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Are you struggling to drive B2B sales online? Here are five digital marketing strategies that may help drive B2B sales.
A study by Ahrefs revealed that a staggering 90.63 percent of web pages don’t attract any visitors from Google.
They are on the internet alright, but it’s like Google doesn’t know they exist.
Sadly, that’s the story behind many company websites.
From sheer lack of visibility to technical issues with their websites or an extremely competitive environment, many businesses see little activity on their website.
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This doesn’t do much to drive revenues which leaves sales and marketing teams frustrated.
If you want to move to the other 9.37 percent—the ones attracting online visitors and driving sales—here are digital marketing strategies to consider.
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Understand Search Intent
Search intent is the “why” behind an online search.
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Understanding why a person is carrying out a search is your golden ticket to increasing sales.
It goes beyond using juicy keywords—focusing on optimizing existing and new content to answer the “why.”
Doing so will help you improve SERP visibility, attract qualified traffic, and build trust among audiences.
How can you incorporate search intent into your content marketing strategy?
- Take stock of existing content’s performance. Do your target keywords match queries? How is your content structure contributing to your position on search results? The data you gather will reveal the intent your content serves, gaps, and opportunities you can capitalize on.
- Check the competition. Analyze content from competitor brands that are topping search results for your target keywords. What structure is in place—do they use short snackable paragraphs? What CTAs are present?
- Work on your content. Having collected definitive information from your content and that of competitors, you can now put your insights into action. Track the performance of optimized content to ensure you’re receiving the results you want.
2. Invest in Marketing Automation Software
Statistics show that automating your marketing processes can boost your sales revenue by up to 34 percent.
Marketing automation is a broad term that incorporates platforms, software, and tools that take over routine tasks and streamline work processes to improve operational efficiency.
When talking about improved operational efficiency, we mean the ability to segment, track, and nurture target audiences through their journey.
You can deliver personalized and relevant experiences to a broad audience, encouraging them towards making purchase decisions without breaking a sweat.
Further, the reporting and analytics tool within the software allows you to measure your campaign’s effectiveness. You’ll know if they are generating a buzz among audiences or attracting enough attention.
Other benefits of using marketing automation software:
- Increasing revenue. The software helps you prioritize leads on the basis of their propensity to buy and their potential deal size. You can also set up triggers to follow up with existing customers for cross-selling or up-selling opportunities.
- Minimizing lost opportunities. A salesperson won’t remember every interaction, appointment, or deadline, meaning some leads can fall through the cracks. Marketing software keeps track of all things, enhancing customer engagement.
- Forecasting and Intelligence. Marketing software uses data to provide insights on how your business is doing and helps you project sales volumes, costs, market share, etc. This makes for effective marketing planning, resource allocation, and audience targeting.
3. Make Cold Calls
Businesses around the world look for three main things—driving stronger sales, improving operational efficiency, and cutting down costs.
If you can solve one or all of these, do make cold calling part of your strategy.
Why?
If you do your homework and target the right companies, you can reach them on the phone, share your value proposition and receive feedback. You’ve either piqued their interest or they aren’t looking for what you’re offering.
Consider the following as you employ the cold calling strategy:
- Define your objectives. The initial call is the first phase of a multiple-stage sales process, so your objective should revolve around ushering your prospect to the next phase.
- Build highly targeted cold calling lists. Buying lists and using generic ones won’t take you far. Your list should target companies that fit your ideal customers. Companies that find your messages relevant and can benefit from your solutions.
- Let your script guide you. Jot down key selling points that focus on helping the prospect. Have a series of open-ended questions that help the prospect unravel their pain points and how your product/service can benefit them
- Objections come. Your listeners are likely to raise objections or ask questions before committing. Are there common objections you run into? Add their responses to your script and answer them long before the prospect raises them.
4. Leverage Link Building
Link building is an effective strategy for building domain authority, establishing your credibility, and generating organic growth.
When your website receives backlinks from high domain authority websites, your own authority goes up. Search engines’ perception of you improves, leading to faster page indexing.
The strategy requires planning to be effective, but the dividends are massive. Your site’s visibility improves and you receive referral traffic established websites that may prove useful for lead generation.
Here are some ways to employ this strategy:
- Guest blog. This is one of the most popular ways of acquiring backlinks. Your goal, however, shouldn’t be about plugging in too many links. Rather, aim to share useful (not regurgitated) information. If the audience likes what they read, they will most likely head to your site for more information.
- Use infographics. They are fun, interesting to read, and less tedious compared to writing a 2000-word guest post. Create an insightful infographic, then reach out to relevant sites in your industry to know if they can post the infographic.
- Capitalize broken links on authority websites. Identify websites you would want to get backlinks from and look for broken links on their site using tools like Ahref Broken Link Checker. See if you can offer alternative content for any of the broken links then reach out to the site owners with your replacement suggestions.
5. Video Marketing
Whenever we talk about incorporating video into your B2B digital marketing strategy, most marketers think any video will do.
Videos are great for brand awareness, engaging potential customers, and encouraging sales, however, some formats drive the point home better than others.
A demo video, for example, is super effective for lead generation, rather than brand awareness. Sure, it will create awareness, but its main task should be to provide a sneak peek at what you offer to encourage audiences to convert.
This same reasoning applies to videos that drive sales. Here are some formats to consider:
- Customer testimonials. This format shows real customers experiencing real problems and their experience with your products/services. They speak to audiences in ways product descriptions can’t, enhancing relatability and credibility.
- Promotional/limited offer campaigns. Do you want to push out old stock, or introduce new products or features? Create a promotional video that shows awesome aspects of your products/services and put a time cap on it to encourage quick purchases.
- Influencer interviews. Industry-relevant influencers who your target audience follows may help sway b2b buyers your way. Schedule interviews where the influencers talk about industry trends, practices, and their experiences and tie the conversation to your products/services.