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As every B2B marketer knows, there are so many great qualities to working in this sphere. You get to explore niche industries, gain random knowledge about things you didn’t even know existed, or my favourite – you get to point out a beautiful product in a shop and say, ‘my client made this packaging!’
It might not have the typical shine of B2C marketing, but it’s just as interesting if you apply your talent the right way. And to help anyone from newbies to experienced veterans in this field, here is my advice for B2B marketers:
Look, I get that it’s ‘business to business’. But it’s not, not really. In any form of marketing, it’s P2P – people to people. Whether you are marketing a product to a consumer, or a service to the CEO of a company, you are a person selling to a person.
So, remember to add some personality. If you’re a social media manager like myself, move away from constant corporate promotion. Try posting about team members, what you all do around the office, what everyone likes outside of work. A business is more than a logo and a colour scheme, it’s a dedicated team. Show them off!
And when you are promoting your products and services, remember that you are doing more than improving an aspect of a business. You are also making individual jobs easier. Say you have a machine to automate a tedious job, you aren’t just improving efficiency, you’re improving the quality of someone’s shift and giving them more time to complete other tasks.
B2B marketers, I have news for you. There is still room for creativity in B2B. It’s shocking, I know. We might not have the easy ride of doing a TikTok dance for consumers to ‘relate’ to us, but there is space for creative thinking.
We can still jump on trends; we can still make content to entertain our audience. Take a look at this blog by Hootsuite, and try to apply some of them to the business you’re marketing.
To keep people on a business page, you must produce content that they’ll enjoy, or at least find interesting. If you can’t find a good angle to create a meme, then post FAQs and interact with companies as an industry leader. Be more than just another company selling your product.
If you’re interested, you can read more about thought leadership on our services page.
Some businesses, especially well-established ones (note how I avoided the word old), don’t believe in the value of B2B marketing. Many of them are successful through word-of-mouth recommendations in their industry.
But you know that marketing works. You’ve seen it, you’ve lived it. So be confident and prove to them that you know what you’re talking about.
It can be a challenge to convince them but give it time. Take it from my experience, it can be months down the road, but there will be concrete evidence that it works. It could be in the form of 1,000 new followers or increased website traffic, but it will be there.
Be confident in your abilities.
As mentioned, success is different for every B2B marketer. It all depends on the industry, the business, and your marketing goals.
But success is about more than numbers. Maybe you don’t hit a target KPI as quickly as you’d like, but your business gets an enquiry off the back of a post that you made. That is success. Be proud of it.
Try to remember as well, that success is often smaller in B2B marketing. You probably won’t go viral; you probably won’t become the next Aldi or Ryanair. Set realistic goals and remind yourself that even one new follower is better than none.
So, there you have it, my top pieces of advice for any B2B marketer. Be creative, be confident, be patient, and be people orientated. That’s all there is to it really. (As well as the countless hours of content creation, social media interaction, reporting, strategizing, account managing, etc).
You’ve got this.
After completing almost a full year at Nielsen McAllister, Molly has compiled her own list of Top Tips for new starters.
As we launch our new campaign - Unmatched - we look at what the word really means and how it can be applied to your branding to help your business stand out.