The best business to business marketing
strategy may be something you wouldn’t necessarily expect in a world seemingly
ruled by social media.
In fact, you’re missing the boat if
you’re a B2B company and you’re not using the strategies I talk about in this
article.
Ever hear older, experienced people …
like me … talk about the “good old days”?
The way things used to be. And
how it was better and done better back then.
Depending on your point of view, many
things were better. But for many people,
now is the best time to be alive. It all
depends on your perspective.
Think about the investing and trading
world. Before online brokers, there were
stockbrokers. People who made their
living hyping and selling the publicly traded stock of companies on various
exchanges.
If you wanted to invest in the stock
market, you called up a broker and told him what you wanted.
You probably even asked him for his
advice. That advice could just as easily
have been good or bad. But you paid for
that advice.
I wanted to be one of those guys. And I almost went to work for Merrill Lynch
to be a stockbroker. They used to be
strictly a stock brokerage company with offices all over the world.
Now … after being bought out like so many
conventional brokers … they’re known as Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. As their name suggests, they’re a wealth
management division of Bank of America.
Good old-fashioned stockbrokers are now nearly obsolete. As are a lot of the old-school strategies used in B2B marketing.
Direct mail is still used to an extent
but nowhere near where it used to be. The
cost is so prohibitive for the uncertain results so often received. It costs huge dollars to even test a direct
mail campaign.
And sales reps … who used to physically
call on businesses … have now become account executives in so many cases. There are a lot fewer of them and they often
sit in an office rather than actually visit prospective customers.
So what is the best business to
business marketing strategy? Well, it’s
email. Email is used to such an extent
now that ... for many companies ... it’s their primary source of getting leads
and closing sales.
Email marketing is so powerful that B2B
companies send out more than 1 million emails each week in the US. And they do it because it works. Better than any method they've tried.
Some of the ways B2B companies use email marketing as the best business to business marketing strategy are:
1.
Lead Generation
It’s a simple formula. The more leads a company can generate, the
more the more sales they can potentially make.
They know that a predictable number of those leads will lead to sales.
A lead is a prospect. Someone who has expressed an interest in a
company’s product or service. And leads
eventually develop into paying customers.
Companies offer prospective leads
something for free in exchange for their email address … and often … their
name.
The most common free offers are:
Using emails for lead generation usually involves sending out “content” emails. Information the prospect will find interesting and informative. These are interspersed with more “hard sell” emails although they don’t have to beat prospects over the head to be successful.
2. E-Newsletters
B2B companies send email newsletters …
e-newletters … to stay in touch with prospects.
And continue to develop a relationship with them.
E-newsletters are typically sent out
once a month but sometimes more often.
3. Nurturing Leads
Using ongoing email to stay in touch with prospects. This usually involves a series … maybe even delivered by autoresponder …as a follow-up to the free offer mentioned above.
These emails will typically offer links back to a sales page offering your products or services.
4. Special Announcements
These emails are used to keep prospects … and even paying customers … up-to-date on new offerings: products, services or a new blog post.
Software companies … for example … might send out a special email broadcasting the introduction of their latest product.
Please read through the rest of this site to learn more about why email is still the best business to business marketing strategy there is.