Welcome to the first in a series of posts that will explore the role of business to business (B2B) marketing within the realm of social media. We will do our best to provide you with a comprehensive breakdown of how B2B marketing in this particular medium is not only a great idea, it’s a must.
If you hold the position of B2B marketer in your company then you are already aware of how crucial your work is to the success of the business. The ability to generate quality leads while staying within the constraints of a tight marketing budget is no easy task, yet it’s one that regularly goes unnoticed by the men at the top. Research has shown that a large percentage of CEO’s remain skeptical that marketers make an impact on company earning, most of which is likely down to the fact that the success or failure of many traditional marketing methods are hard to gauge in terms of return on investment (ROI).
There is a way to take those traditional methods and incorporate them into social media so that you can end up with a clear picture of just how well each one has performed. You will be able to generate more legitimate leads that can easily be quantified, and all for much less than you would normally expect to pay. That all adds to to a positive ROI that cannot be dismissed by even the most stubborn of CEO’s.
Social Media Marketing Hub and Spoke Infographic © by ralphpaglia
Dipping your toe into B2B social media marketing will require you to think a little differently than you have in the past. The traditional marketing method usually meant being given a budget at the beginning of the year and then dividing that money up into such marketing campaigns as direct mail, print publications, TV, and more. While it can be argues that these are all tried and true methods of marketing, the problem tends to be that you are basically left having to pay a middle man so that you can rent the attention of the average consumer.
The trend of business to consumer (B2C) is one that has grown stale in recent years, and it’s no real surprise that its steady demise has arrived at the same time in which interest in social media is on a meteoric rise. More and more companies are seeing the benefits of B2B marketing via social media and are adjusting their strategies accordingly. Those businesses that choose to stick with the older methods are quickly losing ground that will be difficult to make up moving forward.
You may ask why a business wouldn’t adopt social media into their marketing strategies and the simple truth is that it all comes back to business owners that still fail to see the big marketing picture. Your most difficult job as a B2B marketer may very well be convincing your employer that this is the way to move forward, which is exactly why our next article will supply you with some solid arguments that will help convince your boss of the need for change.
