13 Best B2B Marketing Strategies That Work (Examples Added)

The best B2B marketing strategies don’t just attract attention; they get real results. If your outreach is falling flat or your leads keep ghosting you, something is wrong. The last thing you want is to invest heavily in campaigns that look good on paper but don’t convert.

A key aspect of B2B marketing is lead generation. According to a 2024 report by Endeavor, 69% of surveyed B2B companies increased their lead generation budgets. So this is one of the important things you should be focusing on.

We’ll walk through the best B2B marketing strategies that generate leads and convert, whether you're a startup chasing your first major deal or a seasoned team aiming to scale.

So read on to find out more.

Best B2B Marketing Strategies & Examples

Here are the best B2B marketing strategies to launch winning marketing campaigns.

1. Conduct In-Depth Market Research

Let’s face it. No matter how amazing your product or service is, if you don’t know exactly who needs it, you’ll waste a lot of time, money, and resources marketing it to the wrong audience.

Market research tops the list of the best B2B marketing strategies because it is the most crucial step. To launch successful B2B marketing campaigns, you need to conduct thorough and informed research.

Why?

That’s how you’ll be able to understand your customer’s needs, what drives their needs for your product or service as well as how to stand out from your competitors.

Generally, as one of the best B2B marketing strategies, market research involves gathering information about your target audience. The main purpose is to assess the success of your product or service and ensure your sales team is effectively communicating your company’s value efficiently.

In a nutshell, B2B market research helps companies to:

• Gather consumer data to better understand your target market.
• Assess the evolving customer needs.
• Differentiate yourself from the competition.
• Understand your customers' biggest pain points and challenges.
• Refine your product or service.
• Develop relevant, valuable, and targeted content to help customers with their research.

Understanding your customers' pain points is not an easy task though.

Why?

A typical B2B buying process is a long and winding one.

How to Conduct B2B Market Research

Here are some ways:

• Understand your B2B buyers through audience and keyword research.
• Explore industry and brand-relevant conversions on social media.
• Look at what buyers are saying about your competitors on social media.
• Explore plenty of ratings and reviews.

To conduct thorough market research, you can use:

• Surveys
• Interviews
• Focus groups
• Polls
• Questionnaires

2. Use B2B Mobile Marketing

Next up on our list of the best B2B marketing strategies is mobile marketing. For B2B companies, mobile marketing can help to drive demand generation when done right.

According to Statista, mobile devices account for over half of the world’s web traffic:

Image via Statista

Besides, there are over 6.5 million smartphone users globally and the number is expected to increase to 7.9 billion by 2028:

Image via Statista

What does this mean for B2B companies?

Mobile marketing usage is rapidly growing, hence you need to implement a B2B mobile marketing strategy that can help you target the decision-makers in your target companies.

If you don’t have the best B2B marketing strategies that focus on enhancing the mobile experience, then you’re missing out on a lot of great opportunities for mobile traffic and data collection.

How to Build a Successful B2B Mobile Marketing Strategy

• Ensure your business blog, website, landing pages, and marketing emails are optimized for mobile users.
• Reach your prospects directly with text marketing.
• Create a mobile app for your business to enhance brand value and trust.
• Optimize your social media marketing content for mobile.
• Launch a successful mobile PPC strategy.
• Make your business emails mobile friendly.
• Create mobile-friendly content and copy.
• Track and measure success.

3. Use B2B Content Marketing

This is one of the best B2B marketing strategies for generating interest and educating your target audience.

B2B clients need a lot more information before they make a purchase decision, unlike B2C buyers who often rely on impulses to buy products. By sharing educational content about your products & services, you can make their purchasing decisions easier & faster.

According to a 2025 survey, B2B marketers have employed different types of content for their best B2B marketing strategies. Short articles and posts lead the pack with 92% as illustrated below.

Image via Content Marketing Institute

Furthermore, the same survey shows that 87% of B2B marketers have used it to build trust and 74% to generate demand and leads:

Image via Content Marketing Institute

B2B brands can use this strategy to generate leads, nurture subscribers, and build loyalty with other businesses.

What type of content should you create? You may ask.

The best B2B marketing strategies focus on content that guides potential clients through their buying journey.

To achieve this, you need to develop a deeper understanding of your target businesses– their biggest pain points, content needs and preferences, challenges, and more.

This is where the need to conduct thorough B2B market research comes in. We’ve already mentioned this in our first point.

The best B2B marketing strategies always start with detailed buyer personas. This will help you create content that’s relevant to your target businesses and the channels they prefer.

Remember that the internet is awash with content of all types. More than 6 million blog posts are published every day.

HubSpot leverages different types of content to engage and educate other businesses, boost brand awareness and convert more leads into customers:

Image via HubSpot

How to Create a Powerful B2B Content Marketing Strategy

Here are practical tips on how to create content targeted to B2B companies:

• Define your audience.
• Use keyword research to lay the foundation of your content marketing strategy.
• Choose your main content formats and marketing channels.
• Develop amazing topics.
• Create relevant content that's interesting to your audience.
• Use content B2B decision makers consume in mind, videos, webinars, case studies, long articles, blog posts, etc.
• Target different content for each funnel stage.

Pro Tip: Create a content calendar to keep your content marketing efforts well-organized and on track. It will also help you produce valuable content consistently.

4. Build an Effective B2B Referral Program

One of the best B2B marketing strategies underrated today is referral marketing.

B2B referral marketing is how businesses mobilize loyal businesses or existing customers to refer your brand to others in their networks.

This can either happen through word of mouth, marketing influence, or using a referral marketing program.

Referrals have been a great source of new business for many companies for a while now.

You’re probably wondering why you should build a referral program.

Here are some of the reasons B2B referral marketing ranks high among the best B2B marketing strategies:

• Customers trust referrals.
• Referred customers are more valuable and loyal.
• It improves customer retention, engagement, and market reach.
• Existing clients are much more willing to refer their friends and family members.
• It delivers a high ROI.

There are many referral programs to inspire you out there.

For example, H&R Block runs a generous referral program that promises referrers up to $300 for every successful referral:

Image via H&R Block

Another amazing referral program is by Google Workspace, a company that provides a collection of productivity and collaboration tools to improve the way we work:

Image via Google Workspace

When you recommend Gmail, Google Meet, and other Google tools, you earn a reward for any new user who signs up.

How to Build a Successful Referral Program

Here are useful tips to launch an effective B2B referral program:

• Make your brand referral-worthy.
• Develop and nurture relationships with other businesses.
• Decide which businesses to target.
• Make your messaging compelling.
• Decide on a reward structure and when to ask for referrals.
• Reward businesses that successfully refer others to your brand.
• Make it easy for people to share your referral program.
• Promote your referral program.
• Automate your referral program.
• Track and measure the success of the program.

Pro Tip: Invest in referral marketing software to create a referral program with ease and start winning new customers.

5. Use Account-Based Marketing(ABM)

Imagine a world where you can promote your product or service directly to your best-fit, highly qualified leads.

You could focus on engaging and delighting high-value accounts.

That’s how account-based marketing works.

This is also one of the best B2B marketing strategies that have gained traction in the past few years because it enables marketers to focus more on highly targeted markets.

This B2B marketing strategy enables your sales and marketing team to concentrate resources on a set of high-value accounts and convert them into customers.

The strategy leverages personalized campaigns designed to engage best-fit accounts, tailoring marketing messages on the explicit aspects and needs of those accounts.

What makes ABM one of the best B2B marketing strategies is its flexibility. It can be implemented together with content marketing, traditional marketing, and others to find, communicate with, and obtain business accounts.

Here are reasons you should consider account-based-marketing among your best B2B marketing strategies:

• Allows personalized communications and marketing approaches.
• Enables efficient use of sales and marketing resources.
• Enables alignment of sales and marketing efforts.
• Shortens sales cycles.
• Helps to generate clear ROI.
• Fewer wasted marketing resources.

How to Develop a Successful Account-Based-Marketing Strategy

Here are handy tips to launch a comprehensive ABM strategy:

• Find and define your high-value target business accounts.
• Research those accounts to identify key internal players.
• Develop content and personalized campaigns.
• Determine what channels to use.
• Run targeted and coordinated campaigns.
• Measure your campaigns and optimize.

6. B2B Email Marketing

If you’re still looking for the best B2B marketing strategies, then try email marketing.

It’s one of the most popular B2B marketing strategies for enhancing customer relationship management.

Arguably, most email marketing campaigns target individuals. However, B2B email campaigns target multiple individuals within a company.

You can launch email marketing campaigns that focus on positioning your brand as a thought leader in the industry.

Generally, B2B companies can use email marketing as one of their best B2B marketing strategies for the following purposes:

• Lead generation
• Brand building
• Content distribution
• Relationship building
• Customer retention
• Customer advocacy
• Sales effectiveness
• Customer support

According to the 2024 Litmus State of Email survey, 35% of marketers are prioritizing email marketing, with a special focus on crafting automated and triggered emails.

Image via Litmus

Some of the best B2B email campaigns you can send to other companies include:

• Announcements and updates emails
• Time-sensitive promotional emails
• Events and webinar email campaigns
• Case studies
• Re-engagement emails
• Follow-up emails
• Payment reminders
• Curated content
• And more

Asana, a web-based and mobile work management platform designed to support teams with project management and communications, uses email marketing to welcome new users to the platform:

Once you sign up for an account on the platform, you get a warm welcome email informing you about your 14-day free trial and the features you get.

Image via Asana

Asana also uses a clear call to action that stimulates you to get started using your free trial.

Top Tips for Creating a Successful B2B Email Strategy

Here are practical B2B email marketing strategies to use:

• Profile your target businesses and key decision makers within those.
• Tailor your email campaigns based on the stages of the buyer’s journey.
• Send relevant and business-focused content.
• Think like a B2B decision maker.
• Automate your email marketing.
• Measure your email marketing success.

Pro Tip: Email marketing tools can help you make your email marketing strategy even more effective. These tools can be very helpful in nurturing potential customers and turning them into buyers.

7. Use B2B Influencer Marketing

Contrary to popular opinion, Influencer marketing is yet another potent tool for B2B marketers and is just as effective for B2B and B2C marketing.

However, the best B2B marketing strategies simply don’t work with any type of influencer. There are a lot of variables that come into play for marketers who choose this path.

A 2025 influencer marketing report indicates that influencer engagement rates are the most important metrics considered by B2B marketers at 54%. This is followed by ROI, and conversion rates as illustrated below.

Image via Top Rank Marketing

Influencer marketing is one of the best B2B marketing strategies a business can adopt. It’s a strategy that involves partnering with key industry leaders or different types of influencers to showcase your brand message to a larger audience and reach new businesses.

B2B influencer marketing can help your business to:

• Tap into new audiences.
• Gain loyal customers.
• Showcase thought leadership.
• Demonstrate your brand credibility.

Majority of customers are now shopping on social media, so it makes sense to get your products or services shown on social media channels with influencer partnerships.

That said, while B2B influencer marketing ranks high among the best B2B marketing strategies, it isn’t without challenges. The same report cited above lists the inability to accurately measure ROI as one of the biggest hurdles of using influencer marketing.

Image via Top Rank Marketing

Practical Tips to Build a Successful B2B Influencer Strategy

• Define your long-term influencer marketing goals and KPIs.
• Determine your budget.
• Conduct research and identify existing influencers in your industry.
• Find influencers your audience already follows.
• Connect and engage with the influencers on the platform they spend most of their time on.
• Analyze your potential influencer candidate.
• Focus on building relationships rather than selling.
• Educate the influencers you partner with.
• Measure results beyond follower count.

Pro Tip: We also recommend partnering with micro-influencers as they cost less but have a higher engagement rate than influencers with large followings.

8. Leverage B2B Social Media Marketing

Due to the nature of interactions, social media may seem to be more suitable for B2C marketing.

However, B2B marketers use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and X to promote their products or services through actionable, educational content and generate qualified leads.

So, this is also one of the best B2B marketing strategies to use.

Importance of Leveraging Social Media

Social media is one of the best B2B marketing strategies for B2B companies that want to:

• Enhance their reputation.
• Build trust with other companies.
• Build brand awareness.
• Increase their reach and customer loyalty.
• Engage with potential customers.
• Increase their sales.

Wondering why you should use this strategy?

Here are the reasons:

• Your target businesses are on social media.
• It can drive traffic to your website.
• Decision makers are using LinkedIn to find and connect with B2B brands.
• Social media offers a more personalized customer experience.
• B2B social media marketing can boost your PR efforts.

However, avoid rushing into the newest social media platform, instead, focus on the platforms that your prospective buyers are actively using.

See how Ahrefs uses social media marketing to connect, engage and educate its audiences:

Image via Ahrefs

9. Leverage B2B SEO

What if you could get the exposure your company desires, build brand awareness, and generate as many leads as you want without spending too much?

Yes. Implementing a successful B2B search engine optimization strategy can help you drive qualified leads from search engines and improve brand exposure for free.

By creating a powerful demand generation plan that includes search engine optimization, your brand can:

• Explore your audiences better
• Find out how they search for information online
• Identify the search engines they use
• Create content that targets those searchers

We must mention that search engine optimization is a long-term marketing strategy so you shouldn’t expect quick results. However, it’s one of the best B2B marketing strategies for cost-effectiveness.

Canva, a graphic design platform for creating engaging graphics and presentations, uses super smart SEO strategies to improve its online visibility, increase brand awareness, and reach a huge audience.

Image via Canva

Currently, Canva generates 266.9 million organic search traffic monthly. The graphics design platform also ranks position #1 on Google for terms like “brochure” and “YouTube banner”

Image via Semrush

Aside from ranking at first position, Canva also offers a helpful solution to their website visitors, which explains why the platform ranks for high-volume keywords.

How to Launch a Winning B2B SEO Strategy:

•  Understand the three types of SEO: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO
• Conduct proper research to understand your target B2B decision-makers.
• Create a unique content strategy plan.
• Develop B2B content and optimize it with appropriate keywords.
• Optimize your features or services pages.
• Build topic clusters for your B2B content.
• Build quality backlinks for your website.

10. Supplement Marketing Automation with AI

Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into marketing automation is among the best B2B marketing strategies businesses can adopt.

AI analyzes vast amounts of data, identifying patterns in buyer behavior and enhancing buyer segmentation, tasks that would be time-consuming for humans.

This allows companies to tailor their marketing efforts more precisely, leading to increased engagement and higher conversion rates.

Salesforce is an example of a brand that combines marketing automation with AI. Through its Einstein AI, Salesforce enables brands to automatically boost engagement and build personalized customer journeys.

Image via Salesforce

Tips for Using AI for B2B Marketing

To ensure your best B2B marketing strategies are successful through automation, consider the following tips.

• Ensure your data is accurate, up-to-date, and relevant, as AI effectiveness heavily relies on the quality of input data.
• Select AI solutions that align with your business needs and integrate seamlessly with your existing automated marketing platforms.
• Equip your marketing team with the necessary skills to leverage AI tools effectively.
• Regularly assess the performance of AI-driven campaigns and make data-driven adjustments

11. Leverage B2B Outreach Marketing

B2B outreach marketing is about reaching out to potential business customers through direct communication. It is one of the best B2B marketing strategies you can turn to if you’re struggling to meet your sales targets.

B2B Outreach marketing includes sending emails, social media messages, calls, and even in-person networking.

The goal is to build relationships, introduce products or services, and create opportunities for sales. Many businesses use this approach to connect with decision-makers.

How to Get Outreach Marketing Right

For your best B2B marketing strategies to work through outreach marketing, consider the following tips.

• Know exactly who you need to reach. Focus on decision-makers in your target industries.
• Generic messages don’t work. Show you understand their business through personalized messaging.
• Some industries prefer email, while others respond better to calls. Test what works first.
• One message isn’t enough. Follow up without being pushy.
• Use data to see what works. Adjust your approach based on response rates and conversions.

In summary, B2B outreach marketing remains one of the best B2B marketing strategies for businesses looking to boost sales. With a smart plan and persistence, businesses can connect with the right people and turn leads into long-term customers.

12. Use Paid Search/PPC

Paid Search and PPC (Pay-Per-Click) are among the best B2B marketing strategies for generating leads and driving sales.

Paid search means running advertisements on search engines like Google or Bing. Businesses bid on keywords, so their ads appear when people search for related terms.

PPC is a model where businesses pay only when someone clicks their ad. It’s a fast way to get in front of potential customers who are actively searching for your products or services.

So, how do these two affect your best B2B marketing strategies?

Unlike strategies like organic SEO, which take time, PPC puts businesses right at the top of search results. It also allows for precise targeting, so businesses can show ads to the right audience. This means more clicks from people who are interested.

Paid searches are common when you look up services and products on search engines like Google. Here are some examples from Robert Kennedy College that appear at the top of the search results.

Image via Google

Tips for Successful B2B Paid Search/PPC Campaigns

As one of the best B2B marketing strategies, here are some tips you can use to get the most out of paid searches.

• Choose keywords that show buying intent, not just general interest.
• Write clear and direct ad copy that highlights what makes your business different.
• Use A/B testing to see what ads and landing pages work best.
• Optimize landing pages for speed and easy navigation.
• Set a clear budget and adjust bids based on performance.
• Track conversions, not just clicks, to measure real success.
• Use remarketing and retargeting to stay visible to potential buyers who didn’t convert.

13. Networking & Industry Events

Wrapping up our list of the best B2B marketing strategies is networking and industry events.

These events bring companies together to connect, share ideas, and build relationships. Whether it's a trade show, conference, or business meetup, these gatherings help businesses find new opportunities.

Talking to the right people can lead to new deals, partnerships, or referrals. Companies that regularly attend these events stay up-to-date with industry changes and learn about new tools and strategies.

Hubspot INBOUND is an example of a networking event done right as far as B2B marketing is concerned. The event is typically held annually for three days, offering businesses the opportunity to transform their prospects by meeting the right people.

Image via HubSpot Inbound

To make the most of these events, businesses should follow a few key steps:

• Know what you want from the event, whether it’s generating leads, partnerships, or brand exposure.
• Be ready to introduce your business in a short, engaging way.
• Post about the event before, during, and after to attract attention.
• Don’t just collect business cards. Have real conversations and follow up afterward.
• Go to talks and panels that align with your business needs.

How to Build a Winning B2B Marketing Strategy?

Learning about the best B2B marketing strategies is one thing and developing a killer B2B marketing strategy is another.

After going through all 13 best B2B marketing strategies discussed above, you’re probably wondering:

How can I develop a powerful strategy that generates great results?

To get the most out of the best B2B marketing strategies, follow these practical tips:

Determine Your Brand Positioning

The first step to developing a fruitful strategy is to determine where your business stands in the market.

• Conduct a SWOT analysis and uncover your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
• Explore the strengths and weaknesses of your competition and evaluate their best B2B marketing strategies.
• Determine your USP- unique selling points.

Define Your Target Market

Even the best of the best B2B marketing strategies won’t help you if you don’t have a clear picture of who you’re marketing your product or service to in mind.

Conduct thorough research and define your target customers and their buying process.

Set Clear Goals

Set goals that are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Try Different Marketing Channels

When conducting a competitive analysis, you will uncover different types of marketing channels your competitors are actively using as well as those that they are yet to use.

At the very best, you will find that most B2B companies leverage Facebook marketing, X, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn for B2B sales.

Determine Your Marketing Tactics

Next, identify the best B2B marketing strategies that will help you achieve your goals as well as a solid plan for how you will use each tactic.

The best marketing strategies are those that will enable you to reach your audience, effectively deliver your message, and get prospects to act the way you want.

Lastly, analyze and refine your strategy.

FAQ

Q1. What are the best B2B marketing strategies?

A. Follow these practical B2B marketing strategies to grow your business:

• Market research
• B2B mobile marketing
• B2B content marketing
• B2B referral programs
• Account-based marketing(ABM)
• Use B2B email marketing
• Use B2B influencer marketing
• Leverage B2B social media marketing
• Leverage B2B SEO
• Supplement marketing automation with AI
• Leverage B2B Outreach Marketing
• Use paid searches
• Make use of networking and industry events

Q2. What are the typical B2B buying stages?

A. The typical B2B purchase process involves multiple stages before a purchase happens. First, a prospect recognizes there is a problem.

The prospect then evaluates available solutions by conducting thorough research, then selects a supplier, and proceeds to approve the supplier, and then starts building long-term relationships.

Q3. What is the best platform for B2B?

A. With over 1 billion users in more than 200 countries, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and the best platform used by a majority of B2B marketers.

One of the best B2B marketing strategies you can use on LinkedIn includes posting articles, industry updates, and case studies to stay visible. Ensure you keep your content useful, and people will pay attention.

Q4. Why is B2B marketing important?

A. With an effective B2B marketing strategy you can:

• Drive more targeted traffic to your website
• Increase brand awareness
• Generate more leads
• Boost customer engagement
• Boost brand loyalty
• Nurture leads

Q5. What is a B2B marketing model?

A. B2B, otherwise known as business-to-business, is a model that involves the exchange of product, services or information between two businesses. It involves using some of the best B2B marketing strategies like mobile marketing, account-based marketing, SEO, and more.

Conclusion

That concludes our in-depth analysis of the best B2B marketing strategies. As you can see, the way businesses promote their products and services to other businesses has changed drastically.

Additionally, business customers have evolved significantly.

What does this mean?

To launch an effective B2B marketing strategy, you need to keep your audience in mind. This will help you avoid wasting your marketing efforts.

If you’re stuck, we hope these 13 best B2B marketing strategies and examples will inspire your marketing campaigns.

Still not sure where to begin?

Use our professional search engine optimization, lead generation, and influencer marketing services to accelerate your growth and connect with the right business audience.