What to Look for in a B2B Technology Marketing Agency

With B2B tech marketing, you aren’t dealing with one or two people making the decisions. Instead, you’re more likely to work with a large group. According to Gartner, six to 10 people will evaluate your product. Each person has a different take on what’s important. B2B marketing targets each stakeholder’s needs. This action helps every decision-maker understand why your solution adds value.

You may find it challenging to stand out among your B2B tech competitors. B2B buyers spend 27% of their time performing online research and only 17% meeting with suppliers.

They want to weed out solutions that don't meet their needs before talking face-to-face. A B2B marketing strategy positions your company with strong messaging. Proper branding clarifies what makes your product different and why it's the best choice.

Your B2B buyers want to consume valuable content that you may not have time to create. Ninety percent of IT decision-makers have difficulty finding high-quality information from trusted sources. B2B marketing efforts focus on creating content that meets your buyers' needs. Content distribution includes choosing formats and channels your buyers prefer.

How do you explain your business’ value proposition? Tech companies can often get into the weeds with specifications and details. You may forget to address the most crucial topic: how your product solves the B2B tech buyer’s problem. Addressing how your solution is not like the others sets your business apart from the competition.

Do you understand your buyers’ needs? You don’t talk to a B2B tech buyer who just found your product or service the same way you talk to a prospect who’s seen a demo. You must customize your messaging for each stage of the buyer's journey.

Do you know how to connect and engage with potential customers? They may be B2B tech buyers, but they're still human. A compelling story at the right touchpoint can grab attention and motivate action. With complex sales like B2B tech, it's better to appeal to intuition than rationale.

Top B2B tech marketers focus on the entire funnel, not only the bottom. Here are some characteristics to look for in your B2B technology marketing agency.

Hybrid Marketing Team

Look for brand marketers who are also skilled at lead generation, social media marketing, and content strategy. Hybrid marketers can focus on your B2B tech company’s reputation while still being involved in daily and weekly goals. You can also use fractional marketing support to fill this role. They should use videos, thought leadership, and social media to promote brand awareness and qualify prospects.

Brand and Demand Balance

Pick an agency that values both B2B branding and demand generation. A brand-heavy strategy is a long-term game. A demand-heavy approach focuses on short-term results. Your B2B tech marketing team may lean one way or another at first, depending on your immediate needs. But, overall, they should embrace both methods to create sustainable digital marketing plans.

Cross-Sector Curiosity

Choose a B2B tech marketing team with members from diverse backgrounds. People who've worked in other industries are more innovative. They don’t have the traditional tech marketing model stuck in their heads. Your agency should encourage marketers to learn from different sectors. These experiences bring new perspectives that lead to a wide range of ideas.

Audience-Centric Roles

Search for an agency that gives team members audience-centric roles. For example, leaders can assign B2B tech marketers to vertical and region positions instead of content and email. Team members will better understand buyer motivation by focusing on an audience instead of a channel.

Learning Culture

Seek out a B2B tech marketing team that promotes a learning culture. The best tech marketing departments encourage people to develop their skills in different directions. For instance, an email marketer may be curious about product marketing, or a content marketer may want to build brand skills. When team members learn and apply new techniques, the agency benefits, and so does your B2B company.

Your agency may deploy several B2B marketing tools to help your company stay competitive in the tech industry.

Buzzsumo and Hootsuite are monitoring tools. They help marketers identify trending topics and create content that suits your target audience. Also, your agency can use social listening tools to find out what B2B tech buyers are saying about those topics—and your brand. For example, HubSpot has a social listening tool built into its marketing platform. SocialMention is another option.

Your team may use a content management system (CMS) to publish content and measure success. HubSpot has CMS capabilities, and open source solutions like WordPress and Drupal are also popular systems. Tools such as Buffer or Sprout Social allow your B2B tech marketing agency to maintain consistency with your social media posts.

Messaging tools like Drift and Intercom enable your B2B tech marketing agency to nurture leads from your website. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems such as HubSpot or Salesforce can track leads and sales. Google Analytics and Google Data Studio organize data into customizable reports. Your team can use the Google suite to measure return on investment (ROI) and decide whether to make marketing campaign adjustments.

A great B2B tech marketing team uses content to explain the value of your product to customers. The agency can execute several steps to create your B2B content marketing strategy.

Your team may start by creating buyer personas‌ to understand who they’re targeting and what those people hope to gain from your product. Tech marketers gather information about demographics, interests, and traits. They also compile lists of goals, pain points, and buying habits. This process helps writers tailor content to your customers’ needs.

The agency may write long-form content such as blog posts, white papers, and case studies with personas in place. These pieces establish your tech company’s authority and provide value to prospects. Your team may ask for topic ideas and develop their own to focus on a niche and display your expertise. Using search engine optimization (SEO) tactics and sharing content on social media helps your team engage the audience.

Since your content lives on your website, your B2B tech marketing team should ensure it’s up to date. They test how fast your site loads and whether it works well on mobile. The agency may add pages if your site doesn’t have enough content. Standard pages for an inbound marketing strategy include a landing page, an About page, a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page, a Contact page, and product pages.

Your agency may invest in email marketing since it’s still one of the best ways to communicate with customers. Email initiatives allow B2B tech marketers to collect data about prospects while nurturing and qualifying leads. It’s also a great marketing channel to promote content like blogs. Marketing automation makes it easier for the agency to send a series of emails and maintain lines of communication.

Your B2B marketing team must stay on top of trends to produce high-quality content that competes within the tech industry. This approach includes paying attention to information shared by industry leaders and influencers. Your agency may also search for recent statistics to ensure your content doesn't contain outdated data.

The software as a service (SaaS) market is one of the fastest-growing tech industry sectors. Agencies can use specific strategies to help B2B SaaS companies grow their businesses and stay competitive.

Offering free trials is an excellent way for B2B SaaS marketers to get a foot in the door with potential customers. There’s little cost involved. The agency can put the product and support staff on full display to see if the customer likes what they see. Even if the user doesn’t sign up for a subscription, the team can still gather valuable feedback on what worked and what didn’t.

Giving customers rewards for referring other businesses is an effective method to attract B2B SaaS prospects. More than 90% of consumers trust personal recommendations over ads. Users already enjoy using the software—offering them a discount or free features encourages them to sing the product’s praises.

A B2B SaaS marketing team should make the product signup process easy for customers. Reducing friction is critical. The customer may get frustrated if they have to jump through several hoops to try out the service. Team members should review the signup steps to see if they can cut anything.

If organic traffic is not generating enough leads, B2B SaaS marketers may run a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign. The right strategy gets the product in front of the target audience at the lowest cost-per-click (CPC). The digital marketing agency must offer a magnetic value proposition, or potential customers will look elsewhere.

The call to action (CTA) for B2B SaaS customers should be clear and direct. Marketers should make the next step obvious and place the CTA where customers can easily click the button. Instead of offering several options, it’s best to focus on one action, such as watching a video, reading a blog, or following on social media.

The agency you choose to market your product should understand the nuances of the B2B tech industry. Your team must keep up with changes in technology while maintaining patience with the B2B sales process.

Simply put, you need a marketing agency that gets B2B tech.

O8's founder is a software engineer and web architect. Many B2B tech companies use our digital marketing services. We can develop your B2B tech marketing strategy to achieve results and increase conversion rates.

View our tech marketing portfolio, then get in touch to see if we can help with your B2B tech marketing challenges.