No Events. No Trade Shows. How B2B Businesses can Connect and Network during the Crisis?

It has been a tough ride for businesses in the B2B (Business-to-Business) space in the last few months. B2B enterprises thrive on supporting each other within the community. The best way they do it is through trade shows, business conferences, or customer events. B2B entrepreneurs depend on these events to promote their products, generate leads, network and seek new business prospects. In the last few months, with shops being shut and less movement of people outside their homes and offices, there are no business events.

Without events like trade shows or any physical platform to display products or meet fellow entrepreneurs and traders, B2B businesses have found it difficult to continue with expansion plans. This is the time to be creative and adopt newer techniques to connect and grow business. As a B2B entrepreneur, you need to consider all the practical options that will work for you and your key stakeholders.

Switching to Digital Events

If you had a stray thought of switching to digital platforms, now is the time for such transformation. Embrace the benefits of digital events.

The need for information and networking has not vanished. To keep running, B2B businesses still need to engage with their business partners, customers and suppliers. With the right digital infrastructure, you can set up virtual events (which many businesses are doing now). There are plenty of virtual event hosting platforms, where you can connect to your audience through a simple online interface. You can talk or share a presentation or combine other tools to communicate and engage online. This helps in three ways.

1. You can connect with people beyond your local market and reach out to customers around the world.
2. The feedback and reactions are all real-time, as good as in trade shows.
3. Online events are cheaper and give you faster and better results that you can analyze for future reference.

Business Networking through Online Communities

For B2B enterprises, business networking within the community is vital. Unlike B2C businesses, they do not have the levy of spreading their net thin across social media. So, when you have limited choices of online networking, choose your options smart. Online B2B Marketplaces are an excellent place for entrepreneurs, traders, suppliers, and vendors to network. Such Online B2B Marketplaces bring different business communities together under the same roof, where they can interact, discover each other’s business needs, and expand their business network.

An efficiently built Online B2B Marketplace will allow you to post ads, list your business and products with visual aids, get customer reviews and do much more to help you generate more business.

Focus on Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Communication

People behave differently in person than online. One of the undeniable benefits of local trade shows and industry conferences is that you can narrow down the audience you want to attract. You can now do a similar thing online too with Account-Based Marketing (AMB) Tools.

Account-Based Marketing (AMB) is a marketing strategy that directs marketing resources to engage a specific set of target high value accounts with account-specific messaging. It is an account-based approach instead of casting a wide net to generate leads. Account-Based Marketing Tools use your customer profiles and match them with similar companies/entities whom you can connect with using customized messages across a digital ecosystem. You can connect the system with your online assets like websites or business tools like the CRM system. Thus, you can easily tailor your communication for every target company, see where they are in the buying cycle, or your interaction history. Yes, this doesn’t compare to the meet-and-greet impact at a trade event, but this will give you hard data to analyze and understand user behavior. Such scientific results are powerful and valuable. Many progressive enterprises have been using Account-Based Marketing Tools for a while and this might be the right time for you to join the trend.

Digital tools and online platforms can provide you with the right opportunities you need to boost your business. All you have to ensure that you deliver the right information and valuable experiences to your target audience through powerful storytelling and collaboration.