As marketers, we are in the habit of thinking about the customer journey of a final customer who buys in e-commerce, who buys in retail, who will see our advertising for a discounted product and will run to get it. We are used to it, but in addition to B2C (Business to Consumer Marketing), there is B2B (Business to Business Marketing), where the marketing communication process takes more time since we must try to persuade or convince business decision-makers to purchase the products or services we offer.

These decision-makers are much more informed than B2C clients, they seek a benefit for the company they work for, and that benefit will bring a personal reward as a professional capable of achieving them. As marketers, we must find those moments or stages where our decision-maker is to arrive at effective communication.

There are 6 stages that must be addressed when executing a B2B communication plan towards decision-makers, at each stage we can confirm if our actions are effective and generate a return from our audience. I will represent the 6 stages with a personal experience with a potential client in the financial field, showing how investing in advertising on Linkedin could bring greater benefits when targeting high-quality clients for high-value services. 

 Is this a problem to solve? : The client had advertising campaigns on social media that brought very low-quality leads, having a very high cost per acquisition problem due to the high investment and low conversion. LinkedIn could reduce this cost and increase the conversion rate given the segmentation towards high-quality customer prospects who would be interested in the bank’s high-value services.

What are the Solutions to Solve it? : The solution was to carry out actions that make it possible to know the high-quality segments in LinkedIn that can acquire high-value products that the bank offer, such as cards with a high-limit credit line, the opening of checking accounts, and investment funds. This can be done using the LinkedIn Advertising Platform. 

Who can help with the solution?: The LinkedIn Marketing Solutions strategy team will carry out training sessions in the management of the advertising platform, empowering the internal marketing team to develop the appropriate communications on the network and reach the target audience.

How much do we want to spend?: LinkedIn is a network with a high advertising cost given the quality of the data in it and the minimum investment is managed that achieves results that can be tangible these minimums exceed $2000 per campaign, so the client had a proposal of $5,000 to a branding and performance campaign that allows you to derive traffic to your website where the LinkedIn tracking pixel would capture the information of the profiles such as positions, e-mails,  and the names of the companies where they work.

Where will this go wrong? : There is always a margin of error and in this case, it could be in the size of the audience, which would be very small, which could generate few conversions in the performance campaign, but the client was aware of this and the true value was in the High-value audience awareness and capture.

Do we have to do this now? : The client had pressure from the commercial department that had to deliver product results in 4 months, so it was urgent for him to start the campaign and achieve greater conversion with quality clients.

This is how we close the deal with the client and start the campaign. Just for the record, the campaign was a success as the client managed to build a robust, high-quality audience base and improved their conversions.

Build a communication and marketing strategy obeying these stages, they can help to identify the problem and solution in each one of them and it will help you generate a relationship and trust with your client.