"Remembering that there are still end users making the decisions and whilst the traditional factors of price, availability and trust remain within a B2B decision making process, modernising and relaxing your communications can have great benefits"
I have been working with B2B clients for a good few years now and have learnt the different patterns and challenges that this market presents. One of the key points I’ve noticed is the effect that weekends have on any traffic and engagement levels, put simply this is due to many simply not wanting to think about work during their days to relax.
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It is this challenge which leads me to suggesting to all clients to take a more B2C stance with their B2B marketing. Remembering that there are still end users making the decisions and whilst the traditional factors of price, availability and trust remain within a B2B decision making process, modernising and relaxing your communications can have great benefits.
At the far end of the marketing spectrum, you have the options to use gamification and competitions in order to inject an element of fun to your marketing tactics. Budgets don’t always allow for these to be utilised, but if they do, they allow audiences to engage with your brand and you almost guarantee page revisits either to play the game again or to see who won the competition. When looking at gamification, you may be racking your brain to think of ways to make it lead into your sales funnel, the beauty of using this tactic is that it doesn’t directly have to. By simply having potential customers engaging with your brand through a game, it is often enough to begin building rapport and trust.
I understand that the world of gamification still has a way to go before it’s accessible by the many, however, there are still other ways to relax your B2B marketing. Utilising social media to actually be social, engage with your audience and share content that appeals to them inside and outside of a professional setting. A sure fire win for nearly all B2B markets is to create some content around the best mini breaks, give them some ideas to maximise their annual leave. Furthermore, sharing team photos and stories are also another great way to show that your company is human too.
You can also review your branding, more and more we see brands using fresh colours and fun modern fonts in order to appeal to this new younger generation of business professionals. Does your branding appeal to them? Or are you stuck in the rut that was the world of blues and greys to represent a B2B business.
There are many other ways that all come together to really create an effective B2B marketing strategy, it may be that you need a jump start or just wish to discuss the points above and how they can be adapted for your business in more detail. We offer Brand Sprints or can action a complete rebrand or simply a new strategy to help bring your company truly into 2020.