B2B Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Retail Services
By Shari Steinbach, MS RDN, RDBA Contributing Editor
In today’s environment of wellness, many businesses are seeking resources that help them maintain a healthy workforce while reducing health care costs. If you are looking for ways to advance your educational outreach to local companies, this may be the perfect time to revisit your B2B marketing strategies to successfully grow your services and potential income. Here are some steps to get started:
- Identify your unique selling proposition – Understand and define your positioning in the market before you set goals. This includes knowing what your competitors are offering so you can identify what unique programs you can provide. You must also identify the businesses you want to target and be assured that you have resources to meet their needs. Answer questions such as, "Who are we marketing to? What are their pain points? How do our services solve those? Where can we reach them, both on and offline? What messages will be relevant and persuasive in order to garner interest and secure work?"
- Set your B2B marketing goals – After pulling together key information, you are ready to start setting your B2B marketing goals. Your goals should have leadership approval, a timeline, and be easy to measure. Start with high-level goals initially. Consider how many new businesses you want to reach, what programs you will offer, and a departmental income goal.
- Outline your B2B marketing tactics – Now that your goals are in place it’s time to get down to the business of the tactics you will choose to reach them. You will need to select specific channels that are pertinent to reaching your target customer, and lay out a plan for each channel. For retail wellness services, a good starting point may be with content marketing, email marketing and referral marketing.
- Content marketing involves creating relevant content for your target businesses in order to establish yourself or your team as expert(s) in the field. This may involve the creation of video content, sharing successful case studies, or a guide outlining services.
- If you have some potential leads, email marketing is a quick and easy way to send a personal note while attaching content such as a video or case study.
- B2B referral marketing is a great way to leverage an existing customer base if you have one. You can ask current businesses you work with to refer your services to other companies, and in turn you can offer an educational incentive for their employees. By doing this you may be able to grow your outreach without spending additional funds.
Remember that B2B selling can be a longer process as you often have to go through a number of individuals to get approval. Taking the time to organize your B2B marketing strategy and tactics up front will help ensure greater success.
