Hello, and welcome to another episode of Whiteboard Sessions with me Andrew Maff. I'm the founder and CEO of BlueTuskr, a full-service digital marketing company for E-commerce sellers. And today I'm going to talk to you about the eight top strategies that b2b companies use that E-commerce sellers often don't think about, but should absolutely try out as well.
I always caveat this with they should try it out. Because this does not work for everyone. I've always said, every business, every category, every product, and every business owner are very different. So this might be something that can work very well for you. It may not be. But we're going to go through my top eight right now.
In-Person Events
So we're going to start off with the very first one, which is basically your in-person events. So you see a lot of b2b companies do this right? So okay, they're, you know, they did a conference or they're doing a meetup, or they're doing some kind of little talk thing or anything along those lines, right, like these happen a lot. But I never really see commerce sellers leverage this.
You do kind of see sometimes, a lot of the bigger companies that also tend to be on retail, they'll do pop-up shops and things like that. But there's so much you can do with this on an E-commerce site, especially when you think e-commerce, do you think that it's strictly digital, and for it to go into more reality for a little while can really spark some interest and really start to cater to bring out a lot of people to join these events.
So yeah, you can go as big as doing a conference, but you could even do a meetup. So if you're a company that really caters to a certain group, you could do meetups in certain large cities to just bring like-minded people together, yes, maybe you can sell some stuff. But maybe you sell stuff that's exclusively there. Or maybe you offer discounts to people who came or something along those lines.
It's something to have to think through. But offering in-person events is something I rarely see e-commerce sellers offer. And I absolutely think it should be. And it's as easy as going into the backend of the shop via your Google Analytics or something like that, and figuring out which cities have where most of your top personal purchasers are. And then you can just go there, do an event there, you can expect a decent amount of people to show up, you can send them out an email and ask them to come out.
You can do a targeted ad to ask them to come out. But there's so much you can do with in-person events. It's great for b2b. And I'm shocked that most people in E-commerce don't use it.
Webinars
The second is Webinars. So webinars, I know you hear webinars and you're like, Okay, there's no way in hell the webinars gonna work for my company, right? So you're an E-commerce seller, you sell a product, the hell you're gonna do with a webinar? It can work so well. A webinar to me isn't always like here are 15 slides and here's the BS that I'm trying to sell you like, it's more about, here's a live event of me sitting down with someone and chatting with them, or basically sitting down and going through like step by step of how to do certain things.
So these could be obviously live, these could be leveraged live and could be great. You could also just record these ahead of time. But you don't have to think about like, okay, but who am I going to do a webinar with a not always have to do it with someone, you can do it as simply as Okay, I have a product, it's a little complicated, so let me go through this step. Or maybe you're going to do one that's almost like a video similar to this, where it's a walkthrough of how to use your product or something like that.
But you could still do a webinar the same traditional way, and actually do it with an influencer, or do it with another company that's relatively similar to yours. Maybe it's complimentary, the same audience but not competitive. There's so much in the E-commerce sellers can still do a webinar and you can still use all the same bells and whistles and tricks that webinars do where they, kind of have the hook in the beginning. And then they offer you something at the end for them to sign up. And it's exclusive. And you only have till the end of the day to do it. Like that kind of thing. You could totally still do that with e-commerce.
Podcast
So then you think about this same concept, a podcast. So if you can do webinars, you can absolutely do pod density, you can absolutely do a podcast. So we think about like in the webinar, maybe you were interviewing an influencer and you were kind of going through some slides and you're doing it off or anything like that you could a take that video and just turn it into a podcast or be you could have that same influencer on a podcast and just chat with them.
It doesn't always have to be an influencer. Again, similar, as I said, it can be a company that you know is relatively similar that you've partnered with that you can basically kind of interview them. It can be a podcast, where you're just talking about new stuff in your industry. Just because you have a product and you sell one single product doesn't mean that you should only talk about that one single product you should talk about that community as a whole and what they're going through and then they're just gonna you're gonna stay top of mind and when they need your product they will be there.
Obviously, though, it is a great way for e-commerce sellers to get their names out there for people who listen to podcasts, b2b, this stuff is great. And for some reason, e-commerce not using it totally should.
Gated Content
So next is the gated content. So, I do have another video, which I'll be honest, I don't know if it's out yet I already recorded it, I can tell you that it might be out it might not be but keep an eye out if it's not if it is out to go take a look at it. But I did a whole video on gated content about the top eight or nine pieces of gated content that e-commerce sellers can leverage that I often find that they're not using.
So gated content, there's so much you can do here. I always see sellers like, Okay, I have a pop-up that offers 10% off. And if they don't take it, then they don't want anything from me. Why are they here, and that's so incorrect. Sometimes they're not ready to purchase. So what is 10% off something that I don't want right now? Nothing.
But if you're offering good content, calculators, or quizzes or checklists, or newsletters or calendars, like there's so much you can offer on a gated content side outside of just doing your traditional discount, and gated content. And b2b is obviously one of the more catered ways they'll go like offering ebooks and things like that. And almost all of those work the same way for e-commerce. And it's definitely something you should test out because it can be a great way to get an email without always giving away a discount every time to earn that email.
Influencer
So next, this one is interesting. I'm just gonna call this founder a slash-like influencer vibe. So influencer. So basically, this one. The reason this one's interesting is because I know not everyone likes doing this, right? Not everyone likes to put their face out there. But the average consumer likes to purchase from a person, they want to know who it is they're purchasing from, they want to know that they like the purchase, the person that they're purchasing from, they don't always want to just purchase directly with a traditional company.
They want to know who's behind the company. So with Amazon, you obviously have Jeff Bezos, and if someone hates him, they're not shopping with him. So and I know a handful of people that don't do it. But if you think like, people who know the founder, because the founders made a name for themselves, and they're plastered everywhere, they're going to obviously know their story and what caused them to start that business. And they're going to maybe want to follow the founder more than they're going to want to follow the company itself.
If you think of companies like Love Your Melon, their founder does a ton of different stuff. There's Deathwish Coffee does some things here and there. But there's a lot of different ways that you can go this route. And this is basically personal branding, right? So you're thinking now you can start to leverage some of the more b2b tactics here as well. So if your founder is an influencer, he can get onto other podcasts and start to get credit for going on to those he can be featured on other people's webinars, he may get asked to speak at other events.
So now your brand is starting to go into a ton of different territories, just because your founder is starting to build a name for themselves. So personal branding behind this can work really well if you believe that your community is going to benefit from knowing a person then really trying to interact with a company the entire time.
Partnerships
So next would be partnerships. So b2b does this a lot, where essentially, you know, they'll do shared blog posts, or they'll do they'll hop on each other's podcasts or each other's webinars. As long as you have a relatively similar audience, and you're not competitive, there's no need to not partner with someone. In some cases, they'll do things like, Hey, if you buy our software, we'll give you 10% off this other software. And that's just software that they've partnered with. There's a ton of ways that e-commerce companies can leverage this same thing.
The most obvious, as I already said, is doing like shared blog posts, and obviously benefiting from backlinks and things like that hopping on each other's podcasts and webinars, maybe co-writing something for gated content, there's a ton of different things you can do there. But there's also that benefit of partnering with them.
So I've seen some great success with e-commerce sellers, who will essentially partner with another company and they'll say it, you know, this week only if you buy from us, you know, if you spend X amount, you'll get 20% off of this other website and then you can work out a deal with them where you get a small affiliate commission for sending people to them, but then they do the same where they send traffic to you. This is basically a great way for two companies who could have a similar audience to work together.
So if you're a surfer, and you're selling surfboards, and you know a company that you've partnered with itself, surf wax, you can figure out a deal with each other where essentially you're both leveraging each other's audiences but you're partnering with each other. So it's a nice way to obviously start to work together with someone who's also in your in the same community that you're selling into.
Newsletters
Next is newsletters. So This one is right like, chances are, I would like to think that you already have one. However, I believe most e-commerce sellers, I end up seeing the only newsletters they ever send out are things related around, you know, here's 10% off this month, here's free shipping this month, like they're all discounts.
So it's kind of like, Hey, are you ready to buy go by? Or nothing? So there's no that nothing else going on. So sometimes it can't always be by for me, sometimes it needs to be like just dropping in to say hi kind of thing. And in which case, how can you drop in to say hi without annoying someone, and that's providing them some kind of value. So in b2b, you see a lot of these newsletters that are sometimes daily, usually weekly, occasionally monthly.
But in b2b, they do a lot of like, here's what's going on in the industry. You know, for us, of course, I'm guilty of this too, we have the Click & Conversion Newsletter. So that goes out on a weekly basis. And where we basically incite everything around e-commerce sellers, and what's going on in the industry, doesn't mean that e-commerce sellers can't do it as well.
So, again, if I used surfing as an example, here's some, you know, great areas that are doing have some great waves right now, if you're in the pet industry every week, here are some great tips for you to know during this month because of allergies or because of cold feet thick, aching that they get on their paws. Like there are so many different things that you can basically write about. It's more informative. And it doesn't always have to be like, Hey, here's the last four blogs that we wrote, it can be what's going on in your industry that your community is going to be interested in. That doesn't always have to be a discount.
Last but not least, is LinkedIn. Now LinkedIn is interesting because everyone seems to think that you can't leverage LinkedIn, there are definitely e-commerce sellers out there, they can 100% leverage LinkedIn. Now, any e-commerce seller who decides to go the founder slash-like influencer route should absolutely have their founder using LinkedIn, because of the like-minded individuals. That's where you start to develop your partnerships. And you start to hop on other webinars, podcasts, and things like that.
So that's where they can stay in tune with everyone else who's already selling in the industry. But if you're looking to connect with people in the industry, I find that LinkedIn is a great place for products that are relative to businesses. So whether it's traditional office supplies, or whether it's office furniture, or whether it's apparel that's appropriate for certain situations in business, like whether you're going to a conference, should you be wearing this or you're going to the meeting, should you be in a suit. And here's the stuff that we sell.
LinkedIn ads don't have anything really great or really anything at all that involves around shoppable, because they obviously cater to b2b. But I've seen some sellers do some great things with LinkedIn, and in some cases even surpass Facebook. So this is always something that you should consider. If you can take your product line and adjust the messaging to make it sound more relative to the people that are on LinkedIn. This is definitely an approach that you should try out.
So these are the top eight things that I see a lot of b2b companies do, of course, ourselves as well, that works fantastically for them, and yet, not a lot of E-commerce sellers do it. So this is our way of basically saying take something out of b2b book and give it a shot in your e-commerce company but I don't want to be a dead horse. This is great. This was everything I wanted to go through.
So if you have anything that I'm missing that you think would be relevant to this, feel free to comment let me know I'm always happy to redo these videos and update them with something that I missed out on. And of course, I'll give you a shout out but if not, make sure you comment to let me know another video you'd like to do, or please rate review, subscribe, all that fun stuff because he's kind of out on a weekly basis so you won't miss anything next time but appreciate you coming and I'll see you all in.
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