Are you looking for ways to develop or refresh your B2B marketing strategy in 2023?
The brands who market most successfully to their customers this year will produce more creative content, meet their audiences where they are, and experiment with new channels and formats.
Budgets may be tight right now, but if you want to stand out when your customers are ready to spend this year, you’ll need a top-notch B2B marketing strategy that delivers value at every touchpoint.
Below, we unpack what a B2B marketing strategy looks like and walk through 10 examples from some of the best B2B brands out there.
What is a B2B marketing strategy?
B2B, or business-to-business marketing, is a mixture of inbound and outbound marketing activities that educate and engage prospective customers.
Unlike traditional consumer marketing practices, B2B marketing strategies typically focus on helping potential customers do their jobs more effectively by offering tips, tricks, and industry best practices.
Like other marketing efforts, your B2B marketing strategy should have goals, measurable outcomes, and key performance indicators (KPIs) to help you determine whether you’re on the right track.
KPIs you might track across all your marketing channels include:
- Click-through rates
- Engagement rates
- Cost per click (CPC) of your ad campaigns
- Conversion rates
- And customer acquisition costs
Ultimately, having a B2B marketing strategy in place ensures that you’ll stay top-of-mind during the longer awareness and consideration stages of the typical B2B customer.
10 B2B Brands with Great Marketing Strategies
These B2B brands are experts when it comes to producing and publishing helpful, relevant content for their audiences. Check out the strategies they use below to see which might work best for you.
1. Slack’s social media marketing
Slack, everyone’s favorite work communication tool, does a great job providing actionable advice and insights on social media, all while showcasing their product features.
They’re particularly great at making fun, creative content, like their recent Valentine’s Day post:
What better way to highlight brand partners and all the incredible integrations they offer than a Valentine?
Why it works: Creating social media content for growing B2B channels like LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok helps you meet your customers where they are. Like you, they’re researching the latest trends in their industry, looking for ideas, and listening to their customers. By engaging your audience, offering expert advice, and starting interesting conversations, you’ll stay top-of-mind when your customer is ready to invest in a B2B solution for their company.
2. HubSpot’s short form video content
HubSpot’s bread and butter comes from their sales and marketing expertise, so it’s no surprise that they produce incredible short form videos. You can find quick video explainers sprinkled throughout their blog—and collected on their YouTube channel.
In under five minutes, HubSpot breaks down challenging topics and highlights meaningful insights for their viewers. This video on creating a content marketing strategy is an excellent example. Notice how they also include templates as a lead generation tactic!
Why it works: Short form video boosts on-page engagement and SEO and helps you to
leverage the insights of your existing content in a new, bite-size format. Out of all the strategies that you use in 2023, adding short form video to your social content will give you the biggest ROI.
3. Dribble’s virtual workshops
Dribble is a content creator platform where designers, creatives, and freelancers can share their work, get hired, and learn more about their field.
In addition to holding virtual meet-ups, Dribble hosts “crash courses” and workshops for their community where users participate in polls, create prototypes alongside hosts, and share their work in real time.
Why it works: Virtual events and webinars are a proven content marketing tool for improving user engagement and driving leads and sales. As a matter of fact, 53% of B2B marketers say that webinars are the top-of-funnel content that generates the highest quality leads.
That’s because this tactic helps you build relationships with potential customers and deliver useful and relevant content directly to your audience—all while making it easy to follow up with attendees about your product once the webinar wraps.
4. Adobe’s newsletter strategy
Adobe, the design software behemoth, regularly mixes product tips with insights from thought leaders in their weekly newsletters.
Articles about password protecting documents sit right alongside interviews with creatives on Adobe’s team, providing a great balance of showcasing Adobe’s capabilities and team members with other expert opinions and advice.
Why it works: Focusing on educational content delivers real value to your B2B audience, which cares more about learning best practices and making informed purchasing decisions than B2C audiences. Highlighting product tips and new feature roll-outs also keeps your customers informed and engaged with the product itself.
5. Ideo’s effective case studies
Ideo is a global design company that produces everything from digital products to product packaging materials. Their incredible case study content is a gold standard case study writing and design.
Take, for example, their case study, “The Whole Package,” which highlights their work with fashion brand H&M. The case study clearly outlines the challenge these two companies set out to solve: too much plastic in the fashion industry.
From Ideo
Then, using creative video and web content, the site outlines their goal (to design more sustainable packaging) and solution (creating new, plastic-free packaging that demonstrably reduces waste.)
Why it works: Case studies are incredibly useful B2B content. Not only do they demonstrate your brand’s capabilities for users in the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey, but they’re also filled with client quotes, stats, and solution-oriented content that you can re-use and re-purpose across your marketing channels.
6. Zendesk’s client testimonials
Customer service application Zendesk and the newsletter software giant Mailchimp recently partnered on a series of B2B client testimonials.
Using a friendly interview with Mailchimp’s CEO, Zendesk is able to explain the impact of their services on Mailchimp’s customers and where the two brands are aligned.
The video also shows the point of view of other employees. Especially important are the perspectives from the customer service agents at Mailchimp who use Zendesk’s product to make their jobs easier.
Why it works: Customer testimonials like the one filmed by Zendesk highlight the impact of a B2B solution across an entire team. An added bonus? By embedding the video into their blog and other landing pages, Zendesk sees a boost in organic traffic thanks to short form video.
7. Dropbox’s content downloads for brand awareness
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dropbox created a digital “care package” campaign with its biggest brand-name partners.
From Dropbox
This interesting twist on the content download showcases Dropbox’s content sharing abilities through feel good digital content designed to generate brand awareness. The printable coloring books, guided meditations, and other goodies inspired, delighted, and otherwise offered a moment of relief to stressed out workers.
Why it works: At its best, B2B content is creative—not boring! Highlight your brand’s helpful solutions in a memorable way, so potential customers are willing to put you on their short list once they’re ready to invest in a service or product.
8. Affirm’s SEO strategy
Affirm is a financial services company that gives businesses the infrastructure to help customers pay for goods and services in installments over time. Like many B2B brands, Affirm has a great backlinking strategy to help build their SEO.
In a recent article on point-of-sale financing, for example, Affirm links to an interview with an expert source. They also took the opportunity to link directly to the source’s company, strengthening the number of external links in their article.
Why it works: Backlinking builds credibility and off-page SEO, while adding an expert quote to an otherwise straight-forward blog post gives the piece color and narrative shape. B2B audiences crave expert tips and best practices, so this SEO strategy checks off multiple boxes!
9. IBM’s influencer marketing strategy
Influencer marketing can take many forms. Global technology company IBM uses a campaign called “Life at IBM” to showcase employee influencers.
This is a great strategy for demonstrating the company’s work culture and values—and to meet younger prospective employees where they are on social media.
Why it works: Positive work culture and transparency around your team, roles, and company values builds trust—even with potential B2B customers. Want to create a B2B influencer campaign this year? Remember to focus on content that highlights your shared values, so you can connect with your target audience on an emotional level.
10. Google Workspace’s customer referrals program
Even tech giants like Google benefit from customer referrals! We like this referral program because it’s so easy for Google Workspace users to refer friends and early rewards for sign ups.
From Google Workspace
Why it works: Google erases friction for current customers interested in joining the referral program, making it a simple, 3-step process. For potential new Workspace customers, Google clearly states the value of their service and offers a free, 14-day trial.
Similar to the B2C marketplace, B2B referrals are a top way to drive new business. People trust their existing networks, especially when it comes to B2B solutions. Because B2B goods and services represent a major investment for most companies, social proof helps ease the anxiety of prospective customers.
Final thoughts
B2B marketing strategies that meet customers where they are with helpful, relevant content will win the day—even amid economic uncertainty. With Welcome, you can create and share virtual events and webinars that complement your other marketing efforts. Engage your audience, drive leads and sales, and repurpose video content across all your marketing channels to boost brand awareness.
Schedule a demo with Welcome today to learn how live events and webinars can support your marketing strategy in 2023.
