The world of technology rides on the ephemeral tide with one technology replacing another in no time. In such a scenario, technology companies in the B2B sector, who strive hard to reach out to the right decision makers on the right channels through the right resources, may find themselves adrift due to remaining unaligned with the latest trends and strategies. On the other hand, with a proper understanding of the strategies and techniques, B2B technology enterprises can demonstrate themselves as the ones who thoroughly understand the challenges their target audiences face and resolver of these challenges to provide significant ROI.
Let us now look upon 6 of the strategies that B2B enterprises in the technology sector must adopt to experience substantial transformation:
1. Creative Content Marketing
Source: Content Marketing Institute
Blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics—content comes in many varieties, and is still one of the most widely-used techniques to address your target audience. There is, however, content everywhere. All of your competitors have it in large chunks and they might be using it aggressively for marketing. Then, how does your content stand out from others? The answer is: creativity. Creative content differentiates you from others and if done well would take you steps ahead of your competitors.
Useful Tip: Address the pain points subtly and suggest the technical solution effectively. Do not just harp on the tune of selling your product or service.
2. Establishing Thought leadership
In the technology market today, there is no dearth of sellers, but of leaders. And if you can establish yourself as a leader, then the sky is the limit of your success. One would always want to procure technology products and services from another who, not only understands their problems and prescribes unique solutions, but also is vastly knowledgeable. For example, a resourceful and unique perspective on how technographics can play a significant role in B2B marketing will have impressive implications on your audiences.
Useful Tip: The topic of the thought leadership content must have a scholarly tone, and be of the prospect’s interest and the business’ offering. Do not make it look like a sales pitch from any angle.
3. Authoritative Case Studies
B2B consumers may engage with newbies only in the rarest of the rare cases. For seasoned campaigners, evidence-based validation is almost indispensable. Case studies play a significant role in establishing a technology enterprise’s qualification and experience by displaying how their products and solutions have been resolving the issues of their clientele. According to a Hubspot research, case studies are the fifth most popular form of content in B2B marketing.
Source: HubSpot
Useful Tip: Always take approval from you clientele before publishing their names on your website or any other marketing collateral. The best strategy is not to mention the name of the client at all. Simply mention their business!
4. Captivating Gamification
The attention span of people are on a consistent decline. Therefore, building engagement to connect with your audience might be quite challenging. Gamification or gamified marketing can engage audience from up to 20 minutes to 2 hours, which is quite difficult with other forms of technology marketing. With gamification, there are myriad ways to incorporate creativity to devise unique experiences that helps not only in raising brand awareness, but also in driving clicks through the website, enabling B2B enterprises in capturing qualified leads.
Source: Piknik
Useful Tip: Try to make the gamification experience as interactive as possible adding a real-time factor. For example, an assessment gives a score or a grade after completing the questions. Or a technical quiz at a live event has sales rep present there who can contact the leads on the spot once the quiz is done.
5. Introducing Automation Tools
Enterprises in the tech sector need to consistently contact and nurture leads to stay on top of their game. Automated marketing tools enable accumulating the leads, forming the marketing pipeline, lead segmentation, and then applying your strategies to market. What makes marketing automation important for tech enterprises is that the pre-sales and sales cycles can be exceedingly large depending on the size of the company, technology offerings, targeted consumers, etc., for a tech enterprise.
According to Forrester, the spending on Global Marketing Automation will reach $25 Billion by 2023.
Useful Tip: Combine marketing automation with lead scoring to form segments that can help in determining in which stage of the sales funnel the leads are placed.
6. Regulating Influencer Marketing
Technology proliferation has led to a constant noise of tech marketers trying to sell their products and services. And when there is a lot of noise, you only listen to the people you trust. This is analogous to influencer marketing where business decision makers often listen to what a well-known expert (influencer) has to say about a technology solution or service, while evaluating it to procure and implement. If technology enterprises partner with the right influencers, they will not only present their solutions and services to the right audience, but will also build credibility leveraging the influencers’ influence!
Source: Tomson Influencer Marketing Study
Useful Tip: Before reaching out to an influencer, you must make sure to have built upon a definite credibility yourself. Some of the usual ways to do this is to have quality content in your website—blogs, infographics, white papers and other resources. Having a strong social media presence is mandatory.
Tying the Beads Together
Enterprises in the technology sector must begin with enhancing their content marketing endeavors infusing as much creativity as possible in the marketing collaterals to stand out from the herd of competitors. Thought leadership content and case studies make sure the organization is a significant force to reckon with, while gamified marketing gives a highly engaging and interactive touch. Marketing automation makes sure leads are nurtured and segmented over a period of time to ensure sustainable business and consistently increasing ROI. With all of these in place, influencers strengthen your credibility and take you to the right audience.