Ten Ways to Tweak Your B2B Marketing for Awesome Results

Whenever I receive a call for B2B marketing help, there is an answer to a question that inevitably makes its way into our conversation: why are you changing your marketing NOW?

Sometimes, the customer is enlightened and can speak specifically about what is going on within their marketing efforts. They will tell me they don’t have something they want, like an email newsletter or a blog. But more often than not, they answer, “What we’re doing isn’t working anymore.”

So, we have to go deeper, taking a closer look at what the company is doing to communicate with their target audiences. We do a marketing audit to discover what programs are in place and how they perform. Sometimes, the gaps in their efforts are obvious; other times, not so much.  The beauty of marketing is that a simple tweak can make a significant difference. The trick is to know the tweak that will transform your strategy.

Today I share my list of marketing “tweaks” that can make a big difference in your bottom line. Take a look and see if they might work for YOUR business.

1. Address the bugaboos in Your Google Analytics. Besides Google Analytics, there are many web analytics tools on the market to help you gauge your website’s performance. If you’re not looking at your analytics, you’re missing out on crucial information that can empower your marketing decisions.

Your analytics will report on revealing information such as the amount of website traffic you receive, where it comes from, and how long people are visiting your pages. You can look at your site page by page and determine which pages are helping your prospects to “convert” to actual, paying customers.

Addressing the problems you see may involve tweaking your headlines, your content, or even your graphics, and a good marketing consultant can help you determine the changes that will have the best effect. However, it all starts with a look at your analytics.

2. Energize your website Calls to Action. Often, changing your CTAs will solve many of your website analytic bugaboos! Your CTA is how you message your website visitor to respond to your offer. And amazingly, a report on Small Business Trends showed that an astounding 70% of small business B2B websites lack a call to action! Are you one of them?

While you may have your 800 number or quote page templated on your sidebar, I’m a big believer in ending your page content with a specific CTA button or link to a contact page. If you don’t tell them what you want them to do, they may not do it. Also, use their language. Will your audience respond better to CALL TODAY, GET MY FREE TRIAL, or MAKE IT HAPPEN? QR codes work, too. Tweak the possibilities and see which one works best!

3. Reevaluate Your Audience. Businesses change over time. Our marketing should change with it. When things aren’t working anymore, it’s a good idea to find out what’s changed. It could be your industry, the economic climate, or possibly…your target market.

As your competitors claim to offer something new and different from you, think about the type of customer who would PREFER you over the competition. Is your marketing addressing them? Targeting them?

4. Consider New Vehicles. Think about how you marketed or would have marketed your products and services before the internet. Now think about how you do it today. Pretty different, right?

One reason marketing is a big challenge is that new opportunities and tools emerge every day. What worked for your company yesterday may not work today. The only way you will find what works today is to be open to new ideas that may come your way. Tweak your plan and test the possibilities.

5. Get Serious About Social Media. A recent survey reported that 96% of small businesses use social media in their marketing strategy, and 74% of consumers rely on social media to make purchasing decisions. If your company is not using social media, you may completely miss part of your audience.

And remember, social media is supposed to be a two-way street. If you’re not posting regularly, you not only miss opportunities but can unintentionally give the impression that your company is disorganized or uncommitted to your social media.

You can also consider the types of posts you are offering your audience. Are they engaging enough? What more can you do? Again, analytics count. What kind of posts get the most engagement? Can you tweak your strategy to include more of them? It’s an excellent first step.

6. Brag About Your Reviews. Recently, a client of mine increased his engagement remarkably by tweaking his ad to promote having reached a milestone—100 Google Reviews. It doesn’t make sense not to use your reviews if you’ve got them. Placing good testimonials in strategic places—like an advertisement or your web homepage– can make a big difference in your marketing results.

7. Tweak Your On-page SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the brains behind your website, placing you in front of people who need your information most. SEO is affected by using the right keywords in the visible parts of your pages, like the content, headlines, and title tags on your website tab. Then there are backend pieces, such as the descriptions and “metadata” used to describe each page and image. If you have not looked at these elements of your website in a while, it’s worth a peek to do some intentional revisiting…and give them a tweak!

8. Tweak Your Brand Identity. I’ve never been a fan of changing your logo unless you have a darn good reason. But I think it makes sense to step back and take a look at your logo and collateral materials, especially alongside your competitors. Does your logo represent your company well? Or does it look old-fashioned? Loud? Unappealing? A logo refresh can keep you projecting the image you want for your company and help appeal to your audience.

9. Think Video. The use of video in marketing has grown steadily since 2016, and 86% of marketers include video in their marketing arsenal. And more than 90% feel it’s a successful venture with demonstrated ROI. Technology (including that essential device we carry everywhere) has made it beyond easy to create videos. And there are plenty of ways to use it, too, from explainer videos, to corporate awareness videos, testimonials, webinars, and more, so if you are not doing video, consider tweaking your marketing plan to include it.

Once you have a video completed, make sure it has its own mini-marketing plan to appear on your website, social media, newsletter, and more. Creating a video marketing piece and not rolling it into your marketing plan is like leaving money on the table!

10. Tweak the Mailing List. If you have a mailing list and are sending out an email greeting every so often, you may want to take a second look at the list itself. As much as we all would like to send one general email to reach everyone on our list, sometimes it is more effective to segment the lists and address them more specifically. For example, it may make sense to send a special offer to some, but not all, of your mailing list. Occasionally, it’s a good idea to review your list and see how it could better serve your efforts.

So there you have it. Ten tweaks to help your B2B marketing soar. If tweaking your marketing plan looks daunting, know that Big Ideas Writing can help! Contact Karen today for a discussion about what’s working, what’s not, and what we can do to improve your results. We’re on your side at 630-778-6182.