4 secrets to reaching your B2B audience effectively online

Shhhh! We are about to give away some of our biggest secrets garnered from collective years of marketing experience! 

The challenge!

If you sell something we all want or need (loo roll, mobile phone, internet) then your job feels like it would be easy as you know your target audience is pretty much everyone. But what if your audience is or feels elusive, and particularly if you work in B2B. You know who they are, you just don’t know how best to reach them?

Well here’s the crux! They are online, and they are consumers of content the same way the B2C audiences are. It is just reaching them in a clever, effective way may need some additional consideration.

Secret #1: Listen and learn

What problem scenarios do your target audience encounter? If they were searching online, how would they type this into the search engine (keywords!)? What are the conversations they are following and engaging with on social (social listening)?

In essence, your audience is already looking for you, they just don’t know it yet. And you are of course looking for them, but you need to be aware of what scenarios are influencing their day job. Don’t forget, this can change depending on what stage of the journey they are on. 

It is crucial you don’t jump this step as speaking to an already receptive audience is more than half the battle.

Secret #2: Get active with the tools

Digital marketing offers a whole host of tools that give you plenty of audience insights to get your teeth stuck into whether it is Google Analytics or Facebook Insights. Not only can this help with retargeting opportunities, the data can also often throw out new channel targeting considerations.

The secret to success? Bring in an Insights expert who is used to reading and translating the data and providing workable summaries for your next phase of marketing planning. 

Far too often, companies have the tools but barely scratch the surface on what they can offer whether it is due to available resources or understanding how the tools work.

Secret #3: Optimise LinkedIn paid ads correctly

No channel compares to LinkedIn for targeting the B2B audience, but the targeting options it provides does come at a price – high CPC for example.

A social media paid ads expert will be able to work closely with you to create unique combinations for your targeting to help achieve a lower CPC that don’t just rely on the expensive job title targeting. They will also work with you in advance to agree how much a new lead is worth to you which will play into the size of audience they build. 

Don’t forget, social media advertising is more effective at reaching your target audience when you consult an expert.

Secret #4: Adopt the lookalikes

Some of you reading this will know this, many of you won’t. Platforms like Google, Facebook and LinkedIn give you the opportunity to create lookalike audiences. 

Lookalike audiences combine the traits of your ideal customer with member and company data to help you market to new professional audiences similar to your existing customers, website visitors and target accounts.

These are a great way to go beyond the standard targeting options presented on digital platforms; and they follow what the algorithms know about your audiences vs individual targeting.

Finding your B2B audience

B2B audiences are out there, you just may need to think a bit more carefully about how to reach them. Firstly find out what the problem is they are looking to solve and then expand this into channels by leveraging the tools available from audience insights to lookalikes.

For a quick chat on how to translate some of these secrets into tangible action, drop us a line at.