B2B Marketing in Eastbourne for Business Professionals
B2B marketing is often talked about in terms of networking, advertising, social media or generating leads. But for many Business Professionals in Eastbourne, the bigger opportunity is making sure the reputation and expertise you have already built continue working for you when you are not in the room.
That is what we want to help businesses achieve through thebestof Eastbourne.
You may already have excellent reviews across Google, Trustpilot, Yell and other compatible review sources. You may have years of professional experience, strong relationships and valuable knowledge that your customers rarely see until they actually speak to you.
Rather than asking you to start again, we want to help you make more of what you have already built.
For us, good B2B marketing starts by understanding what you actually want to be known for.
If you simply tell us you want more leads, there is an enormous amount we could potentially do, but very little direction about where our attention would be best spent.
Tell us, “This is the part of my business I want to grow,” and things become much more interesting.
We can start thinking about the reputation, expertise, content, introductions and opportunities that could help you become better known for that particular thing.
That is where the relationship can become much more valuable than simply having somewhere else to advertise your business.
Many Business Professionals build up reviews across several different platforms over many years.
The important question for us isn't simply how many reviews you have. It's whether we can actually do something useful with them.
Where reviews are held on compatible platforms such as Google, Trustpilot and Yell, we can help bring that reputation into your presence on thebestof Eastbourne alongside reviews collected through thebestof.
That gives people another opportunity to see evidence of the reputation you've already earned rather than asking you to abandon one review platform and start from zero somewhere else.
It also helps us get to know your business better.
When we understand what your customers consistently value about you, it gives us more context when we're talking about your business, developing your content or considering whether you could help somebody we've met.
And that matters because some of the most useful B2B opportunities don't begin with somebody searching Google for a particular service.
Sometimes they begin with a conversation.
Our Business Boost networking events give local business owners the opportunity to meet each other, but our role isn't simply to get people into a room and leave them to swap business cards.
Very often somebody will mention a problem or something they're trying to achieve and we'll realise there is somebody else in the room they ought to meet.
Rather than saying, “Go and speak to that person over there,” we try to give the introduction some context.
Why should these two people talk? What does one of them know or do that could potentially help the other? Is there an example that makes the introduction more meaningful?
It changes the conversation from an awkward sales introduction into, “I think you two should talk, and here's why.”
We've seen how much difference that can make for Business Professionals who are relatively new to networking too.
A warm introduction that explains why somebody is worth listening to can make it much easier to enter a conversation than simply being pointed towards a stranger and expected to deliver a sales pitch.
And that doesn't stop when Business Boost finishes.
We have conversations with businesses throughout Eastbourne. New businesses start. Established businesses encounter problems. People ask us for recommendations and advice.
When we know one of our members could potentially help, they are naturally more likely to come to mind.
That doesn't mean every introduction becomes an enquiry or a sale, and we would never promise that it will.
But being known well enough that somebody can credibly advocate for you when you're not there is very different from simply having your name in a directory.
That experience is reflected by other Business Professionals we work with too. Dave, owner of Southern Fire Risk Assessments, has described Business Boost as creating valuable local connections, while also highlighting how the marketing support and digital exposure through thebestof Eastbourne has helped maximise their local business visibility.
One of the relationships that illustrates this particularly well is our longstanding relationship with Mandy at Recruitment South East.
Over time, knowing Mandy and her business has meant understanding far more than the words “recruitment company”.
If somebody has a negative perception of recruiters, it is possible to explain why speaking to Mandy might be different. If someone mentions that they're struggling to find work, Recruitment South East comes to mind. If an employer mentions a recruitment problem during a completely unrelated conversation, there is an opportunity to make a useful connection.
None of that requires Mandy to be standing beside us at a networking event.
It comes from knowing the person, understanding the reputation she has built and being willing to speak favourably about her business when an appropriate opportunity arises.
Mandy has described the relationship herself as one where members support and refer work to each other, while recognising that you get more from the relationship when you play your part too.
That is something we want to develop with more of the Business Professionals we work with.
Your membership shouldn't only be working while you're attending an event or actively promoting yourself.
We don't need members to spend their lives creating marketing material for us. But we do need something genuine to work with.
For one business that might be regularly collecting customer reviews. Another might enjoy networking. For a Business Professional, one of the most valuable things they can contribute is their knowledge.
If there is a question your customers regularly ask, a change in your industry people need to understand, or a particular subject you know inside out, tell us about it.
We can help turn that expertise into useful content, position it around the subjects you want to become better known for and optimise it so it has an opportunity to be found through Google. You can see examples of the advice and expertise local businesses are already sharing in our Business Services articles.
There are no promises about where an individual article will rank.
But once useful content exists, it becomes another asset we can work with.
If somebody asks a relevant question online and one of our members has already written something genuinely useful about it, rather than simply saying, “You should speak to this business,” we can point them towards the article.
Now their expertise is doing some of the introduction for them.
That's another way B2B marketing can keep working when you're not in the room.
We're applying a similar philosophy to our B2B newsletter.
Our aim is for it to become a useful digest of locally relevant business information, tools, expertise and advice rather than another email filled with adverts.
As we learn more about the subjects local businesses actually interact with, we can also feed that information back into the businesses we work with.
If there appears to be a growing interest in a particular subject and one of our members has genuine expertise in that area, we'd much rather encourage them to share something useful than simply create content for the sake of creating content.
Over time, that gives us another way to connect what local businesses want to know with the Business Professionals in Eastbourne who genuinely know something about it.
New businesses are starting all the time, and business owners will often approach us for advice or recommendations as they find their feet.
They might need an accountant, recruiter, insurance adviser, marketing specialist, solicitor or another professional service they've never had to choose before.
Price isn't necessarily the most useful starting point.
If somebody asks us for a recommendation, we'd much rather be able to talk about a Business Professional whose reputation we know and whose business we understand than simply give them a list of names.
Membership gives us the opportunity to build that familiarity.
We've seen this happen naturally. Someone can mention that they're struggling to find work during an otherwise unrelated conversation and a member comes to mind. An established business can mention a staffing problem and create another opportunity to suggest a conversation with somebody we know.
We don't know whether every introduction subsequently results in business, and that's not the claim we're making.
The value is being sufficiently familiar with our members that when somebody asks, “Do you know someone who could help me with this?”, we know considerably more about them than their business name and telephone number.
That can make established Business Professional members part of the support network around newer businesses in Eastbourne.
You can also browse the Business Services in Eastbourne already represented through thebestof Eastbourne.
This approach won't suit every business, and we're comfortable with that.
The Business Professionals we can usually do most with are those who understand their business well enough to tell us what they currently want to develop.
You don't have to be constantly networking, producing articles and collecting reviews.
But give us something to work with.
Tell us what you want to become better known for. Share some expertise. Build your reviews. Come along and meet other businesses. Give us information that helps us understand where you're trying to take the business.
We don't need all of those things.
But we do need something meaningful that allows us to help.
The clearer the picture you give us, the more intelligently we can focus our efforts.
If you're an established Business Professional in Eastbourne and this sounds like the kind of relationship you would value, we'd rather demonstrate the idea than simply make more marketing promises.
First, let's have a conversation about your business and what you're actually trying to achieve.
If we believe we could work well together, we'd like to show you what your business, reputation and expertise could look like through thebestof Eastbourne.
We can bring together your business information and reviews from compatible sources, alongside the reputation you begin building directly through thebestof.
Then we'd like something from you.
Give us one subject you genuinely know about and would like your business to become better known for.
We'll work with you to turn that expertise into a useful article, position it appropriately, publish it through thebestof Eastbourne and give it the opportunity to be found through Google.
Then we can see what actually happens.
No promise that it will suddenly reach number one. No promise that a queue of enquiries will immediately appear.
Instead, you get the opportunity to test the proposition using your own business.
See how your existing reputation can be presented. See what happens when your expertise becomes useful published content. See how thebestof Eastbourne can begin understanding what you want to be known for.
And start building a local business relationship with someone who knows what you're trying to achieve and can keep you in mind when the right conversation happens.
Because good B2B marketing shouldn't only work while you're actively selling.
Sometimes its greatest value is what continues happening when you're not in the room.
Not sure what your business needs next? That’s exactly the kind of conversation we can have.
Want to talk it through? Send me a WhatsApp or email and tell me what you’d most like your business to become better known for.
