
Legendary business tycoon Henry Ford once famously said that ‘A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a watch to save time.’ This inspiring quote precisely tells the importance of investing money in good advertising.
Without spending on paid advertisements, it is not always feasible to achieve desired business results. Especially, in today’s competitive world where tons of companies are selling similar services to almost the same demographic audiences.
Everyone understands the importance of paid advertising but also often feels anxious or confused about where to spend money. Here, we are presenting the 9 best ways to clear this doubt. Although many of the below stated mediums also support or are available for use at free of cost but there is no match to their paid services.
What is Paid Media?
Paid media is an integral part of B2B marketing. It is a medium that allows enterprises to promote their marketing message with the help of third-party paid platforms/channels. It is popular because it gives you the leverage to market your services amongst countless people who you otherwise fail to reach via organic means. It is the quickest way to gain impressive marketing results.
Best Paid Marketing Mediums for B2B Enterprises
1. Retargeting
Did you know that more than 97% of people who visit your website for the first time leave without buying anything? More importantly, such huge potential customers are lost forever without leaving any trail.
Now you can win those unknown prospects by reinventing your B2B marketing strategy with the power of Retargeting. It is one of the most effective B2B advertising mediums that keeps a close eye on everyone who visits a website. Using its AI-powered business intelligence algorithm, it shows your ads to those past visitors while listening to music, watching a video, doing shopping, reading an article or doing simple browsing on any website.
Your ad reminds them about your brand and tries to pull them towards your website again. If you don’t have any budget constraints and want to boost sales in less time then including ‘Retargeting’ as a part of the B2B paid media strategy is a must.
2. Embrace the Power of LinkedIn
The presence of more than 61 million senior executives makes LinkedIn the best social media platform for B2B marketing. As these people are high-rank officers and decision-makers within their organizations, investing money here is always a good idea to gain their attention. This platform allows you to run B2B paid media campaigns targeting desired audiences based on key parameters like job, industry, location, experience, company, seniority, etc.
LinkedIn paid features enable you to boost web traffic, lead generation, and brand awareness amongst the right people. Also, lead conversion rates through LinkedIn marketing are 3X more than major ad platforms including Google ads. These are the reasons why marketers use LinkedIn services extensively as a part of their B2B paid media strategy.
A few important services that you must try.
- Matched Audience
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- InMail
- LinkedIn Ads
3. Invest in Content Discovery Platforms
In B2B marketing, creating quality content is important. But more important is to make sure that your content is visible amongst the right set of audiences. Content discovery platforms enable you to meet this goal.
Using AI-powered algorithms, your content is distributed to various popular channels across the globe based on readership choices. As they have high followings, excellent brand credibility, and association with several top media houses, they ensure optimistic returns on your investments. You can promote blogs, articles, videos, demos or anything you want.
Taboola is the best content discovery platform with an enormous reach across the globe. It offers 360 billion content recommendations to over 1 billion people every month. Two things that you surely can gain by using this paid B2B marketing channel are excellent ‘Brand Visibility’ and increased ‘Website Traffic’.
4. Build PR Distribution Network
Building brand credibility is very important in B2B marketing. Especially in today’s digital age where tech-savvy B2B customers first research a company before taking any business decision. Making and publishing Press Releases on reputed platforms can help you build a positive brand appeal. It is one such effective B2B paid media strategy that enterprises use worldwide.
Remember, publishing a PR on your website may not help that much. But by publishing PRs on a wide range of third-party popular and authentic media channels can give excellent brand reach in a limited time. There are many good PR distribution channels available but which one is best for you depends upon the geography of your targeted audience.
For example, if your target audience resides in India then ANI, India Today, PR Newswire, ThePrint, The Wire, etc., are considered best. To experience impressive results, you should pick 5-6 different channels. As each channel has a different set of audience, appeal, reach, and credibility.
5. Display Ads
While crafting a B2B paid media strategy, one cannot ignore the power of Display Ads. These ads appear on relevant websites, Gmail, blogs, mobile apps, YouTube, etc., in the form of a banner. Unlike traditional B2B marketing, display advertising is super targeted.
Using advanced technologies, these ads are published at places where your targeted audiences spend most of their time. Giants like Google, Facebook, and Twitter are considered best for display ads. Although, mostly these are built-in graphical formats, you can also use display ads in audio, video, and even text format. These ads have a high reach and are usually seen by a large number of people.
6. Native Advertising
A robust B2B marketing strategy is incomplete without having a part of native advertising in it. This powerful paid advertising medium allows marketers to show their ads without creating any disturbance to a visitor’s browsing experience. Native ads are built in a way such that their look, feel, color, layout, and function appear similar to the content of the platform. They merge with the website and don’t feel like an ad to the users. And this is their biggest USP.
Considered as useful in B2B campaigns due to various vital reasons:
- Non-disruptive
- Gets more user attention
- Increases CTR
- Highly engaging
- Feels natural & seamless
- Increases purchase intent
- Gets more views than display ads
- Increases brand awareness
7. Paid Search
In today’s digital age everything starts with a search. Whatever results a search engine shows on the first page gets prime attention. Others just hide under the carpet. This is the reason getting a good website rank always remains one of the biggest B2B social media goals for any enterprise. However, doing it organically takes a long time.
So, what do you do till then? Sit idle and lose customers? Or try something extra!!
Paid search is the solution. It enables you to display your ad in the search engine results (as top results). Or you can say it is the shortcut to let your brand be listed on top search results. It is trusted by marketers all around the world. You can gauge its popularity by understanding these facts
- In 2020, enterprises spent $110 billion on search ads
- In 2020, PPC was recognized as one of the best channels to pull high-volume leads
- 77% of online users say that they easily recognize paid search ads
It is a very targeted B2B paid media strategy that provides various benefits like:
- Instant website traffic
- High ROI
- More warm leads
- Better brand recognition
- Top search spot in the local area
- Retargeting
- Cost-effective (as you need to pay as per the number of clicks only)
- Multi-layer targeting options
8. Paid Voice Advertising
Nowadays B2B enterprises are not shying away to try something new to gain the attention of their potential customers. B2B marketers are in fact exploring different avenues to market their services. One such popular thing is the addition of paid voice advertising in B2B marketing strategy.
Podcast is undoubtedly one of the best mediums to market a message in this segment. Enterprises are using it in their B2B paid media campaigns to create a better pull amongst audiences. Especially amongst those who are fond of listening. Giants like Salesforce, Asana, Zoom, and more are leveraging the power of podcasts to create larger brand awareness.
Popularity Reasons:
- Users get desired information, tips, insights about their favorite subjects directly from experts that too in a soothing, calm, and peaceful manner
- Over 55% of the US population love podcasts
- Allows passive consumption (listen while doing other work like driving, etc.)
- A highly captivating and engaging way to create brand awareness
9. Out-of-Home Advertising (OOH)
Digital marketing space sometimes becomes so cluttered as it does not get your message heard or seen the way it is required to boost awareness. OOH helps you to meet this goal. It is a form of advertising that is promoted in real spaces like
- Billboard (digital or traditional)
- Public transit space (bus & taxi wraps)
- Banners
- Street Furniture (park benches, kiosks)
Benefits
- Ensured visibility (an ad blocker can affect you digitally but with OOH there is no such issue).
- It is location-specific, therefore, highly targeted. Place it near an industrial zone and see the results.
- People spend a considerable amount of time out-of-home. Therefore, placing ads at the right locations where your targeted audience might reach can give good visibility.
- Broad reach. According to Nielsen, more than 80% of people notice OOH ads.
- Generates consumer actions more promptly.
- As much of the ads are placed at authorized places and seen for a longer time, therefore, OOH ads create a much larger and long-lasting impact than digital ads.
Final Words
In B2B marketing, there is not a single best way to advertise a brand. It is always a mix of a few organic as well as paid marketing strategies that one should implement to get the best results. Therefore, understand your targeted audience first, analyze these varied marketing channels and based on your budget and likeability, proceed ahead.
Remember, the magic of marketing does not happen just with a good marketing message but it also requires a precise and effective paid media strategy.
VSynergize is a global brand that is known for its excellent B2B lead generation services. We help businesses grow and achieve their sales target using effective B2B marketing tactics. Contact us today at info@vsynergizeoutsourcing.com to know more.