The B2B Internet Marketing Agency

The B2B internet marketing agency is a specialty marketing agency dedicated to online business-to-business (B2B) marketing activities that one business (i.e. vendor or supplier) targets and directs to other businesses (i.e. potential business purchaser of the supplier company's products or services). The specialty has a drill-down that looks like this: marketing services --> B2B --> internet specialty. But why is this level of specialization supported by marketers? Don't all marketing agencies work on the internet? What value does this type of specialty bring?

Traditional Marketing vs Internet Marketing

The world of marketing is replete with many dozens of media channels, formats, strategies and tactics. Traditional marketing and advertising focus on claiming space, as on a billboard, in a magazine, or on a store shelf. Time, such as on radio or television, became another venue for traditional marketers and advertisers to compete over. But marketing on the internet provides unlimited space and time. Anyone may publish as much of anything as they wish. So the competition shifted to gaining the attention of the right people at the right times. And that is what B2B internet marketing is all about.

The skill sets in traditional marketing are vastly different than digital or internet marketing. B2B marketing over the internet alone requires many specialty skill sets. First, marketers must understand the many differences between B2B and B2C. This fundamental conceptual understanding is the basis upon which a marketer will be in a position to acquire or create high-quality B2B content to be published as part of a B2B marketing campaign.

Today, it is not nearly enough to merely gain the attention of the B2B prospect. Buyers today search (and often find) high-quality content from you, or from your competitors. Content is king. It is the currency of B2B relationships. Companies that appropriately 'reach out' to their customers by publishing the information they crave certainly lure more customer contacts than companies that do not. Producing this higher level quality and quantity of premium information is a skill set more closely associated with professionals with journalism or writing backgrounds than those with marketing degrees. A good B2B internet marketing agency understands this and builds its team accordingly.

The Need for Specialization

While quality content is king, the way it is published and promoted on the internet is absolutely critical. Here, the B2B internet marketing agency must devote many hours 'in the weeds' to the online technicalities. There are many highly specialized online marketing tools ranging from Hootsuite and HubSpot, to Moz, Mailchimp and a hundred others.  Marketers need to learn many tools, use them regularly and effectively, and keep up with all the best practices and updates of each. It is here where the need for specialization really comes to light.

For example, a B2B business person may recognize the business value of creating quality content for customers. But the hours of technical wizardry needed to properly prepare, optimize, publish and promote one blog post is easily lost in translation. An example may be to say that if it takes 2-3 hours to write one high quality blog post, there is probably one additional hour of labor to properly prepare, optimize publish and promote that same piece.

B2B businesses are increasing their online presence every day with no end in sight.  Leading businesses have advanced far beyond a mere website. The lure of quality content that is readily found by customers has become the online currency of winning B2B marketing strategies. The B2B internet marketing agency is equipped with the highly specialized skills, tools, knowledge and team to develop and implement this approach. Schedule your free marketing audit today to learn what you can be doing to improve your B2B marketing.