Are High-Tech Businesses Behind in Using B2B Marketing Techniques? There are a lot of reasons why your high tech business may not be giving much thought to inbound marketing. In all likelihood your business model is built more on B2B sales than broad consumer sales. If this is the case, then you are selling yourself short. Many of the inbound marketing techniques that have made consumer branding efforts into sales juggernauts are also applicable to B2B sales.
These five Inbound Marketing techniques can not only strengthen your B2B sales, but help to make your high tech business invincible.
You may have many promotional outlets going, from publishing ads in the trades to cold calling old leads. While this may pull in a respectable amount of business from other companies that are interested in your high-tech products, it is a far cry from your full potential. The two techniques that will open the door to limitless sales leads are blogging and social media. While many contend that these methods are more suited to marketing to consumers, they can be a very powerful way to connect with decision-makers at the companies you would like to do business with. Why spend large amounts of money advertising in lightly read trade journals when you can, in essence run your own trade journal that is all about you and your products? Social media has also come a long way, and channels such as Twitter and Facebook are used much more often to connect with companies that wish to form productive business partnerships. Although you may increase brand awareness in consumers as a beneficial side effect, your efforts will also put you first in the mind of potential sales leads.
Now that you have used, inbound marketing to build a significant social media following it is time to get those sales leads. You can do this using many of the effective techniques that content providers use to monetize their content. Instead of selling paid ads on your blog, for example, your attractive links will go directly to your landing page. Your goal of converting visitors into sales leads will be easier than you think. While getting a decision maker's email address or phone number is not a huge coup, there is a lot to be said for the power of opting in. Getting your B2B sales team enough information to turning what would have been a cold-call into an informed sales call to an interested party puts them ahead of the game.
This is always the most difficult part of your B2B sales process, but here is where your inbound marketing techniques can also help your sales team. You already have the contents, but using information they voluntarily submitted, you can provide each lead, a score or rank in order to help your staff know how ready they are to purchase. For those that are less motivated you can provide additional content marketing to provide your leads more information that they may need to feel more at ease before talking with your sales department. White papers, videos, and other downloadable content can provide a personalized solution to put your sales people ahead of the curve before they ever contact their leads directly. There is a lot to be said for a series of instructional emails that builds trust in what your business is doing, called Lead Nurturing. At this point you will have a wealth of analytic information ranging from what particular article/content/social media attracted the lead in the first place to how they are responding to your promotional mailings. It is very easy to tailor future mailings to fit their interest and nurture the relationship that your company wishes to establish.
Congratulations. You have attracted viewers, converted them to leads, and closed a B2B sale. Now the company has become your customer. This is where inbound marketing success can help you to build lasting relationships. Your customer database is more than the dollars and cents you made from your sales. It is an ongoing opportunity to upsell and extend the life cycles of contracts. Smart content marketing that delivers ongoing calls-to-action for established customers can turn each B2B sale into a potent sales engine for your high tech business. Your social media can consistently let your customers know how much you value them with monthly appeals or an anniversary video that expresses your gratitude without adding any sales expectation.
The Internet of Things is, for lack of a better term, becoming a thing. Items such as Google Glass will soon be gathering information much more efficiently than human-based data entry ever has. Your potential B2B customers will soon be bombarded with this information no matter where they are. Establishing solid relationships today with inbound marketing techniques will help your business become invincible tomorrow.
Bristol Strategy is a full funnel inbound marketing agency and inbound sales agency offering the full complement of Inbound Marketing services that enable our clients to surpass their business objectives by transforming the way they engage with their buyer on-line. Reach out to us to learn more about how our experience and capabilities can help your business grow.
