Understanding The Channels:

An Overview Of Social, Mobile, Digital And Traditional

Marketing For B2B

With an endless gamut of channels coming into

play in today’s complex world of marketing, B2B

marketers often find themselves reeling under the

pressure of which one to choose. There’s digital in

general, mobile marketing and how our

omnipresent devices are changing everything

about marketing. There’s social media marketing

and, of course, there’s traditional marketing, which

still remains an important part of the equation.

However, in the B2B industry, not every marketing

channel makes sense for every business. No one-

size-fits-all-formula works either. What works then?

In order to find the right marketing channel for your

business, you’ve got to be a little inquisitive, a little

more intuitive and a whole lot more focused.

ONE GOAL, MANY STRATEGIES – KNOW THE

DIFFERENCE

While your marketing efforts should be customer-

centric, you may go about it through different

marketing routes.

TRADITIONAL MARKETINGDisplay ads, direct mail, banner ads, billboards,

TV, radio, and a whole lot of offline tactics are

important when it comes to attracting the

attention of your target customers. These are

traditional marketing tactics and, for a long time,

were the only way to do business.

DIGITAL MARKETINGI like to think of digital marketing as traditional

marketing done online, as the basic premise remains

the same – engaging the customers and responding

to their concerns. While digital marketing may seem

like a less human interaction than face-to-face

marketing, remember there’s a human behind every

desktop or mobile screen that you’re targeting.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETINGWith marketers increasing their social media spending at

a steady rate, this has emerged as one of the most

popular marketing channels for B2B companies. Great

for building a brand image for your business, for

listening and gathering insights, and for finding and

engaging with prospects and customers, this marketing

strategy works best when integrated with other

marketing tactics.

MOBILE MARKETINGMobile has, without question, taken over as the most

preferred medium for research and consumption of

content on the Internet. As such, a designing and

developing all marketing strategies with a mobile first

mindset isn’t an option, it’s a necessity.

MARKETING STRATEGIES MUST OVERLAPAt some point, your marketing strategies need to

converge to give you the best outcomes. For instance,

if you are selling software, you can find new

customers and educate or inform the existing ones

about new products or updates through social media

and/or the use of video in creative ways. But, if you

sell farming equipment, you might split your marketing

efforts into two ways – social media for educating

customers, combined with traditional methods like

direct mail, banner ads or TV spots to help you do the

actual selling.

Then again, dividing your prospects into different

segments would require you to have more than one

marketing strategies in place to target specific groups.

This is why you need a marketing mix – a seamless

integration of two or more marketing tactics

LET’S START WITH THE BASICS

The heart of every marketing effort should lie in its target customers. So if you start by

shutting out all the noises and focus only on your target customers, you will be better

positioned to develop the right marketing model to suit your business goals. Remember,

what’s good for your customers will ultimately be good for your business. Here are a few

steps you can follow to know what might work for you:

KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS

An important fact that most marketers

ignore is that customer intelligence at the

core of your marketing efforts. So the

ideal way to begin is by gaining a better

understanding of your customers. Note

their key demographics like age, gender

etc., identify their needs, their purchase

patterns, spending habits, what influences

their buying decision, and so on.

Collecting and analyzing this data is

crucial in deciding which marketing

channels are the best fits for you.

ANALYZE YOUR OWN STRENGTHS

AND WEAKNESSES

Introspecting is a great way to build your

marketing model on the basis of your

strengths while supplanting your

weaknesses. Carry out a SWOT analysis

to spot the strengths and weaknesses of

your business operation while identifying

the opportunities and threats you are likely

to face.

UNDERSTAND WHAT ‘MIGHT’ GIVE

YOU THE BEST BANG FOR THE BUCK

To find the right marketing voice for your

business you would of course be looking

for that channel which offers the best

returns on your money and efforts. But

ROI is a highly elusive term and if you’re

not sure what to measure, you could well

end up mistaking all those glorious social

media “likes” and “shares” as a great

return, while there’s no real cash coming

in. When it comes to calculating your ROI,

look at your vanity metrics, but use your

real metrics – things like list growth, form

submission, leads, conversions, etc., and

what channels they came from to measure

your true ROI.

DON’T BE TEMPTED TO TRY EVERY NEW TRICK

IN THE BOOK RANDOMLY

If you wish to try something new, by all means, go

ahead. However, don’t be swept away by every shiny

new tactic that arrives in the market. If there’s

something that’s working for you, stick to it while

adding one or two tactics in your marketing mix and

then evaluating their effectiveness. Try out one

marketing model at a time. Give your strategies

some time to show results before jumping on to the

next one.

While trialing different strategies is something that

most marketers do, they tend to overlook the main

goal behind their marketing efforts – giving their

customers the best experience ever. When this is

taken care of, your marketing efforts will fall into

place.

Dan Newman is the president of Broadsuite where he works side

by side with brands big and small to help them be found, seen and

heard in a cluttered digital world. A regular contributor to Forbes,

Entrepreneur and Huffington Post, he is also the author of two

books, a business professor and a huge fan of watching his

daughters play soccer.

Dan NewmanPresident of Broadsuite

@danielnewmanuv dnewman@broadsuite.com