Business owners know they need a solid marketing plan to increase demand, leads and sales, but the right marketing strategy can do more than that: it can increase the value of your business when you’re ready to sell and can even attract a buyer.
Below are seven key elements for developing an effective business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy that will increase the valuation of your company.
- Start at the End & Work Backwards
Effective strategies start with identification of specific, long-term goals: revenues, customer retention, margins, new target markets, new solutions, and even your exit strategy. For example, doubling your revenues in five years with 95% customer retention.
Once you have these goals in place, it’s important to work backwards to the present as a starting point, setting smaller and more achievable goals along the way.
- Articulate Your Value
What problems do you solve for your prospects and what is the value of the solutions you provide? What differentiates your company?
The most effective messaging clearly conveys how you solve problems, the value of solving them, the opportunities created when problems go away, the resulting return on investment (ROI), and how you do it.
The brand storytelling framework is a way communicate the value you provide, your differentiation, and other fundamental elements of your story that will resonate with prospects.
To formulate your brand story, it’s important to get input from team members who interact with customers and external partners, and make sure you understand the personas of buyers and influencers and what causes them to act.
Clearly articulating your brand story messaging along with your thought leadership is best achieved using professional copywriters, like those found at B2B digital marketing agencies that are experienced in brand storytelling – they will take the time to understand the needs of your prospects and how your business satisfies them.
- Provide Evidence of Your Credibility
Thought leadership is important but so is providing evidence of your credibility in the form of testimonials and case studies that describe the challenges your customers faced, how you solved them, and the impact your solutions had on their business.
When happy customers review you on platforms like Clutch, Google and other third-party review websites, your credibility grows even more.
- Capture Demand
Boosting your online visibility is critical for reaching prospects that are actively searching for the solutions you provide. Optimizing your web pages, blogs, and other website content with search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for capturing this demand.
If your organic rankings need improvement, it’s important to evaluate syndicating your content on third-party websites that rank higher than yours and investing in paid search options like Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and LinkedIn. Also known as “pay-per-click” (PPC) advertising, paid search options allow you to buy your way to the top of search results when you can’t get there organically in a timely, cost-effective manner.
- Generate Demand
For prospects that aren’t actively searching for solutions you provide but have a latent need for them, you need outbound marketing to generate demand.
Email campaigns are the fastest and most cost-effective form of outbound marketing, but there’s a lot of competition for the attention of prospects. If you get an open rate less than 10-20% for a B2B prospecting email, you’ve probably missed the mark, but you may still get enough people to respond to make it worthwhile especially if you make compelling offers they can’t resist, like free downloads, webinars or assessments.
Though it requires a higher investment than email campaigns, direct mail can yield 50% conversation rates—not just open rates but actual conversations with prospects—when followed up within 1-2 days of sending.
You can also target attendees of specific events with email and direct mail campaigns before and after, industry associations websites and publications, Vistage community networks, and other places where your target market is active.
- Educate Prospects
Prospects need to know how you solve their problems and why you’re the best option for solving them. Educating them with content throughout the buyer’s journey helps them understand your value, increases their perception of your credibility, and helps them make the right choice.
Compelling educational content includes blogs, guides, case studies, product comparisons, ROI calculators, webinars, and product demos.
- Partner with a Strategic Marketing Expert
Results-driven marketing plays an undeniable role in increasing the valuation of B2B companies, but developing and implementing effective strategies isn’t easy to do on your own. Hiring a marketing agency that works as an extension of your team that offers high-quality B2B content and digital marketing services can increase your chances of success more cost-effectively and faster than hiring full-time marketing employees.
The resulting increase in demand, leads and sales will increase the value of your business and may even attract a buyer.
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