Retargeting is the art of bringing back customers to your store when they are ready to walk out. In the B2B world, retargeting is of the utmost importance; you are competing for a smaller customer base compared to B2C marketers, and your competitors are also trying to snatch prospects as they prepare to walk away and seek another provider of professional products and services.
You may have already heard of retargeting under the name of remarketing. Both words mean the same thing: displaying an ad to a person who has visited your website or added products to their shopping cart, but has not completed a transaction.
Given the nature of their work, professional buyers are very busy and are prone to leaving a website if something urgent comes up. Thus, they are unlikely to remember your website or to return to it to browse for products unless you remind them. This, in a nutshell, is what retargeting is all about.
Today we will discuss the most effective ways in which you can take advantage of retargeting for B2B marketing strategies. Here are a few helpful guidelines:
- Target Prospects By Account
In B2B marketing, the category of accounts is very important. You will address small and medium sized enterprise managers in one way, and international corporate buyers in another way. By creating specific retargeting campaigns for each account category, you can touch on a specific pressure point for each of them: for SMEs, the inability to spend a lot of money; for corporations, the need to optimise productivity and reduce time spent on tasks.
- Target Prospects by Funnel Stage
All prospects are not equal. Some of them are at the Top of the Funnel (TOFU) and have recently heard about your company. Middle of the Funnel (MOFU) prospects are familiar with your business, but not ready to make a purchase. Finally, Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU) prospects are already looking into terms and conditions for sale, return and refund.
Retargeting campaigns can be easily set up according to which specific area of your website a prospect last visited. TOFU prospects will generally read your blog articles and About section. MOFU prospects are looking at product descriptions, or have even downloaded your electronic brochure/product catalogue. BOFU prospects are interested in the actual dynamics of purchasing from you, and your prices.
- Target by Industry
B2B clients require a specific set of characteristics when creating a user persona. Focus less on demographic details, and more on professional ones. The industry they work in is a strong indicator of what they are looking for in products and services. For instance, a computer antivirus suite is equally useful to a software development company and an accountancy firm. But the software development company is more interested in advanced features such as cloud data protection, while the accountancy firm will want to know whether your product complies with data protection norms and regulations for the financial-accounting sector.
- Focus on Mobile Ads
Professional buyers and corporate decision-makers are always on the go and rely on their mobile phones for browsing the internet, replying to emails and using social media. For this reason, the number one test performed on your retargeting ads must be how responsive they are. A company purchasing assistant will not waste time, dragging your ad to the right or left side of the screen to find the CTA button if the ad does not display correctly. They may scroll past your ad, losing you a potential customer.
- Focus on the Context
Where will you post your retargeting ads? Is the context relevant? There is nothing more disruptive than an ad which has no connection with the content the prospect is looking at. Disruption is good for attracting attention, but there is positive attention and negative attention. Out of context ads will create negative attention.
This is why your strategy should focus not only on the content and format of the ad, but also on the distribution channels you select for publishing your retargeting ads.