According to an estimate, approximately 48% of business-to-business buying decisions are due to B2B advertisement. Roundabout 82% of business-to-business sellers and marketers wish that they should be as creative and smart as business-to-customers. Today, we’ll discuss what is B2B advertising; its various types, benefits, and how to create a business-to-business strategy.
What is B2B Advertising?
B2B advertising also goes by the name of trade advertisement. It comprises marketing and promotional approaches that focus on sending the business message to other businesses and companies rather than ordinary individual customers. However, the business-to-business advertisement comprises promoting tangible products like vehicles or furniture; or services like logistics or accounting consulting.
The purpose of business-to-business advertisement is to promote products and services and meet the needs and wishes of customers to impact their decision-making. In B2C, customers make a quick decision about whether they like the product or service or not. The decision-making process of businesses is a bit slow and takes time. It is because the cost of business products and services is higher and it needs approval from various levels of management.
Types of B2B Advertising
The four main types of B2B advertising are as follows;
Outdoor Advertisement
If implemented correctly at the right location, the outdoor business-to-business advertisement is the most effective form of marketing strategy. As the name implies, outdoor business-to-business ads comprise installing advertisements in highly visited public places where people could see them. Some of the main types of outdoor business-to-business ads are as follows;
- Automobiles
- Sponsorship and events
- Flags
- Wraps
- Hoardings & banner
Paid Social Media Advertisement
In the business-to-business marketing environment, paid social media ads could be highly effective and useful. It is important to mention here that not all social media platforms are suitable for running business-to-business advertisements.
A research study has shown that roundabout 80% of the business-to-business traffic lead is from LinkedIn, 7% is from Facebook, and 13% is from Twitter. Here, the most important decision you have to make is to precisely target your customer market, employ the most relevant platform, and the interesting content for your B2B product or service.
Broadcast Advertisement
The broadcast advertisement comprises radio, television, or any other entertainment medium in order to send audio-video information to the target audience. Broadcasting is a very useful business-to-business advertisement media because it shares the right brand story for better understanding with the help of moving images and audio.
I-Radio Ads
The radio ads are a bit economical in terms of ROI (return on investment), and they have a limited local and national market reach.
II-TV Ads
The focus of TV ads is on spreading brand awareness and establishing brand image, and it comprises a significant amount of capital investment and time. If implemented correctly, the business-to-business advertisement campaign is beneficial for the company.
Print Advertisement
There is a misconception that print advertisements are losing their significance in the digital age. Many research studies have said otherwise. When we talk about business-to-business buying decisions, people tend to show more trust in printed ads rather than digital ads. However, some of the main types of print advertisements are as follows;
- Fliers: they’re highly useful for the promotion of your businesses, and they offer a great market reach
- Brochures: they tell the customers about the company and the products and services of other brands
- Magazine Ads: the magazines are important for the niche-focused businesses, and their conversion rate is higher because of the targeted business-to-business approach
- Newspaper Ads: they have got the highest reach in the print media industry, and some of the top print newspapers are The Economist, Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
Benefits of B2B Advertising
The key benefits of business-to-business (B2B) advertising are as follows;
High Sales & Profit
A well-implemented business-to-business advertisement would attract a lot of new visitors to your website, and your sale would increase to a great extent. You need to add a significant amount of capital in the first advertisement, they would offer you dividends with the passage of time.
Marketing of Products & Services
Many experts believe that the goal of a business-to-business advertisement is to spread the word about your exciting product or service offers. Whether you’re promoting the upcoming event, expanding the service platforms, or adding a new product line; the advertisement would promote all of your offers.
Spreading Brand Awareness
The business market is also highly competitive, and it is difficult to attract the attention of potential business-to-business buyers. The advertisement campaign would spread the brand awareness of your company and present you to the potential client.
How to Create B2B Advertising Strategy
Some of the main steps on how to create a business-to-business (B2B) advertising strategy are as follows;
Smart Goals
The acronym SMART comprises specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-focused. While setting goals and objectives for your business-to-business advertisement campaign, you need to keep in mind the SMART acronym elements. You should know what you want to achieve and accomplish and how you would achieve success. The SMART goals assist you in various ways like recognizing the missing targets, tracking progress, setting deadlines, and removing generalities and guesswork.
Planning
The most element of developing the business-to-business advertisement campaign is to craft a solid plan, rather than doing everything blindly. You should make sure that you have got clearly defined objectives for the advertisement campaign. Whether you want to increase the conversion rate, traffic, or lead; it is important to plan the set of activities that you and your staff would perform in order to reach your goals.
Target customer Market
The most important element of launching the business-to-business advertisement campaign is precisely targeting the right customer market. It is important that you should conduct qualitative and quantitative searches in order to know your target potential customers through face-to-face interviews or surveys. After recognizing your target customer market, it is advisable that you should build a buyer persona of your ideal customer in terms of their needs, wants, financial condition, culture, and demographic information.
Right Media Channel
Launching an advertisement campaign for ordinary individual customers is different from business-to-business advertisements. It is important that you should know what type of media platforms you would employ to run the ads. For instance, it could be a local newspaper, broadsheet, or trade magazine. While selecting the media platform, you should know where your target business clients are.
Utilizing Social Media Platforms
It is important to include social and professional media platforms like Facebook Marketplace and LinkedIn in your advertisement media strategy. Your active online presence would help you to increase the value of your campaign.
Conclusion: What is B2B Advertising? Types, Benefits, Creating Strategy
After an in-depth study of what is B2B advertisement; its various types, benefits, and how to create a business-to-business strategy; we have realized that business-to-business advertisement could amplify the growth of your business. If you’re planning to run the campaign, then you should follow and practice the abovementioned guidelines.
Ahsan Ali Shaw is an accomplished Business Writer, Analyst, and Public Speaker. Other than that, he’s a fun loving person.
