Business to business (B2B) Marketing & SEO
Posted on June 11, 2008 at 4:42 pm .
Filed under: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization — Zafar Ahmed

In the fields of e-commerce, B2B is the process of buying, selling and exchanging of products, services or information between business organizations through an electronic platform. All business transactions between the two businesses take place by means of electronic systems – e-procurement, e-ordering, e-payment, EDI (electronic data interchange), etc. The emerging B2B models revolutionize the way business is conducted and all the internet, technology and computer related changes therefore means that the marketing strategy for B2B companies become more efficient but even more competitive.

Some businesses may experience difficulty in finding the best marketing strategy that gives them the result that they want. There could be many reasons for this and many would think that if a marketing strategy or marketing plan fails, improvisation is needed. This is the truth, but how do you improvise? And more importantly, where do you start?

What you already know: Start by improvising the B2B marketing objective. It is an essential part of the B2B marketing strategy because the plans will be drawn based on the objective.

What you should know: After setting the objective, you sometimes get so tied up with the situation at hand and therefore decisions are made hastily based on the short-term results. Instead of thinking ‘This is good, let’s do it!’ try to think like ‘This is good but in 3 years time where can it bring us?’ Be critical and analytical, make a constructive criticism then decide, constantly reflecting upon the objective. This is how brilliant decisions are made.

If the plans do run parallel with the objective, next is to look at the technical side of the B2B marketing strategy.

What you already know: Determine the target audience and the reasons why clients should deal with you. Determine the strength and weaknesses of your business and the business of your competitors. Market the benefits of your product/service to your clients and show them how their problems can be solved. This is the ‘How do you look for clients?’ aspect.

What you should know: The technical properties that also need to be looked into is the ‘How do clients look for you?’ aspect. Result oriented marketing strategies of this aspect is by the means of SEO – Search Engine Optimization. Due to the fact that buyers actively look for suppliers, manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors and sellers in general online, it is almost mandatory for businesses to appear online or otherwise get left behind.

Being present online is only a minor first step. The next big step is to acquire professional SEO services that will improve traffic. There is a difference between dealing with customers and dealing with business clients. Improving traffic is done mainly for business-to-customers (B2C) but B2B requires not only traffic but targeted placements of links to your website on quality online directories – directories themselves that are capable of generating the significant amount of traffic required.

Other quick tips on B2B marketing strategies:

1.Banner advertising could be effective but it depends on the web site’s traffic and also the ability to capture viewer’s attention. Not recommended for companies with low marketing budgets.

2-E-mail marketing is effective but do not spam. Instead, use targeted one-on-one emails to prospective customers.

3-Viral marketing is marketing by word of mouth. Able to reach multiple folds of customers, effectiveness depends on the quality of your product/service.

4-Internet branding management is as important as managing your marketing strategy!