7 B2B Digital Marketing Tips For Your Branding Toolkit

When we think of a B2B branding toolkit, the first thought to pop up in our minds is a handbook that contains the brand’s preferred tone of voice, colors, typography, imagery, vision, values, and messaging pillars. 

However, in recent years, a branding toolkit can do with some upgrades. The most important upgrades of all? It should shed light on the following:

• A synchronized message you want to focus on among all channels (social media or otherwise). 
• An end goal you want to attain through your messaging across all channels. 

So, let’s take a look at a few digital marketing tips that’ll help you create content that considers branding specifics (aka, synchronized messaging and end goal) in mind. 

1. Use lead scoring models to gain more visibility into your customers

The success of a marketing campaign depends on how well you know your customers. 

For example, if you’re selling beauty products and targeting an audience that matches multiple different criteria (e.g., the companies you’re looking at could be high-paying customers with a respectable presence). 

However, if this audience doesn’t have an interest in beauty products, targeting them won’t yield any sales. 

Lead scoring models are an answer to that problem. With lead scoring points, you can identify ideal customer profiles, find customer intent, which leads are ready to convert, and get exclusive insights. 

Keeping in touch with the beauty-related example above, with a lead scoring model, you can find out which type of customers you should invest your marketing efforts on. 

You can also create your own lead scoring models or rely on companies like Breadcrumbs to provide effective insights that’ll help you turn your data into revenue. 

How does it help your branding toolkit: Finding out more about ideal customer profiles will help you create a better-synchronized message that applies to customers on all channels. 

2. Social proof is your best friend

Social proof, such as testimonials, case studies, certifications in LinkedIn, and ratings, provide more credibility and trust to your brand. 

Imagine if you’re a B2B digital marketing agency, and you try to advertise your services in two different ways.

Technique #1: You tell your customers you’re a great brand by showing them some of your work. 

Technique #2: You tell your customers you’re a great brand by sharing customer testimonials, names of previous clients, and case studies. 

Which technique do you think is going to get you the best results? Our bet is with Technique #2 because you’re showing proof that your service has worked for other clients and you’ve gotten results for them. 

Since social proof is such an effective strategy, we suggest plastering social proof on multiple channels. 

For example, your website landing page should have social proof, like testimonials. To illustrate this, you can check out examples of website testimonials that highlight customer satisfaction and positive experiences. These can range from written excerpts to video testimonials.

The latter is particularly effective, as the genuine emotion and enthusiasm of a satisfied customer are much more palpable, adding a layer of credibility that is hard to dispute. Your social media platforms should have social proof, such as the awards you’ve won. And your newsletters can share social proof, like case studies. 

To learn what social proof can look like on up-and-running websites, you can consider Jeremy Moser’s consulting page for reference:

How does it help your branding toolkit: If your end goal is to send a message that your B2B company is trustworthy, social proof can be the way to go. You can even go ahead and use some social media monitoring tools to quickly gather social proof.

3. Repurpose content but keep it native for channels

Content repurposing is something a lot of marketers advocate for — and we’re on the same ship, but with one caveat.

The reason we suggest keeping content native to preferred channels is that if you write social media content (aka, typically light and snappy content) in the same way as you write blog content (which is typically more detailed in comparison), you might not be able to convert as many B2B leads.

So if you’re hosting an online event, you can still take the insights you receive from invitations with RSVP tracking and create blogs, social media posts, and videos with them. 

But take it one step further by analyzing the customer information you collected, like the purpose for joining the event, to better understand your customers and what they expect from your brand. These details are worth their weight in gold. 

That way, even after the event is over, you can create content that’s specifically tailored to their preferences — whether that’s a preferred communication channel like email or a type of content like monthly newsletters. 

Plus, with the rise of global commerce, you’re no longer limited to selling your products and services within your own country or region. Reaching consumers in different markets can be challenging, as each market has unique requirements and preferences. 

Hiring international contractors, like local marketers and PRs, means you can bring with them the knowledge and expertise to connect your brand with local consumers in different markets. 

It’s a simple and cost-effective way to adapt your content to fit the unique requirements of each segment and successfully reach your intended audience. For instance, you might want to customize messaging, branding, and advertising campaigns to reflect regional languages, cultural norms, and practices.

McDonald’s does this particularly well. In Guatemala, a collectivist society, McDonald’s learns that consumers are more likely to treat their children to a fast food meal than themselves.

However, in an individualist society like the United States, McDonald’s promotes a BOGO (buy one, get one) offer for downloading their app. The takeaway? A unique approach to messaging across cultures works wonders to add a personalized flair and improve conversion rates.

How does it help your branding toolkit: What better way to create a personalized message using direct customer insight and local knowledge across your campaigns?

4. Consider pain points and purchase drivers

Another digital marketing technique to consider is to create content that’s geared toward customers’ pain points and purchase drivers.

Every industry has its specific audiences, preferences and needs,  so content should be different. For example, creating content for lawyers will be a little bit different than creating content for shopping enthusiasts.

Knowing the nitty-gritty details will help you write better content, but it’ll also help you convert prospects faster. 

For example, if you’re researching graphic design agencies and you want someone that produces high-quality work, which of these listings would you be more inclined to move forward with? 

Company A: Providing The Best Rates in Town

Company B: Providing Work of The Highest Quality 

Your answer’s Company B, amirite? 

How does it help your branding toolkit: Getting a better handle on pain points and purchase drivers helps you reach your end goal more efficiently and effectively. 

5. Focus on your core values 

Being transparent about your beliefs and values gets you two steps ahead of everyone else. Consider examples like Nike and Ben & Jerry’s. 

Half the reason some customers like these companies are that they never step down when it comes to their core beliefs. 

Case in point: Nike getting into trouble for the Colin Kaepernick ad, and Ben & Jerry’s halting paid ads on Facebook and Instagram to be a part of the #StopHateForProfit campaign. 

Both of these moves affected them, but they refused to back down. 

Such core beliefs essentially become a part of your messaging, your brand, and your true essence. And being vocal and transparent about them leads your customers to be more loyal to you. 

How does it help your branding toolkit:  If your end goal is to create more loyal customers or to create a synchronized message about what you believe in, consider talking about your core values. 

6. Create a hero and a villain 

A hero and a villain dialogue is evergreen. 

For example, if you’re a meat distributor going through a loss in sales because more and more people are shifting to vegan products due to environmental reasons, you shouldn’t only tell your prospects why real meat is good for the environment (hero) but should also tell them why vegan meat is bad for the environment (villain). 

Obviously, we don’t mean to diss your competitors by naming them, but you can take their USPs or features and tell your prospects what makes your product/service better than theirs. 

For example, many companies have lead magnets like SaaS marketing playbook and checklists that often feature comparisons. These account for all features of their product, as well as their competitor’s product. Doing this helps potential customers realize that you’re the perfect choice for them. 

Check out social media analytics like Keyhole and track your share of voice in the market. Add your social media profiles and those of your competitors to understand their marketing strategies in depth. Use the information to outdo them.

How does it help your branding toolkit: A B2B marketing strategy like this will help create a synchronized dialogue that your products are better than your competitors. 

7. Share free resources

While at first glance, sharing resources might sound like too much work for very little reward. However, creating such resources can bring a plethora of benefits to you. 

For example, here are a few of the benefits you can consider:

• You become a trusted authority in the eyes of your customers (e.g., McKinsey is often considered a trusted source due to the high-quality research studies it shares for free).

• You improve your website ranking (e.g., if you share content that has a unique angle or more insights on a topic, chances are, it’s going to be featured in multiple articles that want to explore that unique angle/insight further).

• You increase your brand visibility (e.g., if your resource is helpful, people are going to share it with other people in their network, thereby increasing your brand visibility).

How does it help your branding toolkit:  Sharing free resources that can be shared on multiple marketing platforms (e.g., email, social media campaigns, website, etc.) creates a synchronized message that you’re a trusted authority in your niche. 

Quick Note: For the new branding toolkit upgrade (aka, end goals and synchronized messaging) to be effective, you need to create marketing content that showcases the same goal/messaging on multiple channels. 

For example, if you want to be more trusted through social proof, provide references to case studies, awards, certificates, testimonials, etc., on almost every channel and in every piece of content you create. 

How can Keyhole help you? 

Now that we’ve gone through the whole nine yards trying to understand what digital marketing tips and techniques you should apply to create better branding for your business, it’s now time to understand what more digital media can do for you. 

Cue to our entrance: Keyhole is a social media analytics tool that provides you with real-time insights, so you can improve your social media presence efficiently and effectively. 

For example, if you wish to monitor the image of your brand on social channels, measure the effectiveness of influencer marketing campaigns, do competitor analysis, monitor campaigns, track hashtags, and do market research, Keyhole can help you with all tasks. 

We’ve helped teams from companies like Reuters, Google, Spotify, and more with their social-media-related perils. 

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Author Bio

Vergine Melkonyan writes mostly SaaS and marketing content that helps customers to easily perform web scrapings, automate time-consuming tasks and be informed about latest tech trends with step-by-step tutorials and insider articles.