The complete guide to B2B marketing.

B2B (business-to-business) marketing is the practice of promoting products or services to other businesses. Unlike B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing, which targets individual shoppers, B2B marketing focuses on addressing the unique needs of organizations and decision-makers. It requires strategies designed to build trust, deliver value, and drive long-term partnerships.

In this guide:

• What is B2B marketing?
• How does B2B marketing work?
• What are the benefits of B2B marketing?
• What’s the difference between B2B marketing and B2C marketing?
• How to create a winning B2B marketing strategy
• Examples of B2B marketing in practice
• B2B marketing trends you should keep a close eye on
• Optimize B2B marketing with Marketo Engage

What is B2B marketing?

B2B (business-to-business) marketing focuses on promoting products or services to other businesses, tailoring strategies to meet the needs of organizational buyers. Unlike B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing, which targets individual shoppers, B2B marketing prioritizes building trust, addressing operational challenges, and driving measurable outcomes for companies.

Examples of B2B offerings include car parts supplied to manufacturers, software solutions for enterprise operations, and consulting services for business strategy. Here are some examples of B2B marketing in action:

• Email campaigns: Salesforce engages IT managers with personalized case studies and free trial offers for its CRM platform.
• Account-based marketing (ABM): Deloitte develops customized reports and hosts exclusive events for executives at Fortune 500 companies.
• Content marketing: IBM publishes in-depth guides on artificial intelligence to educate businesses about its AI solutions.
• Trade shows and events: Caterpillar demonstrates its construction machinery and connects with potential buyers at international industry expos.

These tactics are tailored to specific types of buyers within the broader B2B landscape, such as:

• Producers: Businesses that transform purchased materials into new products (for example, a car manufacturer like Ford sourcing steel and engine components)
• Resellers: Wholesalers, retailers, or brokers who distribute goods (for example, Staples purchasing office supplies from manufacturers)
• Governments: Entities acquiring goods and services for public use (for example, a city government contracting Microsoft for cloud services)
• Institutions: Organizations like nonprofits that purchase at scale to support their operations (for example, Johns Hopkins University buying advanced research equipment from Thermo Fisher Scientific)

How does B2B marketing work?

B2B marketing centers around guiding prospects through the buyer’s journey, addressing their needs at every stage. The journey typically unfolds as follows:

1. Identifying a problem: Businesses first recognize a challenge, such as preparing for a surge in demand or addressing skill gaps within their teams.
2. Researching solutions: Once the need is clear, decision-makers explore products, services, and partners that can address their challenges.
3. Evaluating options: Businesses assess potential solutions, comparing features, pricing, and value.
4. Making a purchase decision: The final step is committing to a solution that aligns with their goals.

Effective B2B marketing ensures your business stands out at every stage by:

• Clearly articulating the problems your product or service solves.
• Demonstrating how your offerings differ from competitors.
• Providing trials, demos, or case studies to build confidence.
• Streamlining the purchase process to remove barriers for buyers.

Tools like CRM platforms and marketing automation software (such as Adobe Marketo Engage) play a crucial role in supporting this journey by managing leads, tracking engagement, and delivering tailored messaging at scale.

What are the benefits of B2B marketing?

The benefits of B2B marketing extend beyond generating leads. B2B marketing is about building trust, nurturing relationships, and positioning your business as a reliable partner. Key benefits include:

• Building brand awareness: Building your brand helps ensure potential clients recognize your business, understand your offerings, and see the value in working with you.
• Generating high-quality leads: A strategic approach to B2B marketing puts your brand in front of decision-makers, going beyond the limitations of word-of-mouth referrals.
• Driving targeted traffic: By hosting valuable content on your website and leveraging platforms like LinkedIn, you can attract businesses actively searching for solutions like yours.
• Strengthening client relationships: Reducing churn is as crucial as attracting new leads. Establish your business as an industry expert and foster loyalty with clients through consistent engagement.
• Unlocking customer insights: A robust digital marketing strategy reveals how businesses interact with your brand — highlighting popular content, preferred channels, and engagement trends.

What’s the difference between B2B marketing and B2C marketing?

While B2B and B2C marketing share common tactics, their execution and focus differ significantly, reflecting the distinct needs of their audiences.

How the focus of marketing differs between B2B and B2C:

How marketing tactics differ between B2B and B2C:

Understanding these differences allows marketers to tailor their strategies effectively for each audience and achieve better outcomes.

How to create a winning B2B marketing strategy.

Developing an effective B2B marketing strategy requires a blend of thoughtful planning and proven best practices. Follow these steps to build a strategy that drives results:

1. Analyze your market.
   Study competitors and identify opportunities, such as underserved buyer segments. Tailor your approach to stand out and meet specific needs, like focusing on SMBs if larger businesses dominate the market.

2. Identify your target buyers.
   Understand the industries, company sizes, and roles most aligned with your product or service. Evaluate buyer personas to focus your efforts and improve efficiency. Key questions include:

   • Who are the decision-makers, and what roles do they hold?
   • How long is their research and purchasing cycle?
   • What deal sizes or purchasing volumes are typical?

3. Select and maintain marketing channels.
   Meet prospects where they are, whether on LinkedIn, search engines, or other platforms. Leverage an omnichannel presence for consistent engagement but prioritize channels that yield the highest ROI.

4. Nurture and educate leads.
   Use tailored content such as tutorials, case studies, guides, or reports to demonstrate value and address buyer pain points. Build trust with personalized outreach that aligns with their needs.

5. Plan and execute activities.
   Design a tactical plan, including:

   • Email campaigns
   • Thought leadership content
   • Case studies
   • Social media outreach
   • Video tutorials

6. Measure and optimize results.
   Track key metrics like customer acquisition costs, lead-to-close time, and ROI to identify high-performing strategies. Regularly refine your approach based on insights from the data.

Examples of B2B marketing in practice.

1. Account-based marketing (ABM): Kindred Healthcare

Kindred Healthcare implemented account-based marketing to strengthen relationships with referral sources. The marketing team conducted surveys to understand the specific needs of these sources and developed tailored content addressing their concerns. Clinical liaisons then delivered this material to targeted accounts, building trust and aligning solutions to client needs.

• Why it works: ABM focuses on personalized engagement with high-value accounts, ensuring that marketing efforts address the unique challenges of individual clients.
• Results: Kindred Healthcare achieved click-through rates exceeding national benchmarks and a remarkable 40:1 ROI.

2. Email marketing: Lenovo

Lenovo enhanced its Lenovo Expert Achievers Program (LEAP) to educate and engage partner firms and resellers through a targeted email marketing strategy. Emails included course modules, promotions, and account statements, all integrated with individual web portals. This personalized, multi-touch email campaign nurtured relationships and incentivized participation.

• Why it works: Effective email marketing nurtures relationships by delivering relevant, actionable information directly to decision-makers and stakeholders.
• Results: Participating firms generated 8–10x higher sales, contributing to 57% of Lenovo’s non-direct revenue despite accounting for only 11% of its distribution channels.

3. Content marketing: Roche Diagnostics

Roche Diagnostics created the LabLeaders initiative, a content marketing campaign designed to support healthcare leaders. The campaign provided free access to targeted content, including industry insights and practical tools, via an online hub. This not only engaged their audience but also captured valuable data on user behavior.

• Why it works: Content marketing builds trust and authority by offering valuable, free resources that address customer pain points while subtly showcasing the company’s expertise.
• Results: The initiative strengthened customer engagement and provided Roche with actionable insights to refine its marketing strategy.

B2B marketing trends you should keep a close eye on.

B2B marketing continues to evolve, driven by digital transformation and shifting buyer expectations. These key trends are shaping the future of B2B marketing:

B2B ecommerce is growing.

The global business-to-business ecommerce market size is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 18.7% through 2028. Selling through online channels became necessary in 2020 when the pandemic disrupted normal operations, but many companies are now finding that customers expect to be able to do business seamlessly through digital channels from start to finish. B2B commerce has been slower to move online than B2C, but it is finally catching up.

B2B marketing spend is going up.

A 2021 forecast predicted that US spending on digital B2B marketing and advertising will reach $15 billion this year. The money that shifted away from traditional advertising will not return. Instead, digital spending will grow.

This shift shows that in addition to improving ecommerce functionality, companies are investing in digital channels. To keep up with this trend, B2B marketers should weigh the spending currently dedicated to traditional methods and consider where that spending could be put to better use.

B2B commerce revenue is growing.

A DHL Express report predicted that global B2B ecommerce revenue will reach $20.9 trillion by 2027. Revenue growth is expected to match the migration of business operations and marketing to digital platforms. This information highlights the direct connection between keeping up with digital transformation and profitability.

B2B decision-makers are changing.

Among 800-plus B2B executives surveyed in the Digital Trends report, 94% agreed that the current pace of change will continue. That change is reflected in the generation of young professionals currently in the 21 to 40-year-old demographic.

This is the next generation of decision-makers who are being called BETAs (blurred work-life boundaries, evolving mindset, tech-native, activist).

B2B marketing is getting personal.

Forrester has found that personalization is no longer a bonus — it’s table stakes. In a recent survey, 52% of B2B marketing leaders said they were planning to increase spending on content marketing and personalization technology. That’s because consumers increasingly expect to see tailored content and receive only relevant communications.

In B2B, personalization is especially important to account-based marketing and nurturing business relationships over time. But the real time you have to invest in those efforts is finite. B2B marketers can keep up with this trend by researching how to achieve personalization at scale.

AI is revolutionizing B2B marketing by enabling highly personalized and contextual conversations. In fact, conversation automation is now the top use case for AI in marketing, with 58% of marketers using it to engage with buyers and customers.

B2B technologies are prioritizing data and insights.

In 2022, 59% of B2B executives reported that their top technology priority was data and insights. Content was close behind at 54%, according to the Digital Trends report. One challenge that goes along with the benefits of digital transformation is knowing what to do with the amount of data that can be generated so easily.

B2B operations are embracing automation.

Last year, 42% of surveyed B2B executives said their top operational priority was greater operational efficiency through automation. Artificial intelligence is becoming the standard in B2B digital marketing because these tools can exponentially multiply leads and facilitate personalization on a huge scale.

Optimize B2B marketing with Marketo Engage.

Keeping pace with industry shifts, like personalization, automation, and actionable data insights, can be daunting. Marketers require tools that not only address these challenges but also help them stay ahead.

Adobe Marketo Engage empowers businesses to respond to key industry shifts like the rise of automation, the need for scalable personalization, and the growing importance of actionable data insights. With these goals in mind, Marketo Engage:

• Supports personalization at scale. Use AI-driven capabilities to deliver tailored messaging to prospects, aligning with the growing demand for customized experiences.
• Enhances automation. Streamline lead generation, nurturing, and engagement processes to drive operational efficiency.
• Centralizes data insights. Consolidate customer data across multiple channels to make informed marketing decisions and improve ROI.

With Marketo Engage, businesses can align their marketing strategies with the most pressing challenges. Businesses using Marketo Engage position themselves to not just follow trends but to lead in their industries.

Ready to see how it works? Watch our overview video to learn more or request a demo today to transform your B2B marketing efforts.

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