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Marketing Strategies for B2B Web Stores

B2B Ecommerce Marketing Strategies


You have successfully launched your new B2B web store so it’s time to sit back and watch the orders roll in.. right? As a famous movie once said, ‘Build it and they will come!’ However you have built it, but they did not come.. so why not?

With over 2 billion websites in the world, how can you ensure your current customers and prospects can find you and will keep coming back time and time again? You can help yourself be found with a Drive-to-Web marketing strategy. Whether you are a new or established business, below are three strategies and accompanying tactics that will help you to drive online orders:


1. Build an online brand presence

The marketing rule of 7 states that it takes an average of seven interactions with your brand before a purchase will take place. Using an Omnichannel marketing approach will ensure you are presenting a consistent brand experience across many channels and your prospects and customers will have you front-of-mind when it comes time to make a purchasing decision.

Key tactics:

SEO: Increase your web traffic with on-page ranking factors
In order to be found in organic search, optimising your website content is vital. Researching the keywords your customers and prospects will be searching with online is a great place to start. Ensuring your most relevant content and keywords are reflected in the below is best practice SEO:

  • Title tag
  • URL
  • Content of page
  • Image alt text

This is but a small part of the world of SEO, so for more in-depth SEO tactics visit Moz.

Content Marketing
As well as helping your website to rank higher in organic search, producing regular content such as blogs, newsletters and customer case studies help to display your expertise and depth of knowledge. Ensure you share all this content across your various channels to assist with building your brand image.

PR
Public Relations is a valuable tool for building an industry presence and developing brand identity. People don’t buy products, they buy brands, so understanding how you want to portray your brand to your target market is key. Many people think PR is just sending out press releases, but a well-rounded PR strategy should include attending business events, developing community relations, corporate and social responsibility, crisis management, employee relations, media relations and social media.

Social Media
If you do not already have any social media accounts or you post-irregularly, you are missing the opportunity to engage with current and potential customers and share your company and employee news, customer success stories and all the great content you have developed. All this information adds to building your brand and showing your expertise in your current field. Showing your company is engaged in the latest technology, industry news or current events,
builds trust that you are leader in your industry.

2. Find new customers


Before interacting with a website, the average B2B buyer conducts 12 different online searches (Google). This means if they can only find your competitors when searching online, you were not even considered. Here are a number of tactics for attracting new customers: 

  • Paid Online Advertising
    • Google Ads Search campaigns
    • Google Ads Display campaigns
    • Retargeting - using Google Ads or social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, you can display advertising to people who have visited your website or searched for specific keywords.

 

  • Paid Social Media
    LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok… there are many different social media platforms but the platform you choose will very much depend on your target audience. But given that 4 in 5 B2B leads from social media come through LinkedIn, this is an important one to have in your tool kit.

There are a variety of other demand generation tactics depending on what is right for your business:

  • Webinars
  • Email campaign to prospects - ensure you have permission to email them
  • 3rd party advertising (relevant industry or news publications)
  • Podcast advertising
  • Direct Mail and telemarketing
  • Newsletters – ensure you have a sign-up form on your site to develop your database of contacts.
  • Live Chat – prospects often feel more comfortable asking questions via live chat than filling out a web form.
  • Events (Tradeshows, customer forums, networking events).

3. Cross-sell/Upsell to current customers

Importantly, your current customers should not be ignored. Acquiring new customers is a large feat so it is important to maintain and build on that relationship. Look for opportunities to provide further value to them and communicate regularly via the below channels:

  • Email marketing
    • Cross/upsell campaigns: Tailoring an offer to a specific customer by promoting a related or supplementary product based on the customer’s previous purchase history.
    • Reactivation campaigns: ‘We’ve missed you’ campaigns that are targeted towards customers who haven’t bought from you in a while.

  • Retargeting to current customers – using Google Ads or social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, you can offer cross-sell/up-sell offers to current customers visiting your website.
  • Newsletters - Keep customers informed and across new promotions with regular news and updates.
  • Social media – Showcase customer case studies and cross-sell/up-sell offers that would benefit them.


Data-driven insight
Now that you have built your marketing base, you will start generating some valuable data that you can use to optimise all your channels. Make sure you are visiting your analytics regularly to see what campaigns are the most effective and why. What is driving new leads? Which promotions are current customers responding to? What keywords bring the most traffic to your site? Use this information to continue building your marketing efforts to ensure you put your money and time where it is most valuable.

 

Potential customers need to feel a level of comfort and trust when interacting with your company. By having a strong Drive-to-web strategy and using omni-channel marketing, you can build a solid online brand presence that will put you front of mind at that critical purchasing moment.