How Should B2B Businesses Use Facebook?

For the longest time, social media marketers said that B2B businesses will not benefit from being on Facebook. In a short period of time, the tides have turned and Facebook can be profitable for B2B businesses when utilized properly. How should B2B businesses utilize Facebook to get the maximum benefit?


The most common approach is to provide valuable information to your target market. Post research, benefits, updates, articles or general information about the products/services, but ‘Do not sell’ was the main message. That can be very boring. You can try to spice it up, but anyway you put it –it gets old and boring.

Another approach was to treat it just like B2C and offer deals and sale, sale, sale!! This does not work in B2B marketing. You will not keep very many true customers as fans on Facebook if you approach it this way. B2B customers are looking for answers to their problems – not deals and pushy sales pitches.

Just ‘socialize’ and have conversations with your B2B customers. The B2B customers don’t want to be your buddy and discuss weekend plans with you on Facebook. It is a business relationship that has a very clear line that most customers do not want to cross.

I have found the most effective way for B2B businesses to utilize Facebook is to create a personality and help center. What do you mean personality and help center?

Personality – depending on if you are a sole proprietor or a larger company – you will start conversations about current events in areas of interest to the owner or company. For example – the owner of the company is a big sports fan – start conversations about his favorite team that is in season. Ask questions and make it fun, not competitive. The company supports a certain charity - keep people up to date on the charity and things related to the charity.

Help Center – I stated earlier that B2B customers are wanting answers/solutions to their problems – provide the answer/solution. Post the most current news about the products and services you offer. Report how a customer used your products and services to solve a problem. Ask the question of how they would solve a specific problem. Keep it industry related, however, not always about your products and services.

By providing personality and a help center – you make your B2B business fan page both valuable and fun!!

Do you have any other ideas of how to be successful with a B2B business page?

What Types of Businesses Benefit From Social Media Marketing?

The debate on the internet about what type of businesses will benefit from social media marketing is plentiful. Both sides of the argument have some good points – the problem is that social media is always changing and growing. New social media sites are being developed daily and the established sites are constantly changing and adding features. What worked yesterday may not work today.

When debating the social media marketing questions they are usually discussing 2 types of businesses – business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C). The old school or traditional way of thinking in B2B must be face to face and salesperson driven and B2C is getting your name out to the masses.

I believe that everyone can agree that B2C companies will benefit from social media marketing. If you believe that there is a B2C company that exists that cannot benefit from social media – you are in a very very small minority. You have to realize that there are so many different types of social media today, that there is definitely at least one that will benefit all B2C businesses.

The obvious social media networks for B2C are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace. It seems like new social media networks and social media types are popping up daily. Not literally, however, new social media ideas are being developed rapidly. FourSquare and QR codes are a couple of new tools in social media. Mobile loyalty/reward programs and coding online messages for your customers – just a few years ago who would have thought these would be in existence and successful.

Each of these social media outlets offers different benefits for businesses. It is important for business owners to understand the benefit, identify which one or ones will benefit their business and develop a plan. Do not just sign up and go – you will waste a lot of time and money and more than likely fail.

The traditional B2B marketing is still successful in many industries, however, is that the only way to do business? Are the customers in B2B starting to look for providers instead of waiting for them to come to their door? This is where the internet has changed B2B the most. First it was having a website to provide information about the company and that was sufficient 10 years ago. Now, the B2B customer is wanting to know more about the B2B provider. This is where social media is changing the landscape of B2B marketing. It is not the daily Facebook and Twitter posts that work in B2B, but the over 100 million member LinkedIn network.

Just having a profile and business listing on LinkedIn is just like having a website. Participating in groups, Q&A, recommendations and growing you network will give your potential clients the information they are looking for that will set you apart from the competition. Your potential clients want to know more about you and your business and they don’t want to ask you – so make it available to them and others.

So, ALL businesses can benefit from some type of social media marketing!!  Social Media is an ever changing market and the top site in 2015 probably is not even active today. I just read a blog today that used A.B.L. (Always Be Listening) as one of the ways to build a social selling machine. I agree ALWAYS BE LISTENING!!

Where do you listen?

Does Good Old Fashion Networking Still Work?

Networking has always been the number one way for businesses to grow and increase revenue. Whether you are a B2B or B2C company, networking has never been more important than it is today for business growth. You are in one of two camps in what you view as networking – 1) face to face, shaking hands, group networking or 2) social media networking.

The first, face to face, shaking hands, group networking is the way it has been done for a long time. It works great for local businesses and B2B business owners will tell you this is still the strongest way to network. There are groups of professionals being formed in all areas that are networking to help each other in generating leads. Some groups are open and allow as many people as can attend and some groups are closed to just one individual per industry. The open groups allow you to meet a lot of people. The closed groups have more success generating leads. Typically you are not allowed to remain in the closed group unless you are providing leads to others in the group.  Both have their pros and cons and you must choose which is the best for you and your business.

The second, social media networking is taking the previous view of networking and multiplying it times 1,000,000. LinkedIn is the social media network for professionals that has done the best job in creating a place and environment for business networking. On LinkedIn I have a connection (individuals that you have a contact in common) to almost 2,000,000 individuals. All of my contacts (contacts are like friends on Facebook) are people I know and so I had these connections prior to LinkedIn. The big difference now is that I can see those connections. You can identify an individual you would like to meet for business, determine if you have a common contact, send a message to the contact in common and ask to be introduced. This is an incredible database that shows you how to meet other business leaders that will help your business grow.

B2B businesses have more success on LinkedIn than B2C companies. B2C companies have more success on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and others. These social sites are for the general population and are where individuals communicate about where they are and what they are doing. The numbers are larger on these sites for B2C companies to network with their potential customers. It works the same way as it did many years ago; you just have access to a much larger number of people. Communicate information and interact on your social media pages just like you would if networking face to face.

So, things have really not changed in how we do business, just where we do business.

http://www.davismarketingpros.com/

Email Marketing – Is it taking a back seat to Social Media?

Not with my clients!! They are realizing the strength in a well planned email marketing program. Social Media and email marketing should work together to reach the goals of the business. Properly used, they can both complement each other and make the other more effective. If you are seeing a drop in your email marketing numbers, you should evaluate your plan, because you are doing something wrong.


To ensure that your email marketing program will be a success, you must first determine who is the audience. Segment your email list into different categories – i.e.: if you are a clothing store – you would want to segment your list at least by gender and age. If you have the capability of tracking purchase habits – this is another very effective segmentation. You are able to get more valuable information in an email to that individual by segmenting. This also enables you to target market throughout the year depending on the time of year. For instance – before Mother’s Day – you would send an email for women’s clothing to all the males and those under age 20 – these are the groups shopping for Mother’s Day gifts.

After segmenting your lists, you must then determine what is considered valuable information to these individuals. Retailers are sending sales, specials and new product arrivals. B2B is sending information that is of value to their customers and potential customers. The information should be different for customers and potential customers. You do not try to sale to your customers – just provide them information about updates, upgrades, how to, new products, etc. This will give them information of value to them to improve efficiency and productivity with the products/services they have already purchased from you. For potential customers, you are selling a little. Don’t go overboard like retailers, but you need to let them know when you have special deals. It is still about educating and providing value so you are seen as the expert. Then when they are ready to purchase, they come to the expert.

Another effective use of email is to provide information and/or deals to your email customers only. This will help in building your email list and gives the members a sense of being a part of an exclusive group of customers. Everyone wants to be a member of an exclusive group.

Integrating all of your different marketing tools is a must. You should have links to your website, social media, landing pages and blog on all of your emails. Vice versa – all of these mediums should publish your email when it is sent. By integrating all of these tools, they all become stronger together and provide a seamless stream of leads and new customers.

Any small business that is not participating in an email marketing campaign is missing out on generating leads and building a loyal customer base.

Is your email campaign generating leads and providing new customers?

Social Media for Local Small Businesses - Does it work?

YES - when used properly. Everyone can spend a lot of time on social media accounts with no results. Many local small businesses don't believe their customers use social media. Others don't want to 'bother' people on social media sites with their sales tactics. Some are scared to use social media. Once you have answered all their questions - which is easy to do - now figure out what strategy is appropriate for their business. I have two different social media strategies I recommend for my clients: 1) Sales and Deals and 2) Help and Education.

Sales and Deals is for mainly retailers that have walk-in and/or ecommerce traffic. The  main objective is to attract customers to come into the store and make a purchase. This can be obtained by offering sales, deals, contests and events. To determine what gets the greatest response - test different offers and track what customers saw it on the social network. This enables you to improve your effectiveness of each post.

Help and Education is for businesses that require a sales force - usually B2B - however - it can be some B2C. The main objective is to provide meaningful information to your prospective and current customers that will assist them in making a decision about your products/services or helps them improve their business. Do not sale your products and services - provide solutions for your customers issues. This can be in the form of tips, articles, research, etc. Remember you are helping and educating - not selling.

One other use of social media is to utilize a local social media page to post your sales/deals or just advertise your business. Sites such as Hall County Hot Spot on Facebook is a great example.

Social media is a great inexpensive tool for small businesses. How are you using social media for your business?

Marketing Opportunities - Online Directories

If you are not utilizing online directories, your business is missing out on a great opportunity to be seen and heard.  Most online directories are free. There are a few out there that charge to place your listing and you should determine whether your company should list with that directory. Many of the free directories offer paid upgrades that will give you more options and benefits, however, the upgrades are not a necessity to be successful.

The online directories are not just to list your buiness. They are for people to read positive reviews about your business. How? You ask your cutomers to write a recommendation for your business on the directory. Sometime during their buying process, provide them with the web address to write a recommendation on the directories. If you utilize more than one directory, give them options. Just like product reviews on retail ecommerce sites, individuals are using online directories for reviews on businesses.

Here are a few free online directories with the link to my listing:

Merchant Circle
http://www.merchantcircle.com/business/Davis.Marketing.Professionals.LLC.770-540-7441

Yelp
http://www.yelp.com/biz/davis-marketing-professionals-buford

Google Places
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=marketing+in+buford+ga&fb=1&gl=us&hq=marketing&hnear=Buford,+GA&ei=6oiPTODyOcOblgfy_Nm8Dw&sqi=2&ved=0CC8QtgMwAA&iwloc=8901288723039125281&mid=1284475150

Insider Pages
http://www.insiderpages.com/b/15253492921/davis-marketing-professionals-buford

If you are not listed on these directories, you are missing out on opportunities to be seen and heard - and missing out on potential customers.

3 Things Locally Owned Businesses Must Do

Locally owned businesses that want to do business with the local population need to consider 3 very important points to have an effective marketing strategy. Local marketing is unique and should not be treated like a national campaign. Individuals that shop locally are attracted to companies that they have some type of connection. You must know your target market and base you local marketing on this information.

1. Local Public Relations - You must be working with different local community groups, organizations or schools. Supporting these entities will be seen as giving back to the community. The specific entities will be based on what is best to reach your target market. For example - sponsor local events, become a partner in education with the local schools, support local sports organizations and teams, provide a free service or product to non-profit events, etc. The opportunities are endless in many communities. Pick a few that you care about and that will reach your target market.


2. Local Involvement - Being involved in civic organizations and groups are great networking opportunities. The local chamber of commerce, business groups, leads groups, etc are also great local networking opportunities. Involvement in the local groups that include other local businesses is great marketing and networking. If you are a B2B company, this is where many leads are found. B2C companies can find customers and other businesses to create productive partnerships in other activities.

3. Local Advertising - Part of supporting other local businesses is advertising with your local media outlets. Whether it is newspaper, radio, magazine, online directories, chamber of commerce, etc. - you want to spend you marketing dollars locally. It sends a dual message of local company supporting other local businesses. Remember - advertise only with those outlets that reach your target market. Do not advertise with them JUST because they are local.

This is a very good start and will serve as a good foundation to your marketing strategy. Your local customer base need some way to have a connection with you or your business. Find ways in the community to connect to as many people as possible.

www.davismarketingpros.com