The Basics of B2B Marketing
All eCommerce businesses must have a digital presence in order to sell online. From an optimized B2B eCommerce website to paid advertising, SEO and more, there are a ton of ways to streamline your strategy and convert leads into paying customers. However, this blog is bringing B2B marketing back to the basics. Keep on reading to uncover four strategies that lay the foundation for your marketing strategy.
1. Identify Your Target Audience
The first step to acquiring new customers is understanding who your target audience is. You won’t know how to attract, engage and delight your ideal customers if you don’t know the businesses in your target audience. Identifying the type of businesses you want to sell your products or services to and understanding their thought processes and behaviors lays the foundation for successful B2B marketing.
When the Groove Commerce team works with B2B and D2C eCommerce merchants, one of the first steps we take is creating buyer personas for our clients’ customers. Identifying the demographics and psychographics of our clients’ ideal customers is paramount for creating a successful B2B marketing strategy moving forward.
2. Build Your eCommerce Website
After identifying your target audience, it’s important to have your eCommerce website built with an optimized design. We created a step-by-step website launch checklist with essential components to consider before, during and after launching your site.
B2B eCommerce may sound like a foreign concept to wholesalers who have spent years running their businesses through brick and mortar locations and phone calls. Since the introduction of eCommerce is relatively new compared to how long wholesalers have been in business, there are still many B2B wholesalers who do not implement eCommerce best practices. If you’re guilty of this, don’t worry 一 the Groove Commerce team wants to help you leverage eCommerce for your B2B wholesale operations by optimizing your website design, development and marketing.
3. Optimize for SEO
After your website is built for conversions and optimized for user experience, it‘s important that the site is discoverable to your target audience. Why have a beautiful website if no one can find it online? This means it’s time for B2B content marketing and search engine optimization!
On page and off page SEO optimization helps your target audience find your website organically. From on page elements like meta descriptions, alt text and image file names to off page elements like backlinks, user generated content and social media sharing, SEO is a crucial component for brand awareness, lead generation and conversions.
4. Utilize Paid Media Advertising
Last but not least, utilize paid media advertising, or PPC, to maximize your B2B marketing strategy and drive conversions. Remember in step 1 how we recommended creating buyer personas that align with your target audience? Creating content that those personas actually relate to is key to getting found!
In addition to showing off specific products or services through paid advertising, we recommend showing off your brand as a whole. Remember, your company sells to (or buys from) other businesses, so it’s likely the people on your team will work directly with your buyers (or wholesalers). Don’t be afraid to spend advertising dollars to show off your company culture, social media content, company blog or reviews (as long as it’s within your PPC budget).
Conclusion
Bringing B2B marketing back to the basics helps to ensure that your eCommerce website is implementing the correct strategies to drive relevant website traffic and convert more leads into customers. If you’re a mid-market or Enterprise B2B merchant looking to scale and grow your eCommerce efforts, contact us to learn how Groove Commerce partners with merchants like you to build, design and grow their websites. Fill out the form below with your questions or concerns, and we’ll be in touch!
via https://www.aiupnow.com
dana@groovecommerce.com (Dana LaBate), Khareem Sudlow
