B2B businesses are often hit with a wall when they consider their marketing campaign. The target pool is a lot smaller and a lot harder to reach. So, what initial steps do you need to take to ensure that you are reaching the right audience and not wasting your time on B2C marketing tactics? Take a look at our guide to find out.
The language
The main difference that can be seen in marketing to a B2B audience rather than a B2C audience is the simplest, and yet it’s the hardest for us to get our head around: the language. The perspective shifts from how this product or service can “help you” to how it can “help your business/customers”. It sounds simple, but like a long friend who asks never to call him by his childhood nickname anymore, it takes conscious thought to get used to the change.
Have a quick review of the content you intend to put out before you hit post, and ask yourself, who is this post talking to? If it sounds like it’s talking to the customer rather than the seller, you might have to play around with the language a bit.
You can keep track of all your social media posts and be sure they are at a quality you expect with this social media publishing tool kit. Take a look to make your social media marketing campaign run a lot smoother.
The social media platform
Every social media platform has its clientele and some lend themselves more to a demographic than others. Broadly speaking, Facebook is about community nowadays with its groups and family, Instagram is about following celebrities and influencers, TikTok is for laughs, and of course, LinkedIn is for businesses.
But that doesn’t mean you have to limit yourself to LinkedIn. It does mean that you should expand your B2B content into the business-to-business networking platform, but there is a lot of missed potential in the likes of Instagram, Reddit, YouTube and Twitter.
The key here is to work with influencers. Instagram might not sound like the place to post your B2B content until you remember that it is full of lifestyle and hustle culture influencers. People who are telling their audience that they have a Lamborghini and you can have one too if you start a business with the help of this business product or service.
And this niche of affiliates are everywhere. On YouTube they’re offering long-form detailed advice on every aspect of business management, on TikTok they’re in bitesize, on Reddit they’re in discussions and groups, etc.
The affiliates
Working with B2B affiliates doesn’t differ too much from B2C affiliates as long as they know who they are targeting. When it comes to affiliates, they are running a B2C brand, giving entertainment to the masses, but their marketing of your product is targeting that niche in their audience that is there to use the advice they give in their own businesses.
If you want a more targeted approach, look at micro-influencers in advice and business management genres to appeal to other entrepreneurs or budding small business owners that are looking for advice.
