Facebook is arguably one of the best online places where companies can reach out to their customers. However, it is often not a popular option for those engaging in business-to-business marketing. Which is a shame, as they are missing out on a big playing field. Here is how your startup business can effectively take advantage of the popular social media sites to reach out to client companies.
Why Your Startup Business Should Do B2B Marketing On Facebook
One reason why some B2B companies avoid Facebook is that they feel it is geared towards individual customers. After all, people are on the site to share their personal stories. Even the companies there cater to these people’s personal needs rather than their business needs.
But the fact that companies are on Facebook to reach out to their customers is the single biggest reason B2B firms should also be on the platform. Beyond that, there are several other key reasons. All of these will give you an idea of what the platform has to offer.
User Volume
With Facebook’s user base size, a large variety of companies are also here. Additionally, the decision-makers you wish to reach out to in a company will likely be present. This gives you a lot of opportunities to engage them in a conversation.
Brand Equity
Companies looking to transact with your startup business would likely want to know more about you first. Here, Facebook is one of the most accessible means of doing that. They can just view your company page and see what you are doing. And by carefully highlighting your most important achievements, they would be more interested in knowing more about and eventually engaging.
Better Messaging
Image from Research Leap.
If you want to target a specific kind of customer, Facebook is great for helping you capture their attention. It has a comprehensive set of tools that lets you study your target audience up close. The site also provides an extensive advertising program that lets you customize the audience you want your message to reach.
Planning Your Startup Business B2B Outreach
With all the benefits you can gain from the platform, you would want to do it right. As such, you need to have a clear plan for your campaigns. Start by defining the objectives that you want to accomplish.
Facebook can support several different types of campaign objectives. The most important ones for B2B marketing are the following.
- Brand awareness: These campaigns aim to introduce people to your brand and get them interested. That positions them at the top of your sales funnel.
- Traffic: Your main objective here is to drive people from Facebook to your website. This can also help you build remarketing lists and lookalike audiences to target.
- Lead generation: As the name says, this type of campaign objective helps you gather more leads. For this, you can pull important client information from within Facebook itself.
- Conversion campaigns: This campaign type’s goal is to get prospects into striking a deal with you. Here, you would want them to head to specific landing pages on your site.
These campaigns cover the entirety of a B2B client’s customer journey. As such, you would want to time them accordingly. This way, you will be able to send the right messages that will get the best response.
Understanding The Facebook Pixel
A particular component of a startup business B2B campaign you don’t want to overlook is the Facebook pixel. This is a short piece of code that you insert into your website. It collects data that is then used to optimize ads and build a targeted audience profile.
You can customize the pixel for any type of campaign you are running. Furthermore, you can have it tracking different data on different pages. For example, it can track sales conversions on one page while also keeping tabs on filled forms in another. By configuring the pixel correctly, you can ensure that your B2B campaigns will have the right data to work on, giving better results.
Creating Your Facebook Content
Once you have your Facebook campaign goals and audiences defined, you can start building your content. Since you are doing B2B, you might be tempted to go with a salesy pitch. However, this would not always be a good idea. Remember that this is Facebook. Even the companies that are here do not expect to be aggressively marketed upon.
Instead, focus more on providing awareness about your brand. This way, company decision-makers can better determine whether you fit the bill. Constant posting also helps build your prominence in the eyes of clients.
Adding more human elements to your B2B content also helps boost your visibility. Featuring your employees is one way of doing that. The idea here is that users will be more likely to share your content if they see people in it. In turn, clients will see that shareable content and your brand more often and be interested.
Targeting Beyond Your Startup Company Audience
As mentioned above, Facebook offers a large variety of audience targeting options. To increase your reach, you would want to explore more of these. One way to get started is by targeting different work categories. Three of the most common categories here are:
- Employer: This lets you focus your content on specific companies that you have already identified.
- Job title: Using this option, you can reach out to people in specific positions within company hierarchies.
- New job: This category targets a specific life event and is useful for attracting major decision-makers during an important point in their careers.
Aside from these categories, you can explore others based on the overall marketing goals that you have set. By using the right categories for each campaign, you can both focus on it and reach out to new audiences.
Boost Your Startup Business B2B Presence With Facebook
These B2B marketing strategies will push your startup business to become a prominent figure on Facebook. But once potential clients come in, you need to be ready to engage them. We at Virtua Outsourcing can help you by providing you with skilled agents. Connect with us to find out more.