How B2B Companies Can Refresh Their Marketing

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It’s that time of year again! Spring is beginning to bloom, prompting us all to reach for the  “refresh” button on both our personal and professional home pages. After a year of learning and growth from our successes and failures, now is the time to regroup and refocus our efforts. What better way to initiate this process other than an annual marketing refresh? It’s time to change with the seasons!

Aside from the restlessness of Spring, how do you know it might be time for a marketing refresh for your B2B company? Declining or plateaued rates of white paper downloads, social media engagement, and webinar signups are all telltale signs that it’s time to reevaluate your approach to client engagement. 

In this article, we will outline specific strategies to include within your marketing refresh that can lead to successful client engagement and clear brand representation.

(Re)Examine your Audience

It’s important to remember that your client base consists of living, thinking, and changing beings, rather than a stagnant population you can define in only general terms. Your initial evaluation and definition of your client base may have started out as something that is wholly different than the reality of people you now serve. This is why it is vital to your company’s success to reevaluate your audience every 3-5 years. 

Great methods to reevaluate your audience include the following:

  • Conduct customer interviews
  • Interview your sales teams
  • Conduct thorough buyer research

Mind your Messaging House

There are two important elements to updating your marketing messaging: core messaging and a brand guide. Your company’s core messaging includes how you talk about your company; your brand guide encompasses all elements of how your company looks to others—fonts, colors, logos, etc.

An important note on updating your company’s look: it’s important to stay current with aesthetic trends and to ensure that the way your company looks accurately reflects your messaging; however, it is important to try and only change the company aesthetic every 3-5 years. Changing the look of your company too often makes it nearly impossible for your branding to become synonymous with your name.

Reuse and Repurpose

Recycling and repurposing is an important part of Spring cleaning! Just because you are revamping your content does not mean you have to abandon all the content you’ve previously published. After all, research has shown that SEO can take time to “mature.”

We recommend that you spend some dedicated time and resources strategically updating old blog and social media posts. Be certain to study new keyword rankings and incorporate them into your content to improve search algorithm ranks. Additionally, it is worth the time and effort to spend time link building—replacing old links with more relevant and current information. This will prove to your potential clients that you are abreast of the most current industry technology and trends.

Create a Current Value Proposition

Every B2B company needs an easy and effective way to quickly communicate why they would greatly benefit a potential client. A value proposition is a marketing content tool used to quickly win over your clients. Research shows that, on average, you have seven seconds to make an impression that will seal the deal with a new client. 

A successful value proposition will include the following:

  • Clear communication of specific results your company can provide
  • Explains how your company differs (and improves upon) the competition 
  • Can be read and understood in about seven seconds

While crafting your company’s value proposition, consider what sets you apart in the industry. Use the information you have previously gathered from customer interviews; consider their complaints and qualms with competition and how you worked to alleviate these concerns.

Refreshing your marketing strategy might seem like an overwhelming project, but we are here to guide you through the process, and dare we say, make it fun? You have put a lot of heart and passion into your business, let’s work together to make certain that this is obvious to your audience.

Are you planning a marketing refresh for your business? Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation.

3 Ways to Earn the Trust & Attention of B2B Customers

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Whether your brand has long been established, is getting a refresh, or is a new start-up company, it’s getting harder and harder to stand out in today’s noisy, competitive world. To make our point even clearer, take a moment and scroll through your email inbox. How many of those emails are marketing messages? And, how many have you read or even opened? If you want to stand out in an increasingly noisy world, you must earn the trust and attention of your customers. This isn’t anything new. It’s what Seth Godin outlined nearly two decades ago in his book, Permission Marketing. The difference is this concept has become increasingly more important in today’s world. 

3 Ways to Earn the Trust & Attention of B2B Customers

If you’re a B2B company, here are three specific ways you can earn more trust and attention from today’s customers: 
  1. Create the same kind of personal and relevant experience as the best B2C companies.
If you think about brands that are known for amazing customer experiences like Amazon and Nordstrom, they all provide customers with customized experiences.  One way you can do this is by segmenting your list prospects based on their specific interests, communication preferences, or stage in the buyer’s journey. Instead of acquiring large lists of users to contact, consider building segmented, high-quality groups that can be reached through targeted marketing.
  1. Create an experience that matches your brand promise. 
Every potential customer already has a perception of your brand, whether you like it or not. In order to earn their trust, the experience you create must match the expectations they carry. Every marketing team should focus on building a quality audience and providing them with the resources and information they expect to receive. This is essential for developing a strong relationship with potential customers. 
  1. Leverage transparency as a marketing strategy.
According to a study by Label Insight, 94% of consumers surveyed indicated that they were more likely to be loyal to a brand that offers transparency, while 73% said they were willing to pay more for a product that provides complete transparency.  Companies that hope for long-term success must be open and transparent with their customers. And, for B2B buyers who are often looking to establish long-term working relationships over performing a one-off transaction, a clear understanding of your business, what you stand for, and how you operate have become non-negotiable. It’s a crowded world out there for today’s B2B marketers. If you’re going to be heard above the noise, you have to earn the trust and attention of our potential customers. By embracing these three keys, you’ll put yourself in a better position to get your prospects’ attention, begin to earn their trust, and start building the foundation for relationships that can last a lifetime.

Frustrated by the Fact that Marketing Is Constantly Evolving?

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When it comes to marketing, the only constant is that it’s an industry that’s always changing. Think about it. Less than a decade ago, businesses were thriving because they were posting on Twitter, getting tons of comments on every blog post, and sending a monthly e-newsletter. Today, those tactics aren’t producing nearly as much engagement. 

As the owner of a marketing agency, I understand why it’s easy to get frustrated by the constantly-evolving nature of marketing. I’ve had dozens of discussions with small business owners over the past seven years who tell me their marketing isn’t working. They express that finding a marketing tactic that works and provides the reach or scalability needed to drive results seems impossible. For small businesses with limited resources and budgets, this can be maddening. For everyone else, it makes business development hard to sustain for an extended amount of time.

4 Principles to Remember as Marketing Continually Evolves

Here are some encouraging reminders I share with business leaders or marketing managers who are frustrated by the fact that nothing seems to be working like it once did: 

  1. Embrace the fact that marketing always changes. The reason marketing seems to be evolving so quickly is because customer behaviors are rapidly changing. Today’s customers have an incredibly finite amount of time and attention to give to something. Rather than getting frustrated by this fact, embrace it. Recognizing we only have a few seconds to capture our audience’s attention opens up creativity to solve this new challenge.
  2. Stop looking for the silver bullet. There isn’t a single marketing tactic that is guaranteed to work without fail for the next five years. Just because your competition is trying something doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. Instead, focus on what your customers want. Your customers need solutions to their problems, not more information about your brand.  
  3. Focus on strategy, not tactics. Wondering why your marketing efforts aren’t working like they used to? When most businesses say their marketing strategy isn’t working, what they typically mean is that the tactics aren’t effective. Rather than focusing on tactics, it’s important to recognize the underlying strategies the tactics are built upon—and hold onto those rather than the tactics themselves. 
  4. When all else fails…be human. Certain marketing principles are timeless. Remembering to be human is one of them. What works today—something that has always worked—is grassroots, person-to-person, authentic, transparent actions. Creating personal and meaningful connections with potential customers will always work when it comes to growing your business.

The world of marketing is undergoing a profound evolution. Things that worked yesterday won’t work as well today. But, that’s a good thing because we know there will always be new tactics and strategies we can deploy to appeal to basic human emotions of potential customers.