Business-to-Business Marketing
Best Practice Articles Report
ID:
December , 2014
The main priorities of this report will center around the articles studied over the course of this semester. This report will provide a review of each of the articles, discussing the major points of issue that have been raised in each of the articles. The articles generally center around business-to-business marketing, and thus, the discussion will also focus on these issues.
2. Articles themes
There are a number of important themes that are addressed in these articles, and they must be examined in detail. These themes are important for individuals and companies who are interesting in mobilizing their B-to-B business strategies. The themes that will be discussed here are the question of why B-to-B marketers do not innovate more, how B-and-B marketing can properly mobilize social media for maximum marketing effect, and how to properly target B-to-B marketing campaigns. Many of the articles discussed throughout the course touch on a variety of these topics; the themes are elaborated upon further in the discussion below.
2.1 Why B-to-B marketers don’t innovate more
B-to-B marketers are faced with a unique issue: they must market to businesses, and they must be careful about taking risks that may prove to be too much for the company in a financial sense or in a public perception sense. Finn notes that there are a number of things that business may want to do in terms of new things that they would like to try; however, they are too risky. Finn also notes that this is not necessarily a good strategy for businesses, as there needs to be room in the budget-- and within the business as a whole-- for changes that should be made to the customer service experience. Friedman notes that millennials can be excellent insofar as considering new strategies are concerned, but they often know too little about the marketing world as a whole to integrate social media marketing with traditional marketing tactics. Davis suggests that a relationship with IT and consistently changing the ways that business address the SEO market can also help B-to-B marketers innovate.
2.2 B-to-B marketing and mobilizing social media
Social media is a relatively new field, but it is growing rapidly and business that can mobilize their social media following have become powerhouses within their respective niches. Friedman suggests that it is a mistake to focus too strictly within a social media campaign; expanding a business’ social media marketing strategy to encompass more areas is much better for the business as a whole. Davis suggests that digital listening is fundamental for success in the current media state; social media and the feedback that can be gleaned from social media is excellent for honing these digital listening skills.
2.3 How to properly target B-to-B marketing campaigns
Newman suggests that acting on people’s emotions is the key to a successful campaign. Newman writes, “Therefore, a successful implementation of the 1:1 model requires B2B companies to rev up their customer relationship efforts. Building a long-term and sustainable relationship is at the root of using one-on-one model in the best way possible. Undoubtedly, the customer management in B2B is a long-drawn procedure where efforts have to be made over a longer period of time.” Myler agrees, stating that fostering trust between the customer and the business is fundamentally important for the success of a marketing campaign.
3. The role of the articles in understanding B2B marketing course
Properly targeting consumers with online marketing takes many forms. One of the many forms that it takes is Search Engine Optimization, or SEO marketing. SEO marketing is a technique used to maximize a business’ location in search engine results. Davis suggests that widening the business’ search terms can be very effective for SEO marketing opportunities in the B-to-B marketing fields.
In a similar vein, social media marketing has been used extensively by marketers in recent years; social media marketing uses web 2.0 media tools like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to market to their users. This gives the user a sense that they are able to connect fully with the company, and gives the company a much larger reach in terms of potential customers. Many companies have made mistakes in the realm of social media marketing because it is such a new field; Friedman suggests leveraging millennials in the attempt to design a social media networking strategy, but to keep traditional marketing in mind when designing these campaigns. Social media serves a dual purpose for businesses. It provides them with a very large platform from which to reach customers, but it also serves to allow the business to listen to the concerns and the issues that customers have, according to Davis. Newman suggests something similar, indicating that emotion plays a significant role in the development of a marketing strategy.
4. Building long term customer relationships in business markets
Building long term relationships in business markets is a crucial marketing objective and should be at the heart of marketers’ initiatives. Businesses must rely on the relationships that they build with other companies and with their customers; without these relationships, a business can easily become non-profitable. Building relationships with customers and businesses is increasingly complex, and the tools available on the internet make this relationship-building a more difficult process, but overall a potentially more rewarding one.
- Mobilize social media networks. This allows the business to build and maintain a personal relationship with customers; it also increases the amount of trust that a customer has in a business, because it increases the availability of the business.
- Take risks, but take risks that make sense. Taking risks without consideration is unnecessary, but sometimes risk-taking in the social media sphere and the internet marketing sphere as a whole can pay off significantly.
- Expand the SEO marketing tools your company has in existence. Expand the niches that the company uses, and look into developing more search terms.
- Build relationships. This means relationships with other businesses, customers, and within the company: IT, for instance, can be highly effective for today’s businesses if they know how to properly leverage the knowledge that an information technology professional has.
5. Feedback about this learning experience
Perhaps the most important thing I have taken away from this experience is the importance of relationship building in the marketing world. More knowledge on these issues could help us use and leverage the tools that we know how to use already-- tools like Facebook, for instance, could be expanded upon.
