People in the UK now spend an average of 20.5 hours online every single week, compared to 9 hours and 54 minutes a week in 2005 – (Ofcom)

Libraries, phonebooks, and record shops are all things that have become almost obsolete since the arrival of the internet. People read books online, use search engines to find phone numbers they need, and buy their music via online retailers. These are just three randomly chosen examples from a multitude of ways that the internet has changed how we live. The arrival of smartphones and mobile connected devices mean that people are rarely more than an arm’s length away from the internet. So what does this mean for B2B marketing? Well, to cut a long story short, if you’re not marketing online, you’re virtually invisible to almost all buyers.

Emails 

59% of B2B marketers say email is the most effective channel for generating revenue – (HubSpot)

One of the most popular channels for B2B marketing is emails. With the ability to send communications to prospects, leads and customers quickly and cost-effectively, this channel is an online marketing marvel. Build relationships, nurture leads, educate and inform buyers, and create brand awareness using a single (personalised) email to a large database.

Content and videos 

44% of executives somewhat or strongly agree that video will be the de facto form of communication in their organization in the next 5 years – (ramp.com)

Once of the fastest-growing and most popular ways for buyers to educate themselves and find a solution to their pain points is by watching videos. This communication channel gives B2B marketers the opportunity to provide high-impact, engaging and informative content in a digestible way.

As more B2B buyers use the internet to research their pain points and potential solutions, organisations are investing heavily in thought leadership content that shows the buyer empathy and an industry-leading approach. Formats such as ebooks, infographics, tip sheets and case studies can be used to educate buyers in a non-salesy and conversational manner.

Social media

B2B marketers use, on average, 6 different social networking platforms – (Content Marketing Institute)

Following the widespread arrival of the internet, the turn of the millennium saw a rise in the number of social media channels. Having been initially used for ‘social’ purposes, marketers quickly realised that these sites were a great opportunity to not only converse with prospects, leads and customers in a conversational way, but that certain sites had different types of followers (such as LinkedIn being the professional social network). In modern multi-channel marketing, failure to use social media as a communication tool is a fairly substantial lost opportunity to generate revenue.

Optimisation 

One thing the internet brought to the world was search engines. Simply by typing in a relevant word or phrase, people can find millions of pages which match their search. This is great for buyers, but for B2B marketers it means that any pages that are ‘crawled’ by search engines need to be optimised for specific words and phrases. Failure to carry out this optimisation, could result in pages being invisible to buyers and negatively affecting the business’ results.

With the ever-growing array of connected devices such as laptops, phones and even watches means that webpages, content and even messaging needs to be optimised for each device. If a buyer accesses the internet via their device and the page doesn’t display properly or the text has been cut short, then they’ll likely leave the site and try a competitor’s page. So, webpage optimisation for different devices is vital in today’s modern world.

To find out more about contemporary B2B marketing and using a variety of online channels to generate the best results and ROI…