3/11/24, 12:41 PM What Is B2B Marketing: Definition, Strategy, and Trends

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Content marketing
What Is B2B Marketing: Definition, Strategy, and Trends
Steve Kearns
Ads Marketing Leader | Global Head of Content @ LinkedIn Ads [Adweek B2B Brand of the Year]
July 4, 2022

Editor's Note: Enjoy this special encore post, which was one of our readers'
favorites so far in 2022. It was originally published on January 6.

If you want to learn about B2B marketing, what tactics it entails, and how to
succeed at it in today’s environment, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s
explore the topic in-depth to shed light on each element of the most effective
modern B2B marketing strategies.

What Is B2B Marketing?

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3/11/24, 12:41 PM What Is B2B Marketing: Definition, Strategy, and Trends

As the name suggests, business-to-business marketing refers to the marketing of

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products or services to other businesses and organizations. It holds several key
distinctions from B2C marketing, which is oriented toward consumers.

In a broad sense, B2B marketing content tends to be more informational and

straightforward than B2C. This is because business purchase decisions, in
comparison to those of consumers, are based more on bottom-line revenue
impact. Return on investment (ROI) is rarely a consideration for the everyday
person—at least in a monetary sense—but it’s a primary focus for corporate
decision makers.

In the modern environment, B2B marketers often sell to buying committees

with various key stakeholders. This makes for a complex and sometimes
challenging landscape, but as data sources become more robust and accurate,
B2B marketers’ ability to map out committees and reach buyers with relevant,
personalized information has greatly improved.

Who is B2B Marketing For?

Any company that sells to other companies. B2B can take many forms: software-
as-a-service (SaaS) subscriptions, security solutions, tools, accessories, office
supplies, you name it. Many organizations fall under both the B2B and B2C
umbrellas.

B2B marketing campaigns are aimed at any individual(s) with control or

influence on purchasing decisions. This can encompass a wide variety of titles
and functions, from entry-level end-users all the way up to the C-suite.

Creating a B2B Marketing Strategy

Competition for customers, and their attention, is high. Building out a B2B
strategy that delivers results requires thoughtful planning, execution, and

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management. Here’s a high-level look at the process B2B companies use to

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stand out in a crowded marketplace:

Step 1: Develop an Overarching Vision

Fail to plan, plan to fail. This truism remains eternally accurate. Before you start
cranking out ads and content, you’ll want to select specific and measurable
business objectives. Then, you’ll want to establish or adopt a framework for how
your B2B marketing strategy will achieve them. For more insights on strategy,
for both your content and your execution, check out The LinkedIn Pages
Enterprise Playbook.

Step 2: Define Your Market and Buyer Persona

This is an especially vital step for B2B organizations. Whereas B2C goods often
have a wider and more general audience, B2B products and services are usually
marketed to a distinct set of customers with particular challenges and needs.
The more narrowly you can define this audience, the better you’ll be able to
speak to them directly with relevant messaging.

We recommend creating a dossier for your ideal buyer persona.

Research demographics, interview people in your industry, and analyze your
best customers to compile a set of attributes you can match against prospects to
qualify leads.

Step 3: Identify B2B Marketing Tactics and Channels

Once you’ve established solid intel around your target audience, you’ll need to
determine how and where you intend to reach them. The knowledge you’ve
attained through the previous step should help guide this one. You’ll want to
answer questions like these about your ideal customers and prospects:

Where do they spend their time online?

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What questions are they asking search engines?

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Which social media networks do they prefer?

How can you fill opportunity gaps that your competitors are leaving
open?

What industry events do they attend?

Step 4: Create Assets and Run Campaigns

With a plan in place, it’s time to put it into motion. Follow best practices for
each channel you incorporate into your strategy. Critical ingredients in effective
campaigns include a creative approach, useful insights, sophisticated targeting,
and strong calls to action.

Step 5: Measure and Improve

This is the ongoing process that keeps you moving in the right direction. In the
simplest terms, you want to figure out why your high-performing content
performs and why your low-performing content doesn’t. Understand this, and
you’ll more wisely invest your effort and budget. The more vigilant you are about
consulting analytics and applying your learnings, the more likely you are to
continually improve and surpass your goals. Even with a well-researched
foundation, the creation of content and campaigns inherently requires a lot of
guesswork until you have substantive engagement and conversion data to rely
on.

Let your audience dictate your path. Consult metrics to pinpoint the channels,
topics, and media that resonate most, then double-down. Meanwhile, cut or
alter anything that isn’t performing.

B2B Marketing Tactics and Content Formats

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Here are a few of the most common B2B marketing tactics and content formats
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to consider including in your strategy:

Blogs: A mainstay for almost any content team. Regularly updated blogs
provide organic visibility and drive inbound traffic to your site. Your blog can
house any number of different content types and formats.

Search: SEO best practices change as often as Google’s algorithm (a lot),

making this a tricky space to operate in, but any B2B marketing strategy needs
to account for it. Lately the focus has been shifting away from keywords and
metadata, and more toward searcher intent signals.

Social Media: Both organic and paid should be in the mix. Social networks
allow you to reach and engage prospects where they’re active. B2B buyers
increasingly use these channels to research potential vendors for purchase
decisions.

Whitepapers, eBooks, and infographics: Standalone assets containing

valuable information, these downloadable documents can either be gated
(meaning a user must provide contact information or perform another action to
access) or ungated. Often used as a B2B lead generation tool.

Email: While its effectiveness is waning somewhat in the age of spam filters
and inbox shock, email won’t disappear anytime soon.

Video: This content type can be applied in several of the previous categories
mentioned here (blogs, social media, emails) but is worth singling out because it
is the driving force behind many successful B2B strategies.

Livestream events and webinars: LinkedIn Live videos get, on average,

7x more reactions and 24x more comments than native video produced by the
same broadcasters. LinkedIn Live isn’t just great for promoting an event. Take
advantage of this feature for demonstrating expertise, showcasing innovation, or

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giving LinkedIn members a behind-the-scenes view into your company’s

culture.
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Case studies and customer testimonials: Establishing credibility is a must

for B2B marketing strategists. Case studies and customer testimonials may not
be the most creative ventures, but they’re crucial nonetheless.

Podcasts: Podcasting is projected to become even more popular than it

already is. Got a podcast geared toward a professional audience? Thinking about
starting one? Grow your listening audience by marketing your podcast on
LinkedIn.

B2B Marketing Best Practices

How can you set yourself up for B2B marketing success? Here are a few proven
pillars that will help your team stand out and make an impact.

Be Human
Yes, you’re trying to acquire a company as your customer, but you aren’t
marketing to a building or some intangible entity. You are trying to reach actual
people within the company, and like any other human being, they are driven by
emotional and cognitive motivations.

Don’t just learn about the companies and accounts you’re pursuing. Learn about
the people within them, and make sure your marketing speaks to them. Yes,
business decisions tend to be more rational and logical in nature, but that
doesn’t mean your content and tone should be robotic.

Target with Both Precision and Volume in Mind

Most B2B buying decisions are influenced by multiple stakeholders. A common
mistake when targeting is trying to pinpoint the decision maker. But in nearly

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every case, that solo decision maker doesn’t exist. That’s why it’s essential to
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target all stakeholders who can potentially influence the buying decision.

B2B buying cycles are complex and stakeholders are constantly shifting jobs and
roles. This is among the many reasons why brand recognition matters. The
following solutions can help B2B marketers reach professionals who can both
influence and authorize the buying decision. They allow you to get as granular as
you want, and when you need to expand your target audience, you can do so
with sophisticated automation.

Thought Leadership Makes an Impact

Research continues to show that senior-level decision makers value thought
leadership content, using it to vet both vendors and solutions. Most read
thought leadership content for at least an hour a week. What’s more, B2B
decision makers will pay more if it means they’re working with a company that
has used thought leadership to establish a clear vision of the future.

For an overview of what works and what doesn’t in the thought leadership
realm, check out the 2021 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study.

Keep Context in Mind

Personalization and relevance are prerequisites for earning attention today. Yes,
you want to speak the language of your customers, but you also want to deliver
content and ads that fit thematically with where they’re viewed.

For instance, shorter videos with quick hooks perform better on social media
feeds, whereas a longer format is probably better suited for YouTube. It takes a
different copy angle to catch someone scrolling through LinkedIn than other
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networks. Put yourself in the end user’s shoes. Seek to understand their present-
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tense situation when they’re viewing your content, including their
“surroundings,” and try to align your message with their mindset.

B2B Marketing Solutions on LinkedIn

According to the B2B Content Marketing 2021: Benchmarks, Budgets, and
Trends report from CMI and MarketingProfs, LinkedIn is the most-used social
media platform for B2B marketers (at 96%).

LinkedIn was also B2B marketers’ preferred option for paid social media
platforms. The latest survey did not ask respondents which paid platform
generated the best results, however in the previous survey, respondents said it
was LinkedIn.

(Image: Content Marketing Institute)

At a base level, we highly advise that every B2B organization develop an

optimized LinkedIn Page, which you can do for free on LinkedIn, as this is
your brand’s hub on the platform and a frequent destination for buyer research.
Posting updates frequently will help you stay top-of-mind among your target
audience, and add followers.

For maximizing your business impact and B2B marketing ROI, there are a
number of LinkedIn marketing products and features you can take advantage of
to reach and engage the right members.

Native Ads
On LinkedIn, native ads are known as Sponsored Content. These ads appear
within LinkedIn feeds, alongside the user-generated content members come to

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peruse. Very useful for thought leadership, brand awareness, and driving
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strategic traffic. Learn more about LinkedIn Native Ads.

Lead Generation
Many B2B marketers are evaluated based on their ability to generate leads. Lead
Gen Forms are extremely effective for this purpose because they pre-populate
the viewing member’s LinkedIn profile data and don’t force the user to navigate
from the site. It’s a win-win for members and marketers. Members get a
seamless experience when accessing offers and content. B2B marketers get high-
quality lead data. Learn more about LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms.

Retargeting
The LinkedIn Insight Tag enables you to track visitors coming to your
website from LinkedIn and then market to them while they’re on the platform.
These individuals are more likely to be interested in your company and product,
improving your odds of conversion. Learn more about LinkedIn Website
Retargeting.

Message Ads
As it grows harder to reach professional inboxes (and sometimes just to find
email addresses to begin with) LinkedIn Message Ads are growing more
advantageous. You can use this tool to send tailored direct messages to members
on LinkedIn, even if you’re not yet connected. Learn more about Message
Ads.

Dynamic Ads
These ads are customized to the member viewing them. They automatically
populate with profile images and relevant details to stand out and capture
attention. Learn more about LinkedIn Dynamic Ads.

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 Breaking
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3/11/24, 12:41 PM What Is B2B Marketing: Definition, Strategy, and Trends

Summarizing the most important takeaways from our exploration of modern

B2B marketing, here are some key considerations to keep in mind:

Although it’s business-to-business marketing, you’re still speaking to

human beings. The most effective B2B marketers pair logic with
emotion.

The foundational steps in creating a B2B marketing strategy are

developing your vision, defining your audience, identifying tactics and
channels, putting content and campaigns into motion, and then
continually measuring for optimization.

When targeting, balance precision with volume to ensure you’re reaching

all of the most important stakeholders who can potentially influence the
decision .

Truly effective B2B marketing is conversational, targeted, and

contextually relevant.

Thought leadership content can help you create a competitive advantage,

but it can also have a negative effect if it falls short of expectations..

Context is crucial. Market where your audience is and attempt to align

your messaging with your audience members’ mindset.

Topics: Content marketing Trends, tips, and best practices

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