How should you market your business and offerings in a B2B (business to business) context? This alone can be challenging, but couple this with the fast-evolving sector that is the tech industry and you’ve got yourself a real challenge! This blog will help to explain how to keep on top of newly arising trends and offer some marketing campaign ideas to inspire you.
Why marketing is important for tech businesses
First of all, it’s important to establish the reasons why marketing is essential for tech businesses and why a marketing strategy should be at the top of their to do list.
It goes without saying that the tech world is arguably the most rapidly changing sector out there. Because of this, it is possible to understand why the competition in the tech sector is so fierce; someone constantly comes out with a new product which may fulfil the needs of your customers more adequately. While constant innovation is beneficial for consumers, allowing them to gain access to the latest tech out there, it can be a problem for organisations as the expected turnaround for new products has dramatically increased over the years.
This is the main reason for the importance of marketing in the tech field. If you are able to communicate your offerings effectively and in a compelling way within a saturated, fast-moving, and competitive market, your customers are more likely to remember and prefer you over your competition.
So, how do you counteract this race to innovation through communications? One simple way is to leverage your unique selling proposition (USP) and create a communicative relationship with your customers. Be precise about your target market, create a persona for them and go to town on explaining how your product can meet their needs effectively. In the same way, your business’ USP can serve as a way to express and ascertain how your products or services are original and innovative, when contrasted with the activities of your competitors. Without calling out the competition, by knowing exactly how you will meet your customers’ needs, you can make your product look better.
Read the blog on customer segmentation here to find out more about identifying a specific target market.
Marketing channels you should be using and why
Now that we have established why marketing is important for b2b tech businesses, it’s time to figure out how to communicate to your target market effectively. Choosing the marketing channels that will engage them is critical to an effective strategy.
While marketing channels can include everything from billboards, brochures, social media, websites, PR, and much more, in the case of the tech industry your choice of marketing channels should focus mainly around digital channels with the addition of a few traditional methods. The reason for this is quite simple really; if you wish to be viewed as an innovative business in the tech world, you should be using the latest communication methods available. The channels you should consider are summarised below:
Email marketing
Let’s start with email marketing first, as it is one of the pioneers of digital communications. Email marketing provides in-depth information about your business’ activities straight from the source to individual customers so you can create a seemingly 1-2-1, exclusive-feeling relationship with them. If you have collected quality data and built an effective contact database, you can personalise emails even further to show customers you really know them and impress them.
Social media
In today’s increasingly connected world, social media is a huge marketing channel with plenty of benefits and definitely should not be overlooked. Email marketing is often detailed with a clear structure but social media can be a bit more ‘human’ and create a behind-the-scenes feeling. Bring your followers along with the intricate, interesting development of your technology. In other words, if email marketing is the producer of a news show, social media is your lead anchor.
Blogs
These concise articles are a great way to showcase your business’ expertise and skills through current topics relevant to your industry. By maintaining regular blog posts on your business’s own website or through the use of relevant third-party publishers, you build trust in customers by sharing your knowledge. In addition, if search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques are used, more internet traffic can be directed to your website where you can showcase your pioneering technology.
Public relations
Even though the foundation of a B2B tech business’ communications should be conducted through digital means, we mustn’t forget the power of public relations (PR). PR, similarly to blog posts, allows for your business to expose its offerings and expertise through relevant and credible outlets. For instance, if your business operates within the tech industry, you might want to consider reaching out to outlets such as The Verge or Wired to communicate press releases on new products or services. These outlets have a very specific target in mind, in this case; tech fans. By doing so, you increase the chances that your publications will be picked up by people who truly care about the innovations you have to offer. The result: raising awareness and increasing your reach, plus your credibility by association with a trusted publication. These specialised outlets kind of do the communication segmentation and targeting for you, why not take advantage of it?
Industry-specific events
Likened to PR in their targeted approach, events are a great way to nurture or create new relationships with existing or potential clients in the B2B world. They create a human atmosphere where industry-relevant businesses and clients can come together to discuss innovations, operations, and goals. Once again, the important aspect of this channel is its direct focus on an industry-relevant audience while leaving all of the uninterested audience out of the equation. In the case of a B2B tech business, this channel is extremely important and can be explored through conferences or exhibitions. Furthermore, it gives customers a chance to learn more about your product or service first hand or even try it out for themselves creating immersive experiences.
B2B Tech Business Marketing case studies
So, how well do these B2B tech marketing tools fare in practice? Here are a couple of examples of impressive campaigns:
1. Drift
Our first example is a company called “Drift”. The idea behind the company’s marketing was to counteract automation processes feeling impersonal. Even though the company relied heavily on these processes to execute their offered services, they realised that the aspect of human connection was becoming less and less prevalent and customers wanted a personal touch. As a result, they decided to create a marketing campaign based on the internal aspect of the company by showcasing many different employees, their thoughts, views, and opinions during their day-to-day activities. You might think that’s all well and good but how is it any different than an “About Us” page? Well, this employee-centric approach allowed the company to add an additional dimension to their messaging; the human element.
Through this, the company came across as genuine, real, and trustworthy. In addition, their communication approach was based around rapid documentation of internal happenings rather than creating the latter out of thin air and posting them on social media. This gave the impression of a spontaneous, active, and most importantly human company to the public which evolved into trust as this campaign progressed.
A campaign like this could easily be delivered across social media, email, blogs, via PR, and more – lending itself to a variety of marketing channels relevant to the tech industry.
2. Cisco
The second example is one that used creativity as a hook. Cisco is by no means regarded to be the most thrilling company out there, their business revolves around telecommunication products for business purposes which doesn’t sound as exciting as Apple’s unveiling of the iPhone in 2007, for instance. However, through their “SuperSmart Security – Graphic Novel” published through their own website, Cisco has managed to leverage a compelling and creative marketing approach to generate interest in a sometimes boring industry.
The campaign revolved around a comic-style graphic novel staging the ACME corporation experiencing cybersecurity issues and a hero called SuperSmart flying to their rescue while explaining where these issues lay and how Cisco could fix them.
It demonstrates how seemingly boring information can be delivered creatively without having to compromise. A testament to its impact is the fact that even though the campaign was launched way back in 2015 (which is a lifetime in the world of marketing communications), it became one of the brand’s best-performing content assets.
So, ultimately this example shows that creativity in delivering information will resonate deeply with consumers and allow for interest and awareness to be built through easily accessible channels.
In summary…
B2B tech marketing is far from easy. However, through a comprehensive understanding of your target market, their needs, your business’ USP, and effective marketing channels, you can draw blueprints for an effective communications plan. Ultimately, the best B2B tech marketing strategies are creative and resonate with your target market to a deeper level than simply getting the best deal possible. Remember, you don’t have to try too hard, just make people understand what your business does, who it’s for, why they should choose you, and what makes you better than your competition.
