Top 10 Most Effective Marketing Strategies. There is no denying that marketing has become an essential part of every business strategy. What we’re looking for are the top 10 most effective marketing strategies for generating leads and driving business. This article is designed to help you explore the best marketing tactics for any business situation whether B2B or B2C!
The best marketing strategy is the one that you can execute effectively on a regular basis. It’s also the one that aligns with your business’s goals and objectives. A well-designed annual marketing plan allows you to measure the results of your marketing efforts and adjust them as needed.
There are hundreds of books on marketing, but I’ve found that these 10 lists are the most helpful. You can use them to compare and contrast the marketing strategies of various industries, or you can simply use the lists as a reference.
Top 10 B2B Marketing Strategies
Want to learn more about what business professionals think of different marketing strategies?
In our 10 tips for business to business marketing success, we have listed 10 B2B marketing strategies that are effective and popular regardless of industry.
Look here’s what we found, in no particular order:
Marketing Strategies | Content Marketing
Content marketing emphasizes the importance of educating people to influence buying behavior.
This is an effective strategy that focuses on creating and distributing information that attracts prospects best aligned with and most likely to purchase your product or service.
Since communication is ongoing, content is meant to reflect what you learn about leads over time, and may include a variety of formats like infographics, web pages, podcasts, videos, blogs, white papers, and eBooks.
The term “content marketing” is often used interchangeably with “inbound marketing.” In reality, though, there are key distinctions between them that you need to be aware of.
An effective content marketing strategy should be part of an overall inbound growth strategy. But it’s not sufficient to integrate it into the broader plan.
Content marketing is effective because it:
Fast Fact.9 out of 10 B2B buyers say online content has a moderate to major effect on their purchase decisions.
Inbound Marketing | Marketing Strategies
Inbound is far and away the best B2B marketing strategy. It leverages the strengths of all the other eight marketing strategies to attract, engage, and delight customers.
The other types of inbound marketing methods described here may include traditional marketing methods, but they are not just for any company.
Messages are the key to effective messaging. Messages should be relevant and appear in the right place at the right time.
Inbound marketing is effective because it:
Fast Fact.Fast Fact.80% of corporate decision makers favor getting brand information through an article or blog series more than ads
Social Media Marketing | Marketing Strategies
Social media marketing focuses on providing users with valuable and engaging content that people will want to share across their social networks, resulting in increased web traffic to your site and a higher return on investment.
Social media shares of content, videos, and images also influence SEO efforts by increasing relevancy in search results. In addition, they often help your business reach the right audience, boost visibility, and engage more customers.
Social media marketing is effective because it:
Fast Fact.83% of all B2B marketers use at least one of the Big Four social media sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube) to distribute content.
Drive traffic and revenue with these B2B social media marketing strategies
Search Engine Optimization | Marketing Strategies
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of increasing awareness about and traffic to a particular website by making sure it appears among the top unpaid (or natural) search results on search engines like Google, Bing, etc.
A strong SEO strategy includes social media sharing, keyword optimization, press release distribution, and other tactics. But while there is a common misperception that it’s a stand-alone tactic, SEO is accomplished by many tactics working together.
While social media, email, banner ads, and other marketing tools generate website visits, SEO visibility is particularly important because search engines are the primary way users navigate the Internet.
If you don’t have a website already set up to promote your business, your business will be missing out on a lot of potential customers that would love to buy from you.
Search engine optimization is effective because it:
Fast Fact.SEO tops B2B lead sources at 14%, followed closely by email marketing (13%), and social media (12%).
Search Engine Marketing/PPC
Search engine marketing is a tool that companies use to grow their website traffic.
A popular SEM method is Pay Per Click. It works very well for some keywords and for some businesses, but not for all keywords and businesses.
So basically, a company buys or sponsors a link that appears as an ad in search engine results when keywords related to their product or service are searched.
Every time the ad is clicked, the company pays the search engine (or other third party host site) a small fee for the visitor a literal pay per click.
Search engine marketing is effective because of its:
Fast Fact.PPC users are 50% more likely to make a purchase than organic site visitors.
Account Based Marketing and Retargeting | Marketing Strategies
A targeted campaign is based on account information and data that are pulled from sales, marketing, and other systems in your organization.
A sales and marketing strategy is an important element in any business, including Amazon, and helps your sales and marketing teams.
While ABM may be a buzzword these days, ABM is more than just outbound marketing.
It’s a smart and effective way to grow your business, using methods like retargeting to personalize marketing efforts.
When you retarget someone who has been to your website, you’re essentially replaying an ad that they already saw, and hope to entice them to click on the call-to-action button
When you share your website’s address on other sites or social networks you give permission for the third party sites and networks to show ads to their users, even if they’re not related to your website specifically.
You don’t want to be just a one-time buyer – you want to be a repeat buyer.
Retargeting is effective because it:
Fast Fact.The average click through rate for retargeted ads is 0. 7% (compared to 0. 07% for display ads).
Earned Media and PR | Marketing Strategies
Free media is publicity created by your efforts or through paid advertising, rather than through efforts from others.
It can take many different forms. For example, it could be a positive review, a television or radio interview, a testimonial, or an article in a newspaper or editorial. But one thing remains constant.
There are no “rights” associated with viral marketing because it is free, non-monetized and can reach thousands of people without spending a dime on advertising.
Earned media and PR are effective because they:
Fast Fact.Earned media accounts for 25 40% of all traffic and lead generation.
Referral Programs | Marketing Strategies
A referral program is a systematic approach that companies use to motivate people to tell others about their products or services.
As the customer grows, the affiliate networks provide you with a ready audience to sell your products to. By implementing partner programs and/or customer referral programs, you’ll be able to gain instant credibility, which should be considered by your overall marketing strategy.
Referral programs are often synonymous with referral marketing.
Referral programs are effective because they:
Fast Fact.The lifetime value for new referral customers is 16% higher than non referrals.
Industry Events | Marketing Strategies
When it comes to business-to-business networking, in-person and online tradeshows are a top B2B networking tool, as they bring together companies within a specific industry to meet face to face and display their latest products and services in a shared setting.
Trade shows provide an excellent opportunity for businesses to establish or strengthen their relationships with key industry partners, customers, and prospects.
Learn about market trends and opportunities for your business, and understand what competitors are offering in the marketplace.
Amidst the new normal, networking has experienced some limitations.
However, technology is a definite advantage, as in-person events have been successfully converted to virtual events that offer similar benefits, including:
Faster fact discovery (less time and resources required). Better lead generation (leads are generated by sales reps at trade shows). More effective lead conversion.
Improve Trade Show and Exhibition Results with These Inbound Tactics
Conversational Marketing | Marketing Strategies
How-to-do-it style marketing is just that a step-by-step instruction manual. It’s not a conversation.
Real-time interactions via a chatbot or live chat get the right information in front of prospects and customers at the right time, and the follow-up questions are addressed immediately.
Personalized, relevant engagement vastly improves the user experience, increasing the likelihood of getting referrals from happy customers.
For businesses, conversational marketing methods shorten the time that people spend in the sales funnel, which is critical for getting more sales.
Conversions are higher because relationships are established quicker.
This is the preferred method of communication for business. In less than six simple steps, you’ll be able to set up live chat on your website.
Most of the strategies are either ineffective or only effective in limited situations. They aren’t worth implementing unless combined into a larger plan.
If you’re interested in building a stronger brand, then inbound marketing will help you do so. It combines SEO, SEM, content marketing, social media, and earned media into one comprehensive strategy that delivers qualified leads, strengthens customer relationships, and successfully builds brands.