Is your business ready for the future? The dynamism of the B2C landscape is rapidly and conspicuously seeping into the B2B business paradigm. B2C buyers enjoy the intuitiveness and effectiveness of B2C trends, and being the same people who sit on buying committees, they expect similar experiences from B2B vendors.

In other words, thriving in this space cannot be pegged on laidback marketing methods. If you want to operate and compete successfully, you’ll need to identify intuitive strategies that showcase your brand as a future-forward business. Let’s discuss five such marketing strategies that you should consider adopting:

1.Data Driven Marketing

Gartner Inc. estimates that by 2026, up to 65 percent of B2B sales companies will shift their sales models to rely more on data-driven decisions. Their tech stack will be purposely built to unite data with analytics and workflows to improve consumer engagement, adapt tactics, predict sales, and simplify workflows.

Businesses that start now will likely enjoy a larger market share in their fields while others play catch up.

As you implement your data-driven consider the following:

• Define a strategy for data handling. This starts from identifying credible sources (internal and third party) to standardizing data, data location, and privacy.
• Be selective about the data you collect. Ideally, you’ll want data that details behavioral patterns as well as firmographic and technological data to help you put together campaigns and solutions that match your potential customers’ needs.
• Eliminate departmental data silos. It’s common to find different departments holding onto “exclusive” data on multiple platforms. Given, there are scenarios where data needs to remain inaccessible for security reasons, get the team to detail the information they need and put that in a central database.

2.Retargeting Campaigns

Did you know that retargeting site visitors can improve B2B  conversions by up to 278 percent?

B2B buyers are consistently sampling different websites for solutions similar to your own. You want to do more than create fantastic solutions, you want to stay top of mind—and remarketing is an excellent way to do this.

How?

• Use all three funnel stages to serve the right content precisely when it’s needed. You can retarget top-of-the-funnel visitors with content-heavy pages—as opposed to your products/services. Those in the middle could use case studies or whitepapers while the bottom guys receive demos or free trials.
• Put together targeted landing pages. Tailor specific landing pages to share more information about your offerings. Social proof landing pages are perfect for showcasing case studies or testimonials or redirecting visitors to a site page loaded with studies or statistics.
• Extend lucrative offers. We often open multiple websites in search of one thing. If a visitor viewed your page and left without signing up or making a purchase, they have probably seen something better at your competitor’s site. Enticing them with percentage discounts may help pull them back.

3.Cold Calling

Does cold calling have a spot today or in the future?

While more people are opting for remote purchases, the pandemic lockdowns revealed an innate desire within us to connect with other human beings. Calls allow you and your listener the opportunity to have raw conversations, raise concerns, receive answers, and assurances and forge a working relationship.

More than 50 percent of senior-level buyers prefer telephone contact because they understand the importance and value of forging human relationships.

So yes, cold calling has a place in the future, what is dead though, is bugging people with irrelevant offerings. The forward-looking strategy leverages marketing intelligence to build custom lists of prospects who, by using your solutions, stand to gain.

Best practices include:

• Being persistent. There will be times when your prospects don’t answer the calls or you hit voicemail. Keep at it, and leave pleasant voicemail messages where necessary, just don’t give up after the first or second call.
• Learning how to draw in customers. Typical business problems include improving efficiency, growing numbers, and cutting down overheads and other costs. Be explicit about your solutions’ ability to solve the prospect’s headache and you might land a listening ear and a meeting.
• Identifying the hours when prospects in your target industry are likely to answer. Market segments are different meaning the “suitable calling hours” that work for one industry may not apply to another. Test what works for your customers and use that.

4.Account-Based Marketing

A McKinsey study that sought to identify what drives purchasing decisions among large B2B buyers revealed two key insights:

First, large buyers value the sales experience. It ranks near pricing in importance. Secondly, service and support are the most crucial factors in buying. They are twice as important as the pricing.

Through account-based marketing, customer-facing teams assume a unified approach and zeros in on highly targeted accounts for maximum impact. This alignment leads to higher level personalization throughout the journey that ensures the prospect enjoys their experience towards becoming your customer.

Top practices include:

• Tailoring content in line with audience needs. From blog posts to video content, guides, ebooks, and checklists choose topics your audience cares about. Dive into specifics that expound on their pain pains, concerns, and needs.
• Tiering your customer testimonials. Create broadly-based testimonials that explore common use cases as well as specific market segment customer stories that your key accounts will resonate with.
• Leveraging direct mail. Research your prospect’s preferences to ensure you send something they will appreciate having. Done right, this tactic may help foster connections with decision-makers and get them talking about your brand.

5.A/B Testing

This tactic allows you to test versions of the same variable to see the outcome they will produce. These results allow you to pinpoint the version that delivers more desirable results. Done right, even minor tests may help improve lead conversions and sales.

Considering the following:

• Test different variables. Start with simple testing like subject lines, colors, content offers, frequency, CTA placement, embedding videos, or including testimonials. You can then graduate to more complex testing like page-level test designs.
• Avoid testing all variables in one go. Otherwise, you won’t know which variable made your campaign more effective. Sticking to one variable allows you to accurately determine which test subject worked better and why.
• Test marketing channels as well. We often limit testing to email marketing and website design, but your marketing channels matter too, and should be tested. Set metrics for your blog, social media channels, and search engine optimization to know what works best.
• Implement changes based off testing results to maximize impact. Where the test doesn’t produce significant changes, test a new variable. A/B testing is an ongoing strategy that ensures you’re playing at the top of your game.