The 3 Most Effective Channels for B2B ECommerce Marketing

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The 3 Most Effective Channels for B2B E-Commerce
Marketing

• Its easy to see the eCommerce world as one, big,
  universal market. After all, its just about
  selling products and services online, right?
• While that may be true, there are some vast
  differences between the B2C eCommerce and B2B
  eCommerce.
• The B2B eCommerce industry is already gaining a
  lot of momentum in 2018. A common trend (amongst
  many) is that B2B eCommerce merchants need to
  invest more time and money into technology in
  order to better manage their business and stay
  competitive.

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The 3 Most Effective Channels for B2B E-Commerce
Marketing
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Shifting trend from B2C to B2B

• The report by Statista on B2B eCommerce in 2017
  has estimated 2.3 trillion B2C sales online
  while for B2B it is 7.7 trillion which is more
  than double the B2C market value. What are
  causing these huge shifts? Here are some reasons
• The rise of self-service has increased with 57
  B2B customers wanting to access their accounts
  and orders online.
• 65 of B2B customers want scheduled deliveries
  and simplified ordering experiences, from B2B
  eCommerce portals

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B2B growth rate by selling channel

• Today, the B2B eCommerce industry has multiple
  business models, including distributors,
  manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers, selling
  online. Compared to their online sales in 2016,
  B2B companies have witnessed significant growth
  in 2017
• Distributors grew 6.2
• Manufacturers exhibited 7 growth
• Retailers acquired 26.6 growth
• Wholesalers gained 5.8 growth
• The average growth rate across all businesses was
  7.1 in 2017 from 2016.

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The most effective B2B eCommerce online marketing
channels

• Lead acquisition is the lifeline for any
  business, and B2B eCommerce businesses have
  multiple online marketing channels to utilize. If
  we look at the percentage share of each channel,
  we can draw some useful conclusions for preparing
  B2B marketing strategies
• An eCommerce website acts as the most effective
  channel and needs all the possible integrations
  and enhancements to be most effective.
• Email marketing campaigns may be the old school
  marketing approach, however, it is still regarded
  as a highly effective channel.

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SEO is also highly effective as it can directly
improve your brand awareness

• Social media is also very powerful. If it is done
  right it can add real value to the business from
  building thought leadership to deepening customer
  relationships.

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Build relationships

• Know the differences between B2B strategies and
  B2C strategies. The goal of a Business-to-Consumer
  website is to make a sale when the prospective
  customer visits the page, whereas B2B websites
  are designed to build long-term relationships
  with companies who will consistently return to
  that supplier. This means that immediate sales
  are unlikely the goal should be to initiate a
  conversation and start the selling process.

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SEO
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Know which metrics are important

• When we run Analytics reports for B2C websites,
  we focus heavily on conversions with regards to
  how many people have made a purchase. For B2B
  websites, conversions often take place offline
  and are not as reliable an indicator of success
  as B2C conversions. More relevant Analytics
  indicators would be factors like Time on Site and
  bounce rate, both of which indicate how
  interested prospects are in learning more and
  forming a partnership. You can also set up custom
  goals that track, for example, how many people
  download a whitepaper or enter their contact
  information to request a quote.

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Choose keywords relevant to your B2B market

• Perform market research on your target audience
  so you can know how to speak to them, and then
  select the right keywords. Beware of the keyword
  wholesale, which is often used by B2C websites
  that sell in bulk or offer discounts, which leads
  to a misuse and saturation of that keyword. This
  doesnt mean you have to throw it out altogether,
  but do supplement your strategy with keywords
  that are highly relevant to your target market,
  like industrial machine equipment suppliers or
  material handling systems supplier.

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Consider other avenues for communicating
information

• Website content is especially important in the
  B2B world, as your prospects will be looking for
  as much information as possible prior to making
  their decisions. Consider the B2C consumer, who
  can look at a photo of a product and make a
  purchase. Now contrast this with the B2B
  consumer, who will be interested in price points,
  the efficacy of the product, supporting options
  and maybe even specifics like engineering
  techniques or a commitment to environmentally-frie
  ndly practices. White papers, resources pages,
  Slideshares, product videos and infographics are
  all especially helpful forms of content for the
  B2B market.

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Dont forget the fundamentals

• Of course, best practices for SEO continue to
  apply. This includes keyword-rich metadata,
  technical optimization, high-quality on page
  content and white-hat link acquisition
  strategies. B2B websites also have a relatively
  untapped opportunity to use Schema markup to
  their advantage.

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PPC
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Create thorough landing pages

• B2B buyers tend to do a lot more comparison
  shopping. Its rarely a quick sale, as these
  purchases are often larger in scale. This means
  its important to make sure your landing pages
  are very thorough. Be sure to include a lot of
  helpful information, including testimonials from
  other businesses, phone numbers clearly displayed
  for easy contact, FAQs with answers and details
  regarding bulk purchases (if relevant).

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Tailor your calls to action

• Make sure the ads clearly speak to a business.
  The buy now or order today call to actions
  arent ideal for businesses. Youd be better
  served with phrases such as best in class,
  award-winning, contact us or see what we can
  do for your business. Also, mention price points
  if youre able. It will help businesses know more
  information about what you sell and will increase
  the quality of the buyer who clicks on the ad.

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Add on business modifiers

• Use keywords with a business mindset. So if
  applicable, use the bulk terms or phrase
  add-ons such as for business, for companies
  and corporate. Additionally, businesses
  typically know exactly what product or service
  they want, so make sure to target those specific
  keywords. Use the correct acronyms, part numbers,
  model numbers, etc. Customers may have some idea,
  but businesses know and will search for those
  exact things.

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Run ads during work hours

• Monitor your ad schedule. Maybe businesses are
  only shopping for products and services during
  the week from the hours of 7am-7pm, so youd omit
  other hours and weekends.
• Re market to stay top of mind
• Finally, remarketing is a great tool for
  businesses. As noted, B2B products and services
  tend to have long buying cycles, and remarketing
  can help close those deals.

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Email Marketing
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Define the goal of your email marketing

• What is your goal when you send emails to your
  customers? Do you want to provide discounts?
  Promote yourself as an authority? Release new
  products or catalogues?
• Defining a goal will help direct each newsletter
  template, layout and what the primary callout is.
  This will give your email marketing strategy a
  cohesive feel instead of seeming disjointed. This
  will also help in design, where the primary
  calls-to-action are based on email goals.

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Test the frequency of email launches

• Use the data from your efforts to determine the
  best time and day to send your newsletters.
• How many emails should you be sending?
• Determine what qualifies as a reasonable
  turnaround for your company.
• Weekly, bi-weekly, once a month, quarterly?
• Make sure youre reaching your subscribers when
  the timing is best for them.
• Consider running a second pass newsletter to
  capture subscribers at a later date who didnt
  open the first one.

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Create an email marketing calendar

• As soon as possible, create a calendar for
  showcases, promotions, holidays, seasonal trends
  and so on. This can be quarterly, bi-yearly or
  mapped out for the entire year, and will give
  your email marketing efforts direction and a full
  strategy. Your calendar should reflect your
  seasonality, and you can use metrics
  year-over-year to grow and refine your efforts.
• As you can now see, 2018 looks to be a great year
  for the B2B eCommerce industry.

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Thank You