You’re an established B2B business delivering great service to customers all over Australia day in and day out.

Your marketing team post regularly on social media.

Their LinkedIn posts appear awesome. They’re full of project photos and exciting stories about expos and new employees.

You make a point of sharing every post on your own LinkedIn profile.

There are heaps of followers on the company page, and posts seem to get a lot of likes.

But all that activity doesn’t seem to be translating into new business leads.

You’re slowly concluding that digital marketing and social media may be a waste of time in the B2B space, and you’re considering canning it all.

But there’s a nagging doubt in your mind.

All the new customers and employees you want to reach are online all day.

How are you going to reach them if you’re not coming up on their screens?

You can’t send sales teams to every corner of the country. And the great days of doing deals via handshakes over a beer are a warm but distant memory.

You need to make online marketing work for you – but how?

In this article, we explore what B2B businesses need to do to move away from a social media-focused strategy and reach ideal targets in research mode on Google.

How did we get here?

If you’re wondering how you got to the point where you’re investing valuable resources in something that doesn’t work, here’s the usual journey.

First social media marketing is easy to do. It’s a relatively low-skill activity and doesn’t need a team to deliver it.

Anyone who can take a photo and write something something reasonably interesting can come up with a half-decent post.

Many businesses find it’s something they can give to someone in their existing team, and it’s up and running really fast.

In many cases, team members put their hands up to jump onto it.

Win-win.

Tick.

Digital marketing done. You go back to bigger problems.

And second, it looks impressive.

You can see the posts, the likes, and the followers. The dopamine hits the spot. It all feels great.

You keep dealing with those bigger problems.

And then reality strikes.

All those likes and followers are not paying the bills.

You feel confused. Why isn’t it working?

Trust me, you’re not alone.

Business leaders all over Australia have been duped by the low-friction, looks-impressive social media myth.

Let’s get on with fixing it.

Business research is done on Google

How do you look for a new product or service for your business?

You start with a Google search.

So, to state the obvious, if you want to reach ideal targets in research mode, your business needs to appear in as many Google searches as possible for terms relevant to your business.

(Sure, there are other search engines, and there will be more in the future, but right now, Google is where Australian business people do their research.)

You can probably now see why appearing in a social media feed isn’t nearly as useful as coming up in a Google search.

If I’m scrolling LinkedIn, I’m not necessarily looking for a business like yours, and I’m even less likely to be in the market for your services or products.

But if I’m researching widget engineering solutions for my food manufacturing business, and you pop up in a Google search list, AND I find some genuinely useful information on your website, then you’re on my radar as a possible solution to my problem.

Or to put it another way.

If you’re not high up in the Google search listings, your competitor might become my solution.

A tougher but more fruitful road

Getting your website to show in free Google search is a much tougher but way more fruitful road than focusing your energy on social media.

The first step is creating a B2B website that communicates your message, has an effective user journey, and is structured for your Google niche.

Once you have that website, you must add regular, strategised content to it.

This content is the magic fuel that drives you up the search rankings for key terms your market is typing into Google.

And no, posts about the expo you just went to or a new employee are not what I mean.

I mean compelling, original articles that dive into the details of a topic and show your market you have the knowledge and capability to deliver on promise.

And yes, this isn’t a job for just one person.

You need team with strategy, design, code, writing, photography and SEO skills to work together in the same direction to deliver a result.

Sounds hard?

It is. But if you want results, this is the road.

Sounds expensive?

There is a decent investment required, yes. It will be thousands each month, yes.

Think of it like buying digital real estate.

Everything you put on your website is owned by you and stays there for years to come, delivering traffic day in and day out. Unlike a social media post that disappears down a feed (or a sales person who leaves the business and takes all their contacts with them).

Experience tells me that free Google search is the only digital marketing channel that reliably and consistently delivers a return on investment in the B2B space.

But to enjoy that return on investment, you need the right strategic plan executed by the right professional team.