In this article, we provide the ultimate playbook for effective B2B marketing strategies in 2020 to crush your goals for lead generation, customer acquisition, and client engagement.

You will learn the best practices and B2B marketing tips that you can quickly implement to help you improve your B2B marketing strategy, which is a vital aspect in creating predictable and repeatable streams of new leads, customers and revenue.

81% of marketers expect the majority of their decisions to be data-driven by 2020. Seventy-six percent say that’s already the case. (GARTNER)

Some B2B marketing strategies will be evergreen concepts that you’ve most likely already heard before as a B2B marketer, while others might provide you with a brand new way to look at your usual approach.

Effective B2B marketing strategies in 2020 will be different from what worked in 2019 as new marketing and sales technologies have recently become more widely adopted by B2B marketers.

For example, the marketing world has seen a paradigm shift away from the traditional “funnel” and more toward the “flywheel” outlined in the video below. Inbound marketing agencies are ditching the out-dated funnel structure and choosing the momentum-building concept of the flywheel that actively attracts, engages, and delights customers throughout their entire journey.

In this definitive guide, you can expect to learn actionable insights that you can start using today, so get your pen and paper ready to take notes. The following is a list of the most potent B2B marketing strategies, tips and trends that your B2B company should be implementing into your B2B marketing in 2020 in order to grow faster.

Below are 18 of the most actionable B2B marketing strategies to implement in 2020

1. Partner with B2B Marketing Experts

Right off the bat, let’s establish the difference between business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) marketing, as the first step in any process is truly understanding the landscape. If you don’t already know, B2B companies sell products or services to other businesses, while B2C companies sell products or services directly to consumers. Easy enough right?

While most business owners understand the difference between B2B and B2C models when it comes to their company’s products and structure, they often forget how it comes into play when it comes to their marketing campaigns.

According to a helpful blog post by HubSpot, these are the six main aspects that separate B2B marketing strategies from that of B2C.

ROI matters in B2B marketing. Unlike customers, business owners want to know how and when your product or service is going to make them money. They need to be able to explain to their superiors when they will see a return on their investment.

The typical B2B customer wants to be educated. Before making a decision, a B2B customer wants to fully understand the product or service to be able to relay this information to the rest of their team. They’re more open minded when it comes to content marketing.

They want more detailed content. For a B2B customer, the more detailed and personalized to their company your content is the better. They want to feel catered to and that you fully understand their needs and concerns.

They have a longer chain of command. The first person you reach out to at a B2B company is most likely not able to make the final decision. There is a longer chain of command and therefore, more customer profiles, personas, pain points and key selling points to determine.

You’ll experience a much longer sales cycle. A B2B lead requires much more nurturing, unique and detailed content, and has a lot more at stake. It’s not only a purchase, it is a business relationship. For this reason, a B2B sale will take much longer and require more patience.

The contract with a B2B customer can last for months or sometimes even years. As mentioned in the bullet point above, a B2B lead doesn’t just purchase your product or service, they enter into a contract and ongoing relationship with you and your company.

Many B2B company owners fail to realize how these differences come into play when developing their marketing campaigns.

In most businesses today, there are more than one decision maker which means there is more than one ideal buyer profile. For this reason, you will need to determine the main players within the company and the key selling points for each individual decision-maker. Business owners, CEOs, and managers all require a different approach.

Although it's important to consider the personal needs, challenges, and motivators of the key players in a company, a B2B buyer’s journey is still quite different from the journey of an individual purchasing a consumer-facing product or service.

In B2B marketing methodologies, your buyer isn’t purchasing your product for themselves. Yes, a human hits the “complete order” button, but the real customer is the organization that the person represents. Always keep that in your mind when organizing a marketing campaign.

2. Go back To The Drawing Board

Another factor that often gets overlooked in marketing is doing the proper research. It’s the foundational stone of the whole process and can make or break the entire campaign.

You should never stop your research, as the marketing landscape is constantly changing. The following are just a few of the areas to keep up to date with in order to stay ahead of the curve.

Research the market itself. You should know all of the ins and outs of your particular market category, including what your competitors are up to, any new technologies being developed, or updates to the industry.

You should know all of the ins and outs of your particular market category, including what your competitors are up to, any new technologies being developed, or updates to the industry. Research the organization. Aside from studying the individual buyer persona's being targeted, take another look at the buyer profile of the company footprint to learn more about the stake holder mapping and identify other possible decision maker, which have not yet been communicated to you and your company.

Aside from studying the individual buyer persona's being targeted, take another look at the buyer profile of the company footprint to learn more about the stake holder mapping and identify other possible decision maker, which have not yet been communicated to you and your company. Research the persona's. Go back and objectively analyze your ideal buyer’s needs, challenges, desires, and motivators. These characteristics can evolve over time for a number of reasons.

Go back and objectively analyze your ideal buyer’s needs, challenges, desires, and motivators. These characteristics can evolve over time for a number of reasons. Research key performance. Dive in and study the appropriate metrics, relevant data points and performance analytics of website traffic and associated conversion tracking.

Within most B2B verticals, your company is selling value and measurable results to other businesses, and the main goal is to help them grow bigger and make more money. While that will never change, you still need to understand their value proposition, the pain points that stand in the way of their growth, and the best solutions for their challenges.

Research will help you understand your potential clients, which will make the campaign more direct, and thus more effective. But, remember, this is something you need to do constantly, or at least periodically.

Research is not something you do only once, as you can risk falling far behind your competitors with outdated information.

3. Partner With Niche B2B Agencies

Teaming up with experts that know what they’re doing can be extremely helpful to reaching your marketing goals. B2B marketing agencies have the insight, team and strategy ready to go.

There are several moving parts within any marketing campaign. These parts range from traditional methods to inbound strategies to web redesign and social media. With so many aspects to consider, partnering with a B2B marketing agency that specializes in these areas can assist you in lead generation, keeping track of key performing metrics, and scaling your business.

Companies with a limited budget to build an internal marketing team that is complete with competent strategists, certified professionals and specialists, plus access or subscriptions to the necessary softwares can benefit greatly from outsourcing your B2B marketing programs.

4. Refine Messaging & Positioning

While having a great logo, and beautifully designed business cards and rollups won’t hurt, one thing will make a statement more than any other—your website. It should be your most successful sales rep.

Your website needs to look awesome and work even better. If it still looks the same it did when you founded your company, better get to work and hire some designers and developers who focus on conversion optimization over the visual aesthetics. Remember, the look and feel mean nothing, if the site is not effectively converting visitors into leads.

There’s no getting around this. Your website needs to be top notch, easy for the buyer to use, and a killer data-collecting expert. The following is a list of tips to ensure that your website is working with you, not against you.

Three words: growth driven design (or GDD). This strategy of web redesign is being implemented more and more by newer B2B marketing agencies because it allows companies to keep what works and what doesn’t work when they attempt to redesign. By focusing on rebuilding specific pages and launching them individually, your business can save time and money and obtain clear insight into how your pages are performing.

This strategy of web redesign is being implemented more and more by newer B2B marketing agencies because it allows companies to keep what works and what doesn’t work when they attempt to redesign. By focusing on rebuilding specific pages and launching them individually, your business can save time and money and obtain clear insight into how your pages are performing. The speed of your website is crucial. Studies show 40% of users won’t stay on your website if it takes more than three seconds to load. The speed of your website is an incredibly important factor to attract visitors and keep them long enough to turn them into prospective buyers.

In addition to the user experience perspective, the speed of your website also matters when it comes to Google ranking. If your site performs super slow, don’t expect to be on the first page of Google.

Your website has to be secure. Many users will avoid your website at all costs if it is not secure.

It should be mobile friendly. Nowadays, your customers have a small computer screen in their pocket. Make sure you spend just as much time developing and testing the mobile version of your website, as that is one of the main ways potential buyers are searching for your product or service.

Keep your messaging clear and on point with your brand. When a buyer visits your website, they should understand who you are and what you have to offer on the very first landing page. Be sure that your messaging is upfront and presented in an appealing way.

5. Gain More Awareness with Search Engine Optimization

In a nutshell, search engine optimization is the process of producing high quality content, optimized to make your web page or blog post the first that pops up in unpaid search results.

The old days of link wheels, profile directory backlinks, site-wide footer links and article directory marketing being effective at increasing your organic rankings in Google organic search results are long gone.

Effective SEO techniques center around a paradigm shift away from keywords towards topic clusters that show Google how your content is related, in support of E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.

The most effective B2B SEO strategies focuses on quality link building and collecting click through performance data. That measured approach helps you learn what the most effective titles, meta descriptions, semantic keywords, phrases with high commercial intent, developing content that offers an answer or solution to the problem and then guiding the traffic back to your site.

The HubSpot video outlines how HubSpot leverages blogging to rank so effectively.

These are 6 actionable tips when planning your SEO strategy.

Do your keyword research. It’s critical that you know what people are searching for related to your brand, how many people are searching for it, and in what format they prefer to receive the information.

Create personalized content. When deciding on what content to produce and optimize, consider the needs, challenges, and motivators of your targeted buyer persona that cause them to buy. It’s important that your content is targeted and personalized to the right audience.

Write in real, natural, and understandable language. Make sure the content you create and deliver is conversational. Even if your ideal clientele is a B2B professional and understands the technical lingo, they want content that is easy and quick to read.

Implement on-site SEO. Once you know what keywords or phrases your ideal customers are searching, it’s important to incorporate specifically designed website pages that work to provide an answer to the question those users were asking through their search.

Use technical SEO. Don’t just focus on appealing to the user. A key element of SEO is being readable by the search engines. Understanding the technical side of search engine optimization can be a game changer when working with developers and website designers.

Use link building to gain authority. This relates to gaining credibility through word of mouth. Link building is the process of gaining links from other authoritative websites, building your brand’s messaging, and earning a trusted audience that shares your content. Inbound links and internal links work to boost your credibility.

6. Implement the Right Tools and Consolidate Your Software

If you’re running two different automation systems, an ABM software, a CRM that only your sales team really uses, and more than one data acquisition platform. It’s time to objectively rethink your technology stack to further align your sales and marketing teams.

Leave behind the idea of “the more tools the better”. This isn’t the case. Consolidate by utilizing all-in-one providers and working with an agency that can recommend the best software solutions. As the chart below illustrates, a good portion of a team members day can unnecessarily be consumed with data entry related tasks. In some cases, having clear internal composite of marketing qualified leads vs sales qualified leads can enable your team to further leverage nurturing workflows.

It’s critical to the success of your B2B marketing strategy that you’re working with the most cost-efficient and least time-consuming softwares that help align your teams and their work efforts.

7. Focus On Adding Value with Case Studies

Adding value should be your mantra in anything business-related, but B2B marketing is where you should emphasize it even more. People who are browsing your products and services need to have a clear sense in what solutions you have to offer for their challenges.

When it comes to B2C, adding value is achieved by writing blog posts or offering a discount code here and there. If you sell supplements, creating a how-to guide that lists the best-kept recipes, or the most effective forms of exercise for weight loss will get you more attention and many opportunities to mention your products in the text with those discount codes.

A successful B2B marketing strategy often includes content marketing like how-to blog posts and articles, but requires more in-depth content as well. Look at it this way - business owners, managers, and other key people are already educated about running a business and know what they want to achieve.

Giving them general, one-size fits all advice won’t have much of an impact. And trying to reach too broad of an audience base is never a wise idea in B2B marketing campaigns, as you can miss the point.

So what do you do?

One proven approach is to show how your products and services have already added value in real-life situations with your existing customers. Case studies are a perfect example of that.

Case studies have a similar effect as word of mouth or referrals, which is one of the most powerful marketing tools. When a friend, family member or colleague of a potential customer recommends your brand, they’ve already developed a trust and bond with your products and are more likely to purchase. It’s an easier sell.

Through appropriately crafted case studies, you can leverage your relationship and success with another well-known company and the bond an ideal buyer has with that company, to gain their trust right from the start.

A case study provides a before and after look into a success story you’ve created for one of your existing clients or customers. These success stories for targeted niche verticals are great for mapping content across the buyer’s journey and more importantly help show ideal customers that you understand their particular industry pain points.

Having in-depth studies can also be a valuable source for future blog posts that will explain how the whole process played out. You can also interview the business owners, and use their praise for your testimonials page, which is another excellent form of promotion.

8. Test Your Ideas

Marketing is not straightforward or strict. There are no guarantees, no matter how many hours you spent figuring out and fine-tuning your idea.

That’s why it is always a necessary step to use the information you’ve gathered during your research phase to field-test your strategies.

You can A/B test email campaigns, landing pages, but also website redesign through growth driven design. The idea is to find a combination that has the best conversion rate, or that keeps customers moving faster and more effectively through your sales funnel.

Generate leads with strategic call-to-action buttons in different places throughout your site. Update your copy, color schemes, try out new landing pages and actions, and implement creative email headlines to test the waters and see what works best. There are so many things to try, and without split testing, you will never know what works with your audience.

You can also test different pricing schemes, and see if freemium works better when compared to time-limited trials or money-back guarantees. Also, you can test out different lengths of promotions, or different features included in each package.

The opportunities and combinations are limitless, but the more you try, the better idea you will have.

9. Expand Your Branding Footprint

While creating content for your website is effective and necessary, branching out to other websites and communities that relate back to your brand is even better. This can include guest posting, but also offering your opinion through public speaking at local conferences.

All of these important b2b marketing tactics will get you, and your company, in front of a new audience. Of course, you need to make sure the audience fits your ideal customer profile, and that it can bring you closer to your potential customers.

Writing a guest post, or speaking at a conference or a podcast will allow customers the chance to get to know you, and you will be able to present your brand in the best light possible, which combined can help drive organic traffic to your website. That way, you will build personal relationships with the right business executives, and closing the deal later will become much easier through positive experiences.

Another effective way to branch out entails asking your employees to create content themselves. You shouldn’t force or expect this of your employees, but asking politely if they’re interested doesn’t hurt. Also, the content should be high-quality and engaging. Offer rewards to those who produce content, to make them want to create more, and see how all this works for you.

10. Niche It Down

Nobody likes a master of none, especially when it comes to B2B marketing. Your approach should be aimed at providing valuable content to particular buyer personas or particular industries. Ideally, you should specialize in tackling one type of issue, not to be a general problem solver that knows everything.

Whether you help bloggers reach #1 on Google or you create custom-made pastries boxes for bakeries and cookie shops, niching down will help you specialize and become a problem-solver for a specific kind of issue. People will know you as an expert in your field, which will also help you boost awareness, gain more qualified leads and ultimately, grow your business.

You should approach your B2B marketing strategy with the same intention. Set a goal, choose the target audience, and execute. Going narrower may bring fewer people into your sales pipeline, but they are more quality leads that have a higher chance of converting into sales.

Focusing too wide will maybe get you more email addresses, but unless your goal is to sell them, that isn’t such a big deal. It is much better to have fewer people in your sales funnel, that are leads of better quality than to have a bunch of low quality leads from Facebook, where your ideal B2B customers are not browsing that fall off along the way. The primary goal of effective B2b marketing is to increase sales; everything else is secondary.

11. Be Direct & To The Point with PPC

You might win over the department manager and their superior with compelling and targeted content. But how do you reach and connect with the top dog that will ultimately finalize the sale?

Google Ads results receive 65% of the clicks that started with buying keywords, while organic results only receive 35% (Craig McConnel)

The key decision makers within a company are most likely extremely limited on time. It’s important to keep things short and sweet when it comes to attracting these influential leads.

First, when running your email campaigns, pay attention to subject lines. That is what often makes or breaks your email. Business executives are flooded with emails every day, and they will be reluctant to open another one that is trying to sell them something.

Second, it’s wise to make sure your emails add value, and you state that in the subject line. Also, avoid adding attachments, as they often trigger the anti-virus, or immediately send the email to the spam folder. Keep it short but effective.

Because most executives lack time, running a blog with relatively long articles might not be the best approach. Sure, it will earn you increased organic traffic, as long-form posts contain a lot of keywords. But decision makers don’t typically have the time to read 3,000 word blog posts you release twice per week. Conversely, more agile B2B marketing organizations are now looking to map organic content to the B2B buyer's journey, but also map many types of online ads to each stage of the B2B buyer's journey, as shown in the diagram below.

This is where PPC, or pay-per-click, advertising comes into play and brings us to the third tip in targeting decision makers. The following list describes the critical factors to keep in mind when planning your PPC advertising campaign.

Choose the right platform. The most popular platform for PPC is Google Ads, but with the explosion of social media, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. now also offer effective pay-per-click advertising.

Next, decide the type of ad to run. You have the option of running a display ad, video ad, search ad or app ad. These range in effectiveness depending on your product and ideal customer profile.

Figure out your budget and bidding strategy. It’s important to have clear budget goals before you decide on your PPC ad campaign. There are several bidding strategies to choose from as well, and knowing what you’re allotted to spend will help you choose which route to take. Google Ads offers: Cost-per-click bidding, Cost-per-thousand viewable impressions, Cost-per-acquisition, and Cost-per-view bidding.

Use “negative keywords” in your PPC verbiage. In other words, this describes the analysis of what popular words and phrases to avoid so as to not waste money placing ads on pages that are irrelevant to what you’re selling.

Measure your results. Keep track of your conversion vs sales and what keywords and phrasing are actively driving traffic, generating leads and converting visitors into customers.

PPC advertising is controlled and specifically designed to attract a targeted group, while blogs are there, available to anyone, and are less likely to attract the right kind of people. Ideally, you should do both, but if you are interested in getting more leads in a shorter time, PPC is a much better investment.

49% of people said they click on text ads; 31% on Shopping ads; and 16% on video ads. (Search Engine Land, 2019)

Below is a great LinkedIn video from their content series “Live with Marketers,” discussing effective B2B marketing strategies. This LinkedIn video is an excellent primer for this article, which focuses on looking forward to ways to be an effective approach in 2020.

12. Leverage Account Based Marketing

Outdated, traditional marketing approaches can often focus on attracting as many leads as possible to the top of your sales funnel with limited criteria necessary to show quick wins or revenue spikes. An indirect approach like this can require a lot of effort with little return.

Account based marketing (ABM) describes a personalized strategy for an individual buyer within a business. A targeted tactic like this can be beneficial for a number of reasons.

It promotes a higher probability of acquiring a new client

It offers a larger return on investment.

It helps you cultivate stronger relationships with your customers.

It shortens sales cycles.

With ABM, your focus is to directly target key decision makers at companies that fit the requirements of your ideal potential clientele. Here, you focus on real people and create the whole campaign personalized for them. This results in a much shorter sales cycle, but also more successful conversions.

Alignment between your sales and marketing teams is crucial when it comes to account based marketing. Sales and marketing need to work together to deliver cohesive B2B ABM strategy and tactics without seeming redundant or aggressive.

In 2020, account based marketing is perfect for B2B customer acquisition efforts that involve longer sales cycles and more complex deals, and it can be the turning point that results in closing major deals. For this reason, it is definitely a highly marketing strategy that you should consider implementing, as it can reap huge benefits.

Even if you don’t close the deal immediately, account-based marketing will get you closer to the right people at the companies that interest you the most. After the ABM campaign ends, you will be on their radar, which will make future contact much more likely.

13. Actively Engage In Social Media

We may be talking strictly B2B marketing, but that does not by any means exclude social media. In this day and age, social media reaches across all industries.

Developing a B2B social media marketing plan today is not only useful but absolutely necessary. However, it can be difficult to know the right way to approach social media. For B2B companies, these tricks of the trade will help.

Find your voice! Social media is personal, real, and relatable. Social media profiles that stand out are the ones with personality. You might be a tech startup that sells software to other companies, but you can still develop a fun, informative or interesting persona.

Check out the competition. Peek at the accounts of your competitors and know what they’re posting. It’s important to keep tabs on their social media marketing campaigns and their success to see what works. Also, note their audience to see how it matches up to yours.

Make sure your content is original! Users know when content is original and creative, or borrowed and fake. They can tell when you post something just to appear active on the app. That’s why it’s so important to create unique and original posts to stay relevant and relatable.

Mix it up with multimedia. Keep it interesting. The fun part of scrolling through social media platforms is seeing different types of posts: videos, photos, polls, stories, or GIFs. Use multimedia content to keep the attention of your audience.

Shout out your employees! As I mentioned above, social media is personal. When a B2B company shines a little spotlight on an employee, it gives a sense of familiarity and allows customers to put a face to your company. It also encourages the employee or employees to share with their own networks which boosts awareness of your brand.

As I mentioned above, social media is personal. When a B2B company shines a little spotlight on an employee, it gives a sense of familiarity and allows customers to put a face to your company. It also encourages the employee or employees to share with their own networks which boosts awareness of your brand. Engage. Whether it’s a quick “thanks” with an emoji, or answering a post about a reported issue, engagement is key. You’ll have much more success with your social media marketing if you stay on top of your communication.

LinkedIn is an excellent social media outlet as a professional business network. In the last few years, LinkedIn grew tremendously, and it is no longer solely a digital CV database. It has incorporated ways to be more interactive and user-friendly.

Many people use LinkedIn, including big names higher up in the chain of command of major companies. But, it’s important that their employees use the network even more. If they start noticing your posts, you can bet it will lead to some engagement and will help you get closer to the new clientele.

Other platforms that are more “social”, like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, are extremely useful as well. Remember, John Smith, CEO at Corporation L.L.C. on LinkedIn, in his full navy blue business suit, is just John Smith on Facebook sharing adorable pictures of his children. It’s the same person in two different environments. And those two environments offer two separate, but effective ways to turn Mr. Smith into a lead.

Instagram can work for B2B as well. Targeted native ads that fit seamlessly into your ideal buyer’s feed often feel less invasive and work well with the millennial demographic. Video content is a must for Instagram marketing campaigns.

Choosing the right social media strategy heavily depends on your business concept. There are no strict rules. As long as you post regularly, respond to comments and questions, and keep it original, you’ll see more traffic to your website.

Keep in mind, it is better to have one active and professional-looking profile than to have multiple inactive accounts, so choose wisely.

14. Live Chat Functions, Virtual Assistants and Conversational Selling

When it comes to adding a virtual assistant or live chat function to your website, many marketers or business owners make the mistake of assuming it is solely to handle customer complaints. While it is an incredibly effective and powerful engagement tool for customer support, it is much more than that. In fact, it has become a popular choice of communication for customers in 2020.

Engaging with your customers when they are already browsing your website is key. They are already interacting with your website and they have your products and services front-of-mind. It is a fast and simple way for them to get the answers they need. A live chat function can work as your best salesperson.

“Visitors who use web chat are 2.8 times more likely to convert than those that do not. Plus, they spend 60% more on their purchases.

15. Leverage Long-form Content

Content marketing is a long-time effective strategy of B2B marketing. But it is important to recognize that not all content is going to generate the same results. Long-form content is much more powerful in driving traffic, building thought leadership and raising awareness surrounding your business.

However, it’s not just the length of the blog or article that matters, but the quality as well. You want to offer value to your potential customers and provide informative content that generates trust. The most effective long-form content includes case studies, how-to guides, webinars, and product demonstrations. It is also helpful to craft your long-form articles around the specific pain points and address the buyer’s journey of your ideal customers and target buyer personas.

16. Keep It Visual

Speaking of powerful content, another key element to include in your leadership-building content is the visual aspect. It is critical to include images and video in your blogs, case studies, and other content to help boost awareness. In 2020, visual pieces and graphics are more effective than audio or text. Breaking up a long-form writing piece with graphics makes the content snackable and more attractive.

Adding photos or videos helps potential customers retain the helpful information you have to offer. Experiment with video content as well including testimonials, product demonstrations and educational tutorials. You can also generate graphs and charts to demonstrate valuable data and statistics. Just be sure not to overwhelm the viewer with a distracting visual!

The other advantage to developing infographics, graphs, charts, images or videos is that they can be syndicated on other publications to further boost your brand awareness. Other websites are happy to utilize your visual content to add value to their own pieces, while linking to your page to improve your SEO rankings and boost your brand awareness.

17. Establish Brand Culture and Values

Another vital part of an effective B2B marketing strategy in 2020 is establishing the core value proposition and culture of your business. It’s not all about delighting your customers these days, you want to delight your employees too. Your internal work culture should inspire them to promote your brand organically. Plus – your employees have the ability to magnify your marketing efforts, so you want them to give it all they got.

Employee activation takes more than just asking your team members to share content and keep their LinkedIn up to date. It goes much further than that.

To successfully “activate” your employees, you want to encourage your workforce to curate and share content that they are proud of and that authentically interests them. Additionally, you need to create an official program that inspires your team members to get involved.

18. Go Old School

B2B brands are spending more of their marketing budgets online channels. That goes without saying. However, that doesn’t mean online channels should be the only channel of marketing you do. People still go to work, communicate with their friends and family, and spend a legitimate amount of time without a screen in their face.

Therefore, implementing some old-school B2B marketing techniques is still an effective method. Word of mouth remains one of the top marketing tactics. For this reason, building a network that rewards the customers who bring in new clients is one of the best ways to spark referrals and recommendations.

As for conversational sales, you can use telesales, live chat and conversational marketing as a sales channel. Although it is not face to face, it is still contact with a real person, which will always convert much better than solely dealing with random emails or bots.

Also, old-school marketing such as flyers, TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines still have an impact. Just make sure to show your ads in the right kind of media. Business and finance magazines, talk shows on the radio or TV are all excellent examples. If you have a heftier budget, running advertisements on these networks can be useful.

Another old-but-gold tactic is organizing events, which falls under the category of experiential marketing. This will allow people to get to know you in an up close and personal fashion, which is something irreplicable.

You can host your own events, but also attend and speak at other local business conferences whenever time permits. Make sure to attend the events even if you are not talking, as it is a great way to spread your network and make some new contacts.

B2B Marketing Strategy Takeaways

We hope this article helped you gain more in-depth insight into how to refine your company’s approach to improve the effectiveness of your B2B marketing strategy. These actionable insights also follow industry best practices that will stand the test of time and will continue to be effective in 2020 and beyond.

After reading this, it’s possible you may still feel a little bit overwhelmed. You might still not know exactly where to begin and implement these B2B marketing strategies. Don’t worry -- you are not alone as shown in the chart below.

Many expert B2B marketers can plan an effective approach, but often lack the internal resources to execute successfully your internal approved B2B marketing strategies. This is where we highly recommend having a conversation with veteran B2B marketing agencies who really know all of the ins and outs.

When you look at these B2B marketing strategies outlined above more closely, they don’t seem that groundbreaking. They may even seem a little obvious. Yet even the best B2B marketing professionals are not fully leveraging these B2B marketing strategies to their full potential.

In this new decade, marketing teams wear many hats internally. For this reason, you should consider leaning on one of the expert niche B2B marketing companies to execute your vision and see a profound difference in your B2B marketing ROI.