Definition:

Business-to-business marketing or B2B-marketing comes from English and describes marketing relationships between two or more parties. Here, the focus is on marketing related to products or services that are sold from one company to another.

The term B2B-marketing is very common in e-business and is gaining importance in many areas due to the ever-increasing digitization. B2B-marketing has a very similar mode of operation as conventional marketing, but directs its measures not to the end customer but to other companies. Here, the focus is also placed on SEO, i.e. search engine optimization, as well as on publicity relations and online and offline marketing communication.

Lead generation in particular, and thus customer acquisition, have become enormously important in B2B-marketing in recent years. Marketing is increasingly taking on sales-related tasks, even for complex services and products. This is because potential customers are managed by marketing until they are really ready for business.

How do automated workflows work in B2B-marketing ?

A workflow is a process chain that you set up. It means you think about the journey you want your potential customer to take in a particular marketing campaign. For example, a potential customer searches the internet for a keyword and lands on your site. There, he then wants to view the content related to a blog post, but in order to access it, he has to leave certain data. These are: Name, e-mail, profession, company, industry and phone number.

Thus, you already generate some information about your new lead – including what topics he is interested in. This information is now used to address him in the most targeted and specific way possible. This is done by leading them to a landing page that offers them a concrete solution to their problem.

Who is the Buyer Persona and what does it look like?

The term Buyer Persona describes a typical representative of one’s own target group. With the help of collected data, a fictitious person is created to describe the potential buyer in detail.

The creation of a Buyer Persona profile is an extensive process. A team from marketing, sales and customer care works on specific topics such as:

– Demographics: gender, age, place of residence, marital status.
– Professional background of the target group: career, job
– What problems and objections does our person face?
– How can we help achieve goals and overcome problems?

The persona is also given a name, which in the best case fits their age and typical characteristics. The development is never complete, it is much more important to adapt and complete it from time to time. Ideally, the persona is based on information about the company’s own existing customers or from market research.

E-mail marketing as a success tool in B2B marketing

Email marketing describes the process of sending emails to different customer or prospect groups. The focus can be on new products or news, for example. Often, however, e-mail marketing also serves the purpose of customer loyalty through newsletters or discount promotions sent by mail.

Nowadays, unfortunately, it has become a challenge to implement successful email marketing. We have created a list of 8 tips which will lead you to successful email marketing.

– pay special attention to your opening rate – what appeals to your target group and what do they respond to most often ? Are your emails opened or do they end up in the trash ?

– Click rate – The click rate describes the number of clicks on a link in the email in relation to the number of delivered emails. It is given in percent.

– Was your mail actually delivered ? – Too often sent mails can end up in the spam folder and thus not reach your target person.

– Test new strategies! – You want to try something new? Think about different concepts and try them all. Sure, it’s a bit more time-consuming and annoying but it will be worth it in the end and you’ll find out what your target group responds to.

– Short and compact – not only your email should be short and exciting, but also the subject! It should arouse interest without the reader having to read through a complete sentence. Address a problem for which your target person needs a solution and imply that this solution can be found in the email.

– The approach must be right – be friendly, interested and charming. This is usually associated positively and ensures a higher click-through rate! You can fall back on storytelling and create a unique environment for your email.

– Automate your mailing systems! This will save you work and is also fairer to the customer.

– Analyze your data – look closely at which topics were clicked the most ? Which content was the most popular ? Use this analysis for your future campaigns!