5 Reasons To Use B2B-Platforms

Industrial buyers prefer to use B2B portals when looking for trading partners, as results are also obtained there for very specific search queries and buyers can find exactly the product or service they are looking for. As a result, company directories and portals for generic search terms such as “CNC milling” are always at the top of all relevant national and international search engines.

Search queries on Google and other search engines are therefore largely directed to B2B portals, as these are highly relevant, be it through their own search engine optimization or their high reputation. Portals are also an integral part of information research by B2B buyers. Companies that operate platform marketing, i.e. that are listed on relevant platforms, can therefore be found at a very early stage of the purchasing process. Buyers who use a B2B portal to obtain information are therefore particularly qualified leads who generate high conversion rates.

Despite its many advantages, portal marketing is a very inexpensive online marketing discipline. Usually, a free standard account is offered on the B2B portal, which can be converted into an inexpensive premium account if required, thereby enabling access to additional functions. The paid version offers companies, among other things, the use of multilingual entries. The main advantage of a premium account on a B2B portal is the significant improvement in the placement of the company entry. Companies that use this variant are displayed in the upper results of the B2B portal and can therefore be found particularly quickly by potential customers. You can find out why lead generation works so well this way on our Relevance of B2B Platforms page.

Many B2B portals offer verification services to make international customer acquisition safer and more beneficial. Examples of such verification services are the telephone verification of all registered users by the B2B portal operator or the use of evaluations after transactions. Some portals have also created special platforms or forums for this purpose in order to enable users to publish their experiences in dealing with various providers, so that portal marketing can be carried out reputable and securely.

Portal marketing also enables very specific targeting of certain industries and regions. Many B2B portals focus on individual industries and thus build a network of members of the respective industry worldwide. Another form of specialization are regionally focused B2B portals that make it possible to serve a specific target market. Therefore, by selecting the right B2B portals, companies can address the target group that is relevant to them in a very targeted manner without having to accept large wastage. Worldwide there are over 1,500 different portals and online directories, which differ in terms of their industry and region focus. Companies that want to conduct efficient marketing with the help of B2B portals should therefore seek advice on the selection of relevant portals. A successful portal marketing strategy integrates several B2B portals along the global expansion strategy of SMEs. The number of paid portals used can vary, depending on the requirements of the medium-sized company, but multiple platforms should ideally be used in order to achieve the greatest possible success.

Portal marketing has relatively little wastage compared to other areas of online marketing such as SEA or display campaigns. The proportion of qualified search queries with realistic buying interest for B2B-specific keywords such as “Manufacturer screw conveyor” or “CNC multi-milling” is very high compared to B2C keywords. B2B portals or marketplaces and business directories are therefore seen as important contact, information and trading exchanges. Read more about how KytoSync works here.

The use of B2B portals enables SMEs in particular to have a number of advantages. Therefore, export-oriented SMEs in particular should include being present on B2B portals into their online marketing strategy in order to take advantage of the benefits described above and to be able to successfully generate new customers worldwide, thereby opening up new sales markets and increasing sales. The challenges of the increasing administrative effort, which go up significantly with the rising number of listings on different portals, can be significantly reduced by using external providers such as KytoSync. KytoSync synchronizes all of the company profiles of SMEs on individual B2B portals and marketplaces and thus minimizes the administrative work of companies significantly. Regardless of whether it is a B2B portal, marketplace, company directory or trading platform – all entries can be integrated and managed via a clear and easy-to-use web application.