Marketing Technologies For B2B Ventures
Perform a quick Google search for B2B marketing strategies, and you will almost certainly land on numerous pages full of articles providing a generic list of familiar marketing strategies; SEO, PPC, social media, loyalty programs, email, and much more. Many of these well-known strategies also carry the same themes: know your target audience, personalize, and use data analytics.
In this article, we will inevitably cover many of these themes and well-known strategies. However, the emphasis and key focus of this piece centers around the technology that can best assist you in incorporating them optimally and make them work well for you.
Just because something is popular, repetitive, or over-emphasized, doesn’t mean it’s incorrect for your business; there is plenty of data and research out there to demonstrate just how effective B2B marketing strategies are. Still, understanding why they work and then effectively using emerging technologies to help you deliver these more effectively can be the game changer you’re looking for to give you that competitive edge.
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Marketing Technologies
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
When it comes to improving sales and client relationships, any experienced B2B or B2C marketing analyst will impress upon you the importance of having key information to refer back to with efficiency and accuracy.
A CRM system (otherwise known as a Customer Data Platform) can provide you with a centralized database for storing customer information, allowing you to manage and track your interactions with both leads and customers. This information can then be used to automate tasks, such as lead nurturing and follow-ups; additionally, when used in conjunction with production planning and scheduling software, it’s easier than ever to keep a finger on the pulse and everyone informed as to how everything is tracking.
Popular CRM systems include HubSpot, Monday.com, Zoho, and Salesforce.
Content Management Systems (CMS)
A CMS will make it easier to manage your website content easily, including updating pages, publishing blogs, optimizing search engines, and more via a seamless user interface.
Typically, web pages are written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS programming languages, and when trying to build a website without a CMS platform, it becomes necessary to learn these languages and write a lot of code, which is cumbersome to say the least. CMS platforms solve this problem by allowing you to create a website without any need for writing code or learning programming.
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Top CMS platforms include WordPress, Square Space, Wix, and Ghost.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
This certainly seems to be the marketing buzzword of our modern times; SEO is very powerful tool to maximize the volume of traffic that arrives at a particular website. Usually assisted by keyword research and competitive analytics, this tool can make your page more visible, rank higher on search engines and help you find (and direct) your niche customer base to your page. Again, this tool is not just for B2B but also B2C.
Top SEO plugins include Google Analytics, Moz, Screaming Frog, Majestic, and SEMrush.
AI Automation Tools (AI)
Firstly, it’s important to note that marketing automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are not the same thing.
Marketing automation is geared toward helping humans carry out simple, repetitive tasks, while some level of manual optimization of data is still required to ensure proficiency. AI, on the other hand, uses data to mimic human intelligence and reasoning to make predictions, suggest optimizations, and, if required, dynamically apply them. AI technology is starting to change our world in ways we are yet to fully comprehend, and it has the potential to change marketing and automation forever, so watch this space.
Top AI systems include OpenAI, Jasper AI, Bloomreach, Flick, and Brandwatch.
Video Marketing Platforms
If video marketing isn’t already a substantial part of your brand’s marketing strategy, it’s time to make it so; almost 50% of today’s online search engine inquiries are video searches related to specific services or products. Video marketing platforms offer services like creating, hosting, and analyzing video content; some offer personalized video creation integrated with other marketing tools.
Top Video Marketing Platforms include Vimeo, Youtube, Animoto, Powtoon, Wistia, and Filmora.
Parting Thoughts
These are just a few examples of B2B marketing technologies available; what you choose should ultimately depend on your business, its goals and objectives, and importantly, the budget you’re working to. It’s important to evaluate and select tools that align with your unique marketing strategy to achieve the most value.
