Small Business B2B Marketing Blog

A successful business-to-business marketing effort begins with identifying who your sales prospects are and how you can reach them.

Three pricing tips for your small business pricing strategy.

Is marketing automation worth the investment for B2B small businesses?

The top 5 problems and solutions small business wants answers to
in marketing their business.

Small business owners have many problems they face in marketing their business. In working with many B2B small businesses, we have found that there are five problems that constantly surface that need attention to achieve small business marketing success.

Time management is the first big problem. If you are lamenting you don’t have enough time in the day to get things done you’re not alone. Spending your time on the important issues separates those that achieve success and those that muddle along. Are you identifying your three to five daily rocks, the important and urgent priorities you need to address each day? These are the 20% of actions you take which yield 80% of your productivity. Here are three keys to successful time management they include:

• Write down 3 to 5 of your most important & urgent priorities daily

Are you prepared to outsource your small business marketing?

How one small business benefited from the Internet and peer learning to project its brand nationally.

Potential clients often ask, what is the cost of inbound marketing? Providing an answer is to this question is always difficult without actually understanding the scope of marketing services the potential client really needs. Nevertheless, we will attempt to offer insight into what some average costs might be incurred. Ultimately it is necessary to understand your specific set of circumstances you are starting from and what goals you want to obtain.

Inbound marketing is an effective and affordable way of marketing a small business that sells consultative products and services to other businesses. Why, because inbound marketing principles and tactics mirror offline factors for successful business-to-business marketing.

Why do most small businesses ignore marketing strategy and focus almost exclusively on marketing tactics? Maybe the reason stems from how most marketing is sold to small business.

Many people approach small business offering “marketing” as telemarketing, email marketing, social media marketing, web marketing, etc. No wonder small business owners get confused. None of these so called activities are marketing. They are marketing tactics used as part of the overall marketing process to deliver an organization’s marketing messages.

On the other hand, making the smart decision to decide to research and plan your marketing increases your ability to reach your goals.  This is referred to as taking a strategic approach.

BusinessDictionary.com defines strategy as:

1. A method or plan chosen to bring about a desired future, such as achievement of a goal or solution to a problem.
   
   
2. The art and science of planning and marshaling resources for their most efficient and effective use.

A professional marketing strategy will detail all of your marketing goals and the time lines and tactics necessary to generate your desired results.

If, however, you decide that strategic planning takes too much time, too much effort, or more knowledge than you currently have, and you decide to do what your competitors are doing, you will likely fail. Instead decide to outsource your marketing plan and execution to a marketing professional. Here are five tips to remember on what you will need to do to make outsourcing marketing work for you.

Five Prerequisites for small business to Outsource Marketing

1.  Participate in Building Your Marketing Plan

The person you choose to help you with this function is your partner, your collaborator.   You must be involved in the process. You must explain the intricacies of your business, your goals and your ambitions with this person, and you must allow them to guide you in the selection of the best tactics to build your plan.  Be sure to ask questions until you are fairly comfortable that you’ve come to the right strategy and tactics.  Also remember that your plan is not static. It will and should be reviewed often to make changes and tweak the tactics depending upon changes in competitors, markets and if goals aren’t being realized.

2.  Delegate Execution

After the plan and tactics are decided upon, let your marketing collaborator do their job.  Be involved on managing the process with regular meetings and reviewing reports and but outside of that, back away from the ongoing tasks.

3.  Monitor Marketing Activities

Be sure to schedule time in your calendar to meet with your marketing person.  Ask questions about how things are going, which goals are being met, and which ones are not. Work with them to think through how specific strategy and tactics might need tweaking, but allow time to let the plan work.

4.  Set a Budget and Stick to It

Setting a budget is crucial to marketing success. Why because it reinforces your commitment to marketing consistently which is 50% of any successful marketing effort. Without a budget you are doomed to land on the small business marketing roller coaster. This is a symptom of a company without a marketing budget, taking their business and their money for a bad ride.

5.  Marketing is a Process Requiring Patience

Small businesses that sell consultative products/services admit that their sales cycle is likely somewhere between 3 months to two years. Yet, often they are disappointed that the results of a single marketing tactic may not produce instant success in an hour, a week or a month.

Yet, many small business owners tend to want to exaggerate expectations in their mind or feel a need to look for instant success. This is often driven by a lack of one or more of the following.

• Lack of confidence in the marketing plan
• Unrealistic performance goals
• Lack of sufficient resources to fund the marketing budget

• Not professionally planning
• Not setting realistic goals
• Not setting aside the required resources

Anybody that tells you they can produce instant marketing success for selling consultative products/services is looking to take your money preying upon your unrealistic desire for instant success. You know your sales cycle is a process that takes time, the same applies to marketing so don’t get fooled.

Takeaway
Stop focusing on marketing tactics as an easy way to avoid marketing planning. Sure it’s easy to hire someone to run an email blast, post in social media, or send out a mass mailing. But, you will be disappointed with the results. Why, because you are hoping for success and not planning for success. You know hope is not a plan, so why not just plan to succeed.

Related Information

Given no marketing strategy is perfect, what are the pros and cons of employing inbound marketing for your small business.

The Internet has changed everything related to the way business-to-business sales prospects begin their buying process. Prospective business buyers go to the Internet first to get ideas, get educated and gather information about how to solve business problems.

To reach your sales prospects you need to be where they go on the Internet to make these prospects aware of how your company can help them. That’s right I said help them, not sell them. Stop thinking you’re going to sell somebody something. Today, a business is not going to be sold anything. However, they are interested in talking to smart people who can help them solve problems.

We think inbound marketing is a primary marketing strategy that should be utilized by any small business that sells consultative products or services. Why, because inbound marketing is aligned with the Internet and the basic principles of business-to-business selling.

Basic Business-to-Business Selling Principles

Building Initial Rapport: In selling consultative products and services building initial rapport with your sales prospect is paramount.
Inbound marketing allows you to attract prospective B2B clients based on your posting quality content relevant to your sales prospect’s needs. The tip of the spear for inbound marketing consists of quality, relevant content that provides insights into your potential customer’s business problems. This builds the initial rapport that is critical to business-to-business sales lead generation.

Examples of inbound marketing content that help build initial rapport are your:

• Website