Five of the Best Practices for B2B PR
Referring to the process of an exchange of products or services between businesses B2B is very different to B2C marketing between businesses and members of the public. B2B PR differs from typical public relation services as selling is done to a business audience. A huge shift in marketing trends and changes in the way businesses choose B2B vendors has resulted in new techniques for B2B PR practices. With so much information on the topic out there, it can be tough to know what strategies to implement and what will work best for your business. We provide an overview of five of the best and most effective B2B PR practices.
Content
Content is more than just king, it is crucial for the success of any B2B PR agency. A recent study revealed that 60% of executives make a decision on purchases based on content that they found on the Internet. Agencies such as Vantage PR perform well here, putting together thorough and diverse PR action plans. Marketers need to be creative with their offerings and content, trends suggest that eBooks are out while other sectors such as video courses are gaining popularity. The type of content you choose should depend on who you are targeting (see measurement below).
Marketing Integration
With so many social media platforms, as well as an array of marketing managers often working for one business, synchronizing each of the platforms can often be a real challenge. For the best practices, it’s important to have a solid plan in place so that all marketers help to build a brand’s vision and put out a consistent message to help turn a b2b sales call into a sale.
Granular Segmentation
One of the most important factors of B2B Public Relations is to be able to accurately identify your audience and ideal clients. You will need to get really specific with the details and break it down to things such as demographics, psychographics, rational behaviours and emotional behaviour. Spend a lot of time gaining clarity in these areas and it will really pay off in the long run. Once you clearly identify your customer profile, you’ll be able to create better content and thus provide a more attractive service for their needs.
Partnerships
At one point, B2B marketers were looking just to engage businesses. Now, things have moved towards being in a partnership with other businesses. After all, you want to be able to continually add value to their business in order to help them to move closer to their goals. Excellent B2B marketers are building strong relationships with clients in order to better serve them. They may have wholesale incentive programs from somewhere like Lift & Shift in place with personalized deals to encourage repeat business, as an example.
Measurement
Last but not least, is correctly measuring each of your marketing strategies. For some businesses, the measure of success will be the amount of passive income they generate, for others, it could be the number of free-trial sign-ups. Analytics will enable you to really gain a deeper insight into what is working and what needs to be adapted. Measurement in B2B PR can be broken down into three main areas: outputs, outcomes and results. Understanding these metrics is essential for the development of any B2B PR marketing strategy. One aspect of this is split testing, while another is using questions to see how potential clients can fit into a sales funnel. This will enable you to provide them with relevant content, while also having separate lists to market different options to.
Pick and choose what you like from this list. We recommend adapting and testing these points to better suit your audience. After some trial and error, you should begin to notice a big shift in the success rates and client satisfaction for your B2B PR.