What is B2B advertising and how can it benefit your business?
Business-to-business (B2B) advertising is when businesses promote their products and services to each other, rather than individual consumers (B2C advertising). It’s an essential strategy for B2B businesses looking to engage their target audience, generate leads and foster long-term relationships.
Using a variety of channels including print, search engine marketing and Out of Home (OOH) advertising, you can increase your brand presence and form connections with potential customers. In this guide, we’ll explore why B2B advertising is so important and how you can use it effectively in your marketing strategy.
What is B2B Advertising?
B2B advertising is when a business markets its products and services to other businesses through the use of paid advertising. This can take place across a variety of mediums, including print, online and outdoor media.
Unlike the vast majority of advertising – which focuses on marketing to individual consumers – B2B advertising stands out because the target audience is companies and organizations.
With that being said, a lot of the same principles apply. After all, it’s still people who will see your ads and people who will decide whether to take action post-exposure.
If your ads aren’t in the right places and your messaging doesn’t resonate with its intended audience, it doesn’t matter whether you’re targeting businesses or consumers – your advertising won’t work.
When done right, however, B2B advertising is an effective way to reach business decision-makers, promote your services and influence purchase decisions.
The Unique Features of B2B Advertising
You may be wondering what is B2B advertising and how does it differ from B2C advertising? Despite some shared principles, there are also some key differences between the way that B2C and B2B advertising work. The unique characteristics of B2B advertising include:
Longer sales cycles – it takes longer for a business to buy something than for an individual consumer, as business purchases often require multi-level approval processes. Longer sales cycles usually mean longer campaigns so that audiences can be carefully nurtured over time.
Targeting decision-makers – effective B2B advertising takes a considered targeting approach. It’s not enough to just target the right business – you also need to target the right people within the business (i.e., decision-makers and others with influence over purchases).
Relationship-building – businesses prioritise efficiency, which makes long-term relationships with providers preferable. B2B advertising is a vital part of the relationship-building process, helping to set the tone for the rest of the relationship.
FAB messaging – while not always the case, it’s far more common to see traditional FAB (features, advantages, benefits) messaging in B2B advertising. This is because business decision-makers usually have to justify spending and demonstrate its value, unlike consumers who make more impulse and emotion-led purchases.
The Benefits of B2B Advertising for Your Business
Understanding what is B2B advertising is key to leveraging its advantages for your business. B2B advertising offers various benefits, including increasing brand awareness within specific industries, cultivating brand credibility and reaching potential buyers. By doing this, you can generate high-quality leads and increase your revenue potential.
Here are some of the other ways that B2B advertising can benefit your business.
Building Long-Term Relationships
As a B2B business, building long-term relationships with your customers is beneficial for both parties. Your customers receive better services as you get to know their needs, while you benefit from sustained revenue generation.
Trust is one of the most vital components in building a strong relationship. When audiences trust your brand, they perceive investing in your solutions as a lower-risk proposition, making them more likely to purchase. They’re also more likely to become loyal customers if they believe they can trust you to provide value for money.
B2B advertising plays an important role in building trust. It’s often the first point of contact with a potential customer, establishing the initial connection that leads to a long-term relationship.
But it’s not all about first impressions. B2B advertising also builds trust throughout the sales cycle by helping you to:
Establish a consistent brand presence
Reinforce your messaging
Build your brand’s reputation as a thought leader
B2B outdoor advertising can be particularly useful for cultivating trust amongst audiences. By increasing brand visibility within a public setting, you can indicate trustworthiness and authority, enhancing your brand’s perceived credibility.
Targeted Marketing
B2B advertising allows you to precisely target specific industries, companies and decision-makers so that you know your ads are reaching the right people. This leads to more efficient and effective campaigns that generate high-quality leads.
Marketing channels such as print and OOH advertising target audiences with high contextual relevance. For example, you could place a print ad in an industry publication or use billboard advertising to reach professional audiences in key business districts.
With digital B2B advertising, you can leverage audience segmentation to target based on shared characteristics. These can include:
Buying journey stage (e.g. awareness vs consideration)
Firmographic data (e.g. company size, industry or specific job roles)
Behavioural data (e.g. social media engagement or website interactions)
Targeted marketing allows you to take a more personalised approach to B2B advertising. Depending on the medium used, you can tailor your messaging, ad schedule and creative content to appeal to potential buyers. This targeted approach makes your ads more likely to resonate with their intended audience, increasing overall engagement.
Measurable ROI
Tracking and measuring the return on investment (ROI) of B2B marketing campaigns is essential for long-term growth. It helps you understand how to allocate resources more efficiently, optimise performance and demonstrate value to stakeholders.
With B2B advertising, there are various ways to measure ROI. For example, the impact of OOH adverts can be measured by looking at increases in website traffic, footfall, leads generated, social media engagement and sales uplift during the period ads were running.
Digital advertising channels provide more detail when it comes to measuring performance. For example, most programmatic platforms provide real-time analytics, allowing you to optimise your campaign in the moment. You can monitor ad engagement as it happens and use the insights you find to make data-driven decisions that improve ROI.
Tracking codes and unique URLs allow you to track audiences as they move through the sales funnel. By following the journey from exposure to sale, you can accurately measure ROI, identify bottlenecks and enhance your sales pipeline.
Different Types of B2B Advertising
To fully answer the question ‘what is B2B advertising?’, we need to look at the broad spectrum of mediums it covers. There are many different types of B2B advertising you can leverage, including both traditional and digital formats, to get your brand in front of your ideal customers. The most effective strategies often use a combination of different channels to achieve the best results.
Traditional B2B advertising formats include:
Radio ads
Print ads
OOH ads
Direct mail
Digital B2B advertising campaigns often involve:
Display ads
Search engine ads
Social media ads
Video ads
DOOH
Audio advertising
Digital B2B Advertising Channels
Digital advertising now accounts for the majority of advertising revenue worldwide and is only set to continue growing. Digital channels such as display ads, search engine marketing and digital OOH have changed the game for B2B advertisers, offering advanced targeting and tracking capabilities alongside unprecedented flexibility.
B2B Display Advertising
Display advertising is a powerful and sometimes underutilised tool for building brand awareness among specific business audiences. Visual advertising formats make a strong brand statement and provide opportunities for visual storytelling, which is something audiences in the modern world have come to expect.
You can learn more about the medium’s power and how to create effective campaigns in our Guide to B2B Display Advertising.
Programmatic Advertising for B2B
Programmatic advertising automates the buying process, allowing you to buy and sell advertising inventory in real-time. This has huge benefits for B2B advertisers – you can respond to changing market conditions, ensure you’re only targeting the most valuable audiences and maximise advertising ROI.
Clear Channel’s LaunchPAD is a programmatic advertising tool that lets you buy Digital OOH inventory and boost your omnichannel campaigns. Our blog on B2B programmatic advertising explains how it can be used to refine your targeting strategy and improve cost-efficiency.
Lessons from Leading Brands in B2B Advertising
Food delivery brand Just Eat put together a compelling B2B advertising campaign to promote their meeting catering services. Using OOH advertising, they targeted business professionals who often rely on catering deliveries for lunches, team treats and client meetings.
Xero, a leading accounting software brand, targeted business decision-makers with adverts highlighting their invoicing feature. By focusing on the benefits (ease and efficiency), Xero’s ad is a great example of B2B messaging.
For more inspiration, take a look at our curated selection of the most successful B2B advertising examples.
What Can We Learn from the Best B2B Campaigns?
There are plenty of lessons to be learnt from the best B2B advertising campaigns. We’ve summarised the key takeaways that you can apply to your own strategies:
Using clean blocks of colour will give your ad a professional feel and help to make your message stand out
B2B advertising doesn’t have to be dry – relating your product or services to real-life use cases will help you form connections with your audience
Focusing on one clear benefit is more effective than trying to say everything at once
Strategic use of imagery can quickly convey meaning to your B2B audience
Creative B2B Advertising Ideas
A creative approach to campaigns is essential if you want to stand out in the B2B advertising landscape. It’s no longer enough to put out generic adverts – ads need to be innovative and inspiring to leave a lasting impression on audiences.
To get started, here are a few creative B2B advertising ideas to try implementing:
Using humour to highlight common pain points helps establish an emotional connection (as long as it’s appropriate for your brand)
Dynamic ads are a creative way of ensuring that messaging is always relevant and interesting
3D advertising is a great way to capture attention and provide audiences with a memorable experience
Incorporating interactive elements will boost engagement and create meaningful touchpoints
Using Storytelling to Build Emotional Connections
B2B audiences want to know that you understand and empathise with their needs before they buy from you. Logical, data-driven messages have their place – but you need to go beyond this if you’re going to form an emotional connection.
Emotional appeal plays an important role in influencing business decision-makers. And storytelling is one of the most powerful tools available for creating that connection.
Telling a (short) story in your B2B advertising can be as simple as highlighting a customer success story. The key things to remember are to pick a compelling narrative, be authentic and focus on maximising emotional impact.
Bringing the Brand Mission to Life
Businesses are more likely to buy from other businesses with the same values, as this implies a shared understanding that will lead to more efficient outcomes. Authentic, purpose-driven advertising is therefore a key strategy for appealing to B2B buyers.
By highlighting your values and promoting your mission, you can make your brand stand out and align yourself with your target audience. Purpose-driven B2B advertising can also forge a positive brand association and build trust, resulting in long-term relationships.
Future Trends in B2B Advertising
The answer to ‘what is B2B advertising?’ is changing as new trends and technologies continue to emerge. While businesses adapt their strategies and learn how to effectively utilise new technology, buyer behaviour is also evolving in response.
Our blog ‘B2B Advertising Trends That Will Define the Next Decade’ delves into the topic in a lot more detail. But for now, here’s an overview of the key trends shaping the future of B2B advertising.
The Role of Personalisation in B2B Advertising
No modern B2B advertising strategy is complete without some level of personalisation. Unlike generic approaches, with personalisation you can ensure that your messaging resonates every time by delivering targeted ads to specific audience segments.
AI and automation are revolutionising how personalisation is carried out. AI can analyse vast amounts of data in seconds to find valuable insights that inform personalisation strategies, while automation enables these strategies to be executed efficiently at scale.
The Rise of Digital and Programmatic Advertising
Few things have been as influential in the world of B2B advertising as the rise of digital channels, including programmatic platforms like Clear Channel RADAR.. As we head into the future, these technologies will allow you to:
reach niche audiences with more precision than ever before
tailor your messaging in a hyper-personalised way
achieve unprecedented levels of cost-efficiency through intelligent use of ad inventory
Steps to Launching Your B2B Advertising Campaign
When it comes to launching your own B2B advertising campaign, the right strategy varies from business to business. However, there are some basic steps to follow in every instance.
Setting Clear Objectives
Setting realistic goals is the first step in any successful B2B advertising campaign. It’s generally better to focus on one primary objective at a time, as this will allow you to refine your strategy more precisely and optimise more effectively.
Common goals for B2B advertising campaigns include:
increasing brand awareness
driving traffic to your website
generating leads
enhancing customer retention
Choosing the Right Channels
Once you’ve decided what you’re trying to achieve, the next step is to pick the channels best suited to your goal. For example, brand-building platforms like DOOH are best suited to increasing your audience reach and maintaining brand presence throughout the customer journey.
Search marketing, on the other hand, can be especially valuable for increasing brand authority around a specific topic and driving traffic onsite. It’s all about figuring out what makes the most sense for your business and your audience.
Measuring Success
Once your campaign is up and running, tracking performance is key to measuring success and optimising future efforts. To measure the effectiveness of B2B advertising, some important metrics to look at include:
reach
impressions
click-through rate (CTR)
conversion rate
brand uplift
cost per lead
With digital channels, you can stay abreast of performance in real-time and adjust campaigns accordingly so that they’re constantly improving.
Ready to Start Your B2B Advertising Journey?
B2B advertising is a powerful tool for business growth – we encourage you to explore how you can use it to fuel your own pipeline and drive ROI. If you’re ready to start your journey, please contact us to find out more about Clear Channel’s tailored B2B advertising solutions and how we can help your business succeed.