Clutch is an established B2B review and rating platform based in Washington, D.C. It helps businesses make buying and hiring decisions with confidence, with a combination of market research, data-driven content, verified reviews, and a ranking system.
Every year, decision-makers at millions of businesses visit the site to learn more about credible service providers and find the partnerships they need to grow.
Why are we telling you this? Well, we recently started working with Clutch in a bid to gain traction on the internet. As a marketing company, we’re always looking for new ways to reach people.
There are two main reasons for this. First, we do it to ensure we stay up-to-date with industry best practices. Second, we want to make sure our clients can benefit from the best third-party products and services available. As an added bonus, testing new theories on our own brand is also great way for us to grow our business and reach new people. If you’re new here, welcome!
Without further ado, let’s talk through our plan with Clutch.
Prefer to pick up the phone? Call our team to learn what positive reviews can do for you.
Igniting Our B2B Marketing with Clutch
We started working with Clutch in a bid to increase awareness of our digital marketing services, including website development, SEO, social media marketing, and more. We’re writing about it now because we’ve actually just had our first review! We wanted to share our experience.
(Okay, yes, we’ve been in the digital marketing game since 2012 and we’ve had a lot of reviews over the years, but it just goes to show that you can never hear enough great feedback.)
In this case, a Clutch analyst personally contacted Rosalind Griffin, the owner of SAV-ON Flooring in Anchorage, Alaska. We’re currently working on a project for SAV-ON Flooring to rebuild its website and optimize the content for SEO to attract more customers down the road.
Reviews Are Essential in the B2B Marketing World
Here’s what Rosalind had to say about Beacon Media + Marketing:
“The original website done by Beacon was beautiful and totally interactive. Content would come up whenever we clicked on anything. We never had problems with it, and we got a lot of business through it. The process was very easy and very smooth... Beacon worked diligently to get that website set up, and that’s why we returned with our business to them.”
Any other small business owners out there feel that on a deep level? It truly doesn’t get any better than knowing your hard work is paying off and your client is happy with the outcome.
The analyst also asked for her thoughts as to the most impressive thing about our business:
“When I think about Beacon, I can only think that they’re excellent. Their web design is beautiful, sleek, and there’s elegance to it. Given that we work in flooring and design, those are important elements — it has to look good to the eye. The pictures that they use are crisp and nice looking. Those are key elements for a website.”
Anyone else getting a little misty-eyed? Just us? We’ll be honest, that hit us right in the feels.
First of all, we’re very grateful to SAV-ON Flooring for the great review. Second, we’re excited that potential clients will see it when they’re searching for a new marketing partner in the future.
Every business owner knows the best way to attract new business is through word of mouth. Positive reviews are just the digital version, which means the can be very powerful.
B2B Marketing is Also About the Snowball Effect
Following that review, Beacon Media + Marketing was also recognized on The Manifest, which is a business news platform. This is what we call the snowball effect. One good thing happens, which leads to the next, and the next. It’s amazing how often we see this play out for clients.
We were included on a list of global social media marketing agencies with the highest-performing diversity and inclusion. We’re really proud of this, because it speaks to our company’s values. We hope it will help us connect with other like-minded businesses so we can help them grow.
Other Key B2B Marketing Essentials
Great B2B marketing doesn’t happen in a silo. In addition to collecting a list of great reviews and increasing awareness of your brand name, you’ll need to follow through on the other steps of the path to purchase: education, consideration, and conversion.
Here are some key items to consider.
Develop a Sparkling Website
Say a business owner is looking for services just like yours. They see a positive review and want to learn a little more about your business, so they click through to view your website.
You already know they’re curious and that they’re coming with a positive frame of mind. What experience are you going to give them when they land? A website functions as a digital shopfront for your business, so it’s important that it presents the right image and creates a strong first impression.
It needs to be clean and well-organized, just like the reception area out the front. It needs to give people a taste of what your company is about, just like the atmosphere in your office. Most importantly, it needs to be functional and easy to find, just like the physical building.
It’s worth the investment to make sure your website looks great, loads quickly, has all the information they need, and runs smoothly with no bugs.
Optimize Your SEO for Growth
A common SEO mistake we see all the time is focusing on short-term growth. Often, this means solely focusing on new trends or taking a haphazard approach that sees flurries of content followed by months and months of digital crickets chirping. The truth is SEO is a long game. The best results come from sticking to a plan and chipping away at it week after week, and month after month.
Optimizing SEO for growth usually means picking all the low-hanging fruit. Have you figured out a list of keywords that best summarize your business? Do your pages have meta descriptions? Do your images have alt text? Have you optimized your H1 and H2 headings? If you’re not sure what this means, have you thought about finding a marketing partner with a strong track record in SEO?
As with many aspects of digital marketing, consistency is key. Over time, you’ll build a body of content filled with short-tail and long-tail keywords. This will answer most of the questions people are typing into their preferred search engine, which will significantly improve your company’s ranking on the results pages, and ultimately boost your web traffic.
Connect With Your Audience
Finally, find out where your target audience likes to spend their time online and connect with them. If that means maintaining an active LinkedIn presence, create a content plan. If that means participating in conversations on Twitter, schedule some time every day to log in and tweet. Or if that means creating an account with a company like Clutch so decision-makers can find all the information they need to make a decision, go ahead and sign up.
This is a simple and effective strategy that can yield impressive long-term results. If you’re short on time, it’s important to know that this is also something you can outsource.
Looking for a B2B Marketing Partner?
B2B marketing is one of our specialties. In the past, our work in this space has primarily focused on native corporations, manufacturers, professional services, and technology companies.
For Equipment Source, Inc., an Arctic equipment manufacturing business based in Fairbanks, Alaska, we increased web traffic four times and set a record for the amount of new leads we generated in 2020 – you can read more about that here. If you’re looking for a B2B marketing partner that will help your business grow, scale, and thrive, get in touch.
Ready to get started? Schedule a free consultation today.
