Digital marketing/advertising is a type of promotion where you utilize interactive and online channels. Internet marketing is a part of electronic advertising. The objective of digital marketing would be to keep a conversation with your customers, leads, and closing clients, while the objective of internet marketing is to bring in more traffic to your site. So, can B2B companies use these marketing types to their advantage?
There are many digital marketing channels and concepts with which you can turn your visitors into customers. And not just customers, but loyal customers. That is the reason of Digital marketing goes a step further than online marketing...
Today, we spend twice as much time online as we did twelve years ago, which has changed a lot. Because we have unlimited access to information, the way we make purchases - both in B2C and B2B - has changed drastically. That is why traditional marketing methods are less effective than they were a few years ago.
Marketing is about connecting with the target group, in the right place and at the right time. Today, that means meeting your target audience where they spend the most time: on the internet.
Digital marketing promotes your company by using online channels and concepts, such as the website, search engine optimization, digital advertising (paid), social media, blogs, etc., achieving the objectives.
There is a whole spectrum of tactics and resources that come under the Digital Marketing umbrella, from the website to online branding. The most successful digital marketers have a clear picture of how each tool and tactic contributes to achieving the goals. I have listed the most common Digital Marketing tools and tactics for you:
| Most used Digital Marketing tools | Most used Digital Marketing tactics |
| Website | Search Engine Optimization (SEO) |
| Blogs | Content Marketing |
| Ebooks and whitepapers | Inbound Marketing |
| Email Marketing | |
| Landing pages | Social Media Marketing |
| Infographics | Marketing Automation |
| Social media | Digital Advertising (Paid) |
We often talk about inbound marketing, and at first glance, inbound marketing and digital marketing are similar. Both are focused on online and content creation. And while many marketers will say that inbound marketing and digital marketing are much the same, there are some differences.
The term Digital Marketing makes no distinction between 'push' and 'pull' marketing tactics (or 'inbound' and 'outbound' methods). Both approaches fall under the umbrella of Digital Marketing.
Outbound methods aim to share a marketing message with as many people as possible - regardless of whether it is relevant and whether the target audience is waiting for it or not.
On the other hand, marketers employing inbound tactics leverage online content to attract the primary audience by only sharing value. One of the most potent inbound resources is a blog that allows you to create content that adds value and answers your ideal customer questions.
Ultimately, Inbound Marketing is a method that uses Digital Marketing tools to attract potential customers, convert them into leads, and ultimately close the deal. Digital Marketing is simply an umbrella term to describe online marketing efforts of any kind, whether inbound or outbound.
Exactly, for your website! You have a website or perhaps a webshop. If all is well one that you are incredibly proud of and which offers an even better service or product. And now just wait for your customers to come to your website. If only it were that simple, or rather not because this is where Dutch Blue comes into play.
You can still have such a beautiful website, but if you cannot be found you will not be found and it will be difficult to achieve your goals. There are a lot of different ways to drive more traffic to your website. Google Ads offers various options to ensure that your website is found well and if you use this well this ensures that exactly the people where you ... or rather, people who are looking for your product or service know your website easily. to find. This can be because they enter a search query in the Google search engine or because they see an advertisement of yours on a random website.
Digital marketing works for all types of businesses they may be in any industry. Digital Marketing is still about defining the target audience, identifying the target audience's wants and needs, and creating valuable content regardless of what your business sells. However, that does not mean that B2B companies should do it in the same way as B2C companies.
In contrast to B2C companies, the Digital Marketing activities of B2B companies are generally aimed at an online lead generation to speak to someone from Sales eventually. That is why your marketing strategy should attract and convert qualified leads via the website and other digital channels such as social media and email so that you can eventually transfer them to Sales.
Unlike the majority of offline marketing efforts, Digital Marketing allows you to see the results in real-time. If you've ever placed an ad in a newspaper, you know how difficult it is to estimate how many people have seen the ad. You don't know how many sales that ad was responsible for - if at all.
With Digital Marketing your business can measure the ROI of almost any of your marketing efforts, such as:
However, there is one condition: you must have the right tool (s) to make your efforts measurable. Why? All separate channels, which you manage independently of each other, ultimately do not provide insight into how much traffic, leads, and customers Digital Marketing ultimately delivers to you. At the same time, you do need these results to demonstrate the added value of your efforts.
Fortunately, there are tools available that give you insight into this. Another term for this is Marketing Automation.
Because you can make all efforts measurable more easily with Digital Marketing, you can also make adjustments much more comfortable. For example, if only 10% of the total number of website visits comes via organic traffic, you know that it is an improvement point that you can focus on.
It seems clear that Digital Marketing is indispensable to be there wherever your customers and prospects are, namely the internet. And that applies not only to B2B companies that operate in a large playing field but also to B2B companies that focus on niche markets, such as companies in the manufacturing industry.
