Here’s an example of a 5 item post from Salesforce:
11. Lead magnets – Offer a solution to a business’s problem
A strong lead generation magnet will help solve a problem. Clearly show the benefits that the user will get from the magnet will help with conversion rates. You can use services like leadgenapp.io to easily integrate forms into your website.
12. Email marketing – Segment and nurture prospects with emails
First, segment your email audiences into groupings based on their needs and what content they find the most useful. From there, craft an email around their needs. There are multiple tools to help with segmenting, brainstorming content, and tracking your email campaign success.
13. Ebooks – Create a valuable asset from existing content
Do you already have a ton of content that can be bundled into an Ebook format? These can make great linkable or lead magnet assets. Need inspiration? View over 200 ebook examples published by Hubspot
14. Whitepapers – Show your industry expertise
White papers are excellent for showing your expertise in your industry. For example, has your business led a study, collected valuable data points, or shared any other valuable insights? Whitepapers are great for showcasing content like this. Use a service like compose.ly to help you draft the perfect whitepaper.
15. Case Studies – Show a real-life example of your value
Tell a story of how you have helped another business succeed. Showing the value you added to another organization through a case study can make a great linkable asset or SEO piece of content. Use Hubspot’s case study template as a starting point.
16. Checklists – Simplify a process for your prospective clients
Checklists are easy to make and can provide a lot of value to potential customers. They can be included in blog posts, in ads, or as lead magnets to drive more leads. First, identify a pain point or a problem that can be simplified using a checklist. Create the checklist and begin promoting it.
17. Guides – Become the industry expert by creating an in-depth guide
Gain credibility and authority in your industry by creating a comprehensive guide on a particular topic or pain point that your customers face.
18. Reviews and Testimonies – Showcase your credibility
Testimonies help build credibility by showing the positive result you have generated from other clients. Utilize internal or external tools like TrustPilot to get reviews and testimonials that can be used throughout your content.
19. B2B Calculators – Help businesses understand the monetary impact of an action
Create a simple B2B related calculator to show the potential savings for prospective clients. Check out this total cost of ownership calculator example from Cohesity for inspiration.
20. Webinars – Establish authority and engage with participants
Webinars are another great B2B marketing strategy that can be great for establishing your authority and engaging with your audience. They can be low-cost from a production standpoint. They can be used to address industry trends and engage and answer questions for prospective leniency that can be furthered funneled into your lead generation efforts.
21. Industry reports – Help prospective clients understand their industry
Creating content with industry statistics and insights can be super valuable for prospective clients and poses you as an expert in your industry. Becoming the hub for content like this can create great linkable assets to increase your SEO authority and rankings.
Best B2B lead nurturing strategies
22. CRM Platforms – Manage your leads in a centralized location
Use a customer resource management (CRM) platform to understand the value of your leads. Understand and track where in the funnel your leads are. This will be great to understand which sources and channels lend the best value to your business. You can then focus on those segments of the audience for future content and marketing strategies.
23. Lead nurturing – Follow up and engage with your leads ASAP
A study by Drift found that only 10% of B2B companies were responding to leads in 5 minutes or less. According to a Harvard study, connecting with online leads in the first 5 minutes dramatically increases your chance to qualify the lead and avoid it going cold.
- Ensure your sales team is getting leads in real-time and not daily.
- Ensure your lead distribution rules are set up to make sure quality prospects are connected with a sales rep
24. Live chat software – Chat with potential leads in real-time
Engaging with active users on your website is a great way to generate high-quality B2B leads in real-time. Use a chatbot service like Drift to engage with visitors on your site.
25. Lead distribution tools – Ensure the right leads are getting sales attention
Setup your CRM or lead distribution tool to send leads automatically to your sales team in real-time.
Best B2B website strategies
26. Mobile Optimizations – Enhance your mobile experience
Less than 38% of marketers track their web and mobile analytics (source). With more users searching and making decisions on their mobile devices. Make sure your site is mobile-friendly and optimized to drive action even from mobile devices.
27. Landing pages – Create conversion-optimized forms
Make sure your pages have a clear call to action and optimized form to collect leads. Keep the on-page copy short and digestible and highlight key benefits on the page. Using a tool like ZoomInfo or Slintel to gather additional lead info while reducing the number of form fields to increase the form conversion rate. The below example from Slintel makes the free trial easy to start by just having a business email required to get started.
28. Website – Ensure it is optimized for SEO and conversions
Follow search engine optimization best practices to ensure your content and site are ranked in Google’s organic listings. Follow on-page SEO and technical SEO best practices to ensure your site is indexed correctly by Google. You can have the best information and content on your site, but you will not get traffic if it’s not formatted how Google reads sites.
Also, make sure you use a call to action to capture prospecting leads no matter where they are in the sales funnel journey.
Best UX tools to help optimize your B2B marketing website
Maze – Remote user testing platform to make informed data decisions
Hotjar – Understand website user behavior to prioritize work and optimizations
Best B2B tracking strategies
29. Google analytics – Ensure proper tracking to understand key metrics over time
To understand the success of any B2B marketing campaign, you need to track and measure performance. Use google analytics to track sessions, page views, and other vital metrics like specific user goals completed on your site.
30. Amplitude – Get valuable data insights into top-performing customer paths
Understand which actions on your website are leading to the most value using amplitude analytics. See the complete journey that a customer takes on your website. Use this data to test and refine the key paths on your website.
31. Attribution – Understand which channels have the best ROI
If you have multiple B2B marketing channels, it’s essential to understand the value and return from those channels. Since a customer’s journey may touch multiple channels before becoming a lead or a paying customer, it’s crucial to have correct attribution to understand what efforts are generating the best return. Use a tool like Ruler Analytics to attribute correctly
Best B2B marketing automation strategies
32. Marketing automation software – Save time with automated workflows
Best B2B ABM Strategies – Focus on your key target audience
33. Account-based marketing (ABM) – Align with sales teams to identify key accounts
Many times marketing teams and sales teams operate in silos. For example, sales want one type of lead while marketing is prospecting for a different kind of lead. Your B2B marketing strategy needs to incorporate sales feedback to be a success. Make sure to align with your sales team to identify key accounts and understand any feedback they get from the field to inform your next steps.
B2B Marketing FAQs:
What is B2B Marketing?
Business to business marketing (B2B) involves businesses marketing to other businesses and not individuals. Your B2B marketing efforts aim to get more companies aware of your brand and have them buy your service or product. In short, your ideal customer would be another business.
What is an example of B2B marketing?
An example of a B2B marketing effort would be to target a business’s executive-level decision-makers like a CEO or Director with LinkedIn ads for a free demo of your business’s service or product.
What is an example of B2C marketing?
An example of a B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing effort would be to have google shopping ads for a t-shirt where your potential customers would be individuals and not businesses.
What is an example of a business that does both B2B and B2C marketing?
An example of a business that serves both B2C and B2B clients can be a car manufacturer like Chevy. They may sell a fleet of cars to rental agencies or other companies and also sell directly to consumers at their Chevy dealerships.
Depending on your specific vertical, service, or product, there can sometimes be an overlap in your marketing efforts that might attract both B2B and B2C clients. For example, bidding on google ads keywords for “accounting services” may generate both an individual or a business looking for accounting services. If your business serves both B2B and B2C clients, then having a plan to attribute and manage this is key to measuring performance and ROI on your marketing efforts. On the other hand, if you only serve businesses, you can optimize towards refining your marketing efforts to exclude time and spend on individual consumers.
What is account-based marketing (ABM)?
Account-based marketing is a B2B marketing strategy where sales and marketing collaborate to identify and prospect potential clients that will result in the highest return. You focus on a few key accounts and bring them from a new lead to a closed account. First, identify key accounts, then identify the key decision-makers of those accounts, solidify which channels and relevant content you will use for marketing to your target audiences, then execute the plan and track performance.
What is B2B content marketing?
B2B content marketing uses information in many forms of mediums (blog posts, videos, articles, emails, etc.) to educate and grow your visibility to your target audience about your business and eventually have them take a desired action, like signing up for your service or buying your product.
What is an example of B2B marketing
Generating leads for your business by adverting a free demo or consultation to executive-level members of another company using LinkedIn ads .
What does B2B stand for?
Business-to-business.
What are some examples of B2B companies?
Salesforce (customer relationship management software for businesses)
Asana (project management software for businesses)
Leadfeeder (identifies website visitors to track and generate leads)
