How to market your B2B product on a low budget in 7 steps and 6 months

Ok, you've made a product. You're happy with your initial business model. And you've got a good grasp of the target market. Things should work out on their own, right?

Well, the reality soon challenges that assumption.

So you talk to people, read online and stumble upon something called "b2b marketing".

You contact agencies, freelancers, gurus... And get pricing sheets that go way above your budget. Like, if you start saving today, you might be able to pay for those services and strategies in like... 2 years, maybe?

You can't even think about the budget for marketing because you're still not getting any revenue because you have no paying customers, and to get revenue, you need to put yourself in front of your prospects and... That's a magic cycle many startup founders fall into.

So you decide to try things out on your own. On a shoestring budget. Your business partner will help you. You have an administrative assistant. You'll figure things out.

Hopefully, without burning out.

So how to do that?

Here's a simple guide. Really, really simple. And it won't take weeks and weeks to plan.

⭐ Step 1 - Identify networks where you should spend time.

Do that by typing titles and professions into Linkedin/Twitter/Facebook/Youtube/Google search bars. Follow the numbers.

(e.g. CEO accounting or Manager transportation)

Off the top of my head, I'd recommend Twitter, YouTube and Linkedin from the get-go for any b2b business... But Facebook groups have their merit, too (there are great communities for SaaS founders).

Start adding people to your network. 30-50 per day should be enough. Do it manually. Don't tinker around with software (yet). Automating stuff without experience could get you banned.

The purpose of this:

📍 You're getting eyeballs and ears for your content.
📍 It prepares the playing ground for paid advertising.
📍 You start building a brand.
📍 You're getting actual feedback from prospects.

⭐ Step 1/a - Start posting for real on social media and your blog.

I know this is a no-brainer, but hear me out before you scroll down the page. It's not really a step 2, but it's also more than following just the step 1.

Many founders say that they'll do it, but when it comes to actually putting themselves out there, they tilt like a poker player whose tell got caught across the table.

The problem is that people think they should start big or shouldn't start at all. Flashy titles, flashy content. Super persuasive copy in their bios. Social media posts that grab attention and pull dollars like a magnet.

Nope.

📍 First, you have competitors and they're already doing much. You can't compete with them at the moment, especially with no budget. Unless you have a guerilla marketing idea, which also takes time and money.

📍 Second, you've just came to the party. Have a nice drink first in the corner, observe the situation, mingle a bit before joining groups.

📍 Third, think in terms of manageable (and recyclable) steps

Based on these rules, here's a guerilla marketing plan that won't waste hours of your time, but will bring something back - feedback or money

Always have in mind that you're getting something in return for your activity online - either intel (no info is also a lot of info) or money. Or both, ideally.

Ready for a guerilla marketing plan? Here it goes:

📍 Content creation for social media - rely on recyclability for faster production.

2 min video = 600 w blog article = 4 Linkedin posts = 10 tweets = 1-2 weeks of content to share on social media

📍When it comes to blogging and YouTube, you're documenting every problem, every feature, every solution.

Forget about thought leadership for now. Create answers to your customers' concerns.

How to, What if, How much, How many. Those are your pillars for content.

Use Google KW planner (free), Answer The Public (free), G Trends (free) to research additional topics but stay focused on social listening - what your prospects say online.

SEO game is fierce in many verticals and you stand no chance without budget. Start by helping people. not engines. You'll be able to do proper SEO later down the road.

(People recommend hiring freelancers on Fiverr to quickly fill out your blog. I recommend patience and boosting your business with initial founder's love and passion.)

📍 Frequency of posting on social media

3-5x a week. Post from your personal account. Get to know people. B2B is basically B2C filled with fluff.

Ratio of educational/sales posts - 80/20.

4 posts to educate/entertain/help, 1 to ask for something (follow, visit, buy, schedule a demo).

📍 Frequency of blogging

2 times a week. Don't limit yourself on certain word count. As long as you're solving a problem for your prospects, it's ok. But don't write less than 500 words.

⭐ Step 2 - Start paid advertising BUT slowly.

You've spent 2-3 months posting consistently. You have some content and documentation.

(60 posts on Linkedin and 24 blog posts, to be exact)

You have built social capital. Yes, being active online means you have basic legitimacy. (If Tinder Swindler could do it...)

Start paying for ads on platforms where you see the greatest engagement.

Keep in mind:

📍 Test 6-10 different ads, test many messages.
📍 Use tiny budgets ($300-500-1000 per month is enough to get a basic sense of the market and avoid breaking the bank because of fine print and misclicks in ad managers)
📍 Don't sell, at least not with majority of your ads. Just advertise your educational content and bring new people to it.

When you have massive players in the field, they'll out-pay you in advertising.

📍 Build awareness.
📍 Educate.
📍 In b2b, a lot of sales happen in Slack messages, not on your website.

(Google "demand generation", Chris Walker, dark funnel/dark social for additional info on this line of thinking)

Sales will come.

⭐ Step 3 - Map your funnel.

In a nutshell, use a piece of paper and a pencil to draw all touchpoints where people meet your brand and where they decide to give it a try.

(I recommend Whimsical, it's free, it's drag-n-drop, you can draw mind maps and diagramms.)

Make sure you've connected Google Analytics at least.

Pro tip: Implement a pop-up survey on your website asking people how did they find about you. I use Hotjar for this. There's a free plan, too.

It also tracks people's behaviour on your web pages. You get recordings, which could be quite insightful (or complete nonsense sometimes haha).

Example of a simple funnel:

📍 They've been following your posts on Linkedin. Connected with you on Twitter. Clicked on your blog post in your tweet. Decided to reach out.

Great. Now, GA reports that most of your traffic comes from Twitter. Ok, invest more time in tweeting more.

📍 OR > they found your blog post here on IH, followed you on Twitter, saw that you have a LN profile, commented on one of your posts, you replied, sent them a DM a week later with your blog post that answers a question.

They went for a demo.

You notice that 8/10 of your leads convert on Linkedin. Cool. Put more sales-oriented posts on Linkedin, and more educational posts on your proxy media (Twitter and IH in this scenario). Start sending messages to your connections with links to your blog posts.

Keep in mind - what you can measure, you can improve. Double down on that.

⭐ Step 4 - Cold outreach on Linkedin

Start sending messages.

Here's a simple template -

"Hey NAME,

Your post yesterday on TOPIC taught me a lot about WHATEVER.
But I also saw that you PROBLEM.

I might have a solution for that on my blog / LINK. I hope it helps.
Let me know if you need any more details I haven't covered in it.

Is that something you often struggle with?

Cheers,"

Ground rules:

📍 Prepare for many NOs.
📍 Don't send to new connections, only to people who have been engaging with your posts.
📍 Don't hard sell. Wait for them to express a problem and offer a solution. Let them sell your product to themselves.

⭐ Step 5 - It's time to make your marketing (advertising especially) more (cost-) effective.

You've been creating content for 4-6 months, and doing paid advertising for 1-2 months. What kind of feedback do you have by now?

If none (which is like really rare, still haven't seen a business without any feedback from the market when they do things consistently) - then start by rethinking your content or your business model. No better advice than that.

If any - use that to create new content and optimize your old one.

Many people talk about quantity but forget quality. There's more juice to squeeze out by recycling your old content and updating your blog posts with new solutions and use cases.

📍Make a summary of your most popular posts.
📍 Create a list of your most read blog articles.
📍 FAQ.

Summarization is a good tactic to create even more content and use the old one to increase traffic.

Apart from that, what I want you to do is to reach out to 5 of your customers and offer them a small discount for a 15-30 min interview. Do whatever you can to get them to talk to you.

Ask them 3 crucial questions:

📍 What kind of problem has brought you to us?
📍 How were you doing things before using SOLUTION?
📍 How has your life changed now that you've been using SOLUTION for PERIOD?

These answers are a goldmine (google "JTBD interviews" for more questions) for your sales, demos, copywriting... And understanding why people buy your product in general.

When you know what kind of transformation has taken place in their lives with your help, you have the key to profits. Look at it as an investigation. Your goal is to find that "black swan." (Chris Voss / Never Split the Difference, a great book on the subject)

⭐ Step 6 - Paid advertising is not an end-all-be-all. Content is everywhere. Saturation is inevitable. So build a community.

A community is a strong asset because people see you and only you. We like tribes. Tribal behaviour has been keeping humas alive since the dawn of time.

📍 Create Facebook groups. (free)
📍 Private Slack channels.
📍 Discord servers. (free)
📍 Zoom masterminds.
📍 Newsletters. (free for up to 2000 people on most platforms)
📍 In-person events.

⭐ Step 7 - Join communities (like IH) and be helpful.

It's a brand building tactic and it bring organic traffic.
You get to connect with like-minded people.

Adopt a "I'll make you rich so you could make me rich" mindset. When you lift people up, most of them will never forget that.

It makes you feel better. And it builds your credibility, your business, and your reputation.

E.g. I've helped a couple of copywriters who didn't know how to open a GDoc to get their first jobs and critiqued their copy for 6 months until they could write decent copy on their own.

They send me referrals all the time. And it built my cred as someone who's knowledgeable enough to mentor others.

⭐ It's all about thinking big, but starting small, in manageable chunks and steps

Monster 10-year vision vs 1-month plan
Linkedin strategy vs 5 posts
1500 cold emails to unknown people vs 10 targeted messages to people who know you

Have fun. Don't overthink it.