4 B2B Digital Marketing Strategies That Drive Success

Business-to-business (B2B) marketing is different from business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing. B2B and B2C audiences are distinct from each other, which means the strategies and tactics you use to reach them will differ. B2B buying behaviour is evolving, with buyers increasingly seeking out a streamlined digital experience.

For B2B marketers to get in front of the right professionals, they need to leverage B2B digital marketing strategies that enable them to efficiently target their brand’s ideal accounts. With a long B2B sales cycle, the right B2B digital strategy will ensure your ads lead to meaningful conversions. 

Below, we’re sharing important B2B trends, and 4 B2B digital marketing strategies that you can leverage for success. 

B2B Digital Marketing Trends

B2B marketers should always keep a pulse on emerging trends in the B2B landscape. Let’s dive into recent B2B trends that should be on your radar.

• US B2B digital ad spend is projected to reach $18.47 billion USD by 2024, and digital ads will make up nearly 50% of all B2B ad spending in the US in 2024.
• Account-based marketing (ABM) is increasingly relevant. A report by Momentum ITSMA found that 84% of marketers using ABM experienced pipeline growth, and 77% reported revenue growth thanks to their ABM efforts. Seventy-two percent said that ABM delivered higher return-on-investment (ROI) than other types of marketing.
• An unexpected trend? It’s being forecasted that 2023 will mark the first year that more than 50% of digital B2B ads will be placed on mobile. Traditionally, B2B marketers have focused their efforts around desktop and laptop computers. But today, it’s clear that B2B buyer behaviour is shifting, and you can reach this audience on mobile, too.

4 B2B Digital Marketing Strategies

Now, we’re going to explore four strategies that will help you deliver a successful B2B digital marketing campaign.

1. Differentiate Your B2B Brand

In traditional B2B marketing, the goal has often been to use ads to present the solution itself. While this tried and true strategy can drive results, thinking outside the box can make for a more memorable and impactful ad. 

Don’t be afraid to be playful with your B2B digital ads. You don’t need to focus heavily on showing or talking about your offering to get your main message across. Instead, consider using your digital ads to highlight one of the benefits of your B2B product in a creative and fun way. This will spark emotion, create a positive association with your brand, and help build brand trust and recognition.

2. Use Digital Channels To Educate Your Audience 

One of the challenges that B2B marketers across industries face is that ads provide just a brief moment to capture users’ attention. When running an ad, it’s important to make the best use of the visuals, copy, and other creative elements, like sound and movement, to get your message across. 

While there are plenty of channels that B2B marketers can choose from, two that will help you truly stand out from the crowd are video advertising and audio ads. These programmatic channels allow you to reach potential customers wherever they may be watching or listening to content online.

Both of these formats have unique capabilities to help you stand out from the crowd and capture the attention of the audiences that matter. With video, you can differentiate your brand from others in the B2B space by combining the power of both visuals and audio to communicate your message.

With audio, you can use sound design to tap into your listener’s imagination. Audio is an immersive and intimate medium that leverages storytelling to create a connection between the content and the listener. Data shows that compared to other media, audio is more likely to engage long-term memory for both details and memories. This results in a better receptiveness between the audience and a brand, driving strong brand awareness.

3. Leverage Programmatic Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy that concentrates marketing toward a set of specific accounts within a market. Traditional ABM has relied on physical-world activities like events where marketers get one-on-one time with the stakeholders at a target company. Although traditional ABM works, personalization at scale for target accounts is a top challenge.

One way to overcome this challenge is by leveraging the power of programmatic. With programmatic ABM, you can use programmatic ad buying technology to target high-value B2B professionals based on account lists, firmographic, and personal-level data. You’re able to reach audiences with relevant, high-value ads that will win over the right accounts. 

4. Use Retargeting to Move Prospects Down the Funnel 

After reaching qualified B2B users with your digital ads, you can retarget them. Collect audiences that have, for example, completed watching your video ad, or listened to your audio ad. 

Then, retarget that audience with display or native ads on other devices. With B2B behaviour shifting, it’s a great time to test retargeting on mobile devices. Retargeting provides you more opportunities to move your target users down the funnel, and to build on the cohesive brand story that you’ve crafted through your video or audio ad.

Win Accounts With These B2B Digital Marketing Strategies

Another consideration for the future of B2B is the importance of testing. Identifying new solutions that can accelerate adoption and help to better measure performance will also further evolve advertising strategies based on past successes.

Finally, to demonstrate ROI, B2B marketers should take advantage of a diverse, multi-channel marketing mix and continue to work with industry-leading providers that can offer highly-targeted, account-based marketing (ABM) solutions. As B2B data quality improves, future focus areas include greater sophistication of account insights and measurement capabilities.

Want to run exceptional B2B digital marketing campaigns? Request a demo to learn more about StackAdapt.