B2B Digital marketing for oil and gas organizations presents unprecedented challenges, but partnering with the right digital marketing agency can assist in the company’s growth.
Oil and natural gas are potent industries in the energy market and play a significant role in the international economy as the world’s primary fuel source.
This industry is often split into three sectors:
- Upstream, the business of oil and gas exploration and production;
- Midstream, transportation and storage; and
- Downstream, which includes refining and marketing.
The marketing needs to be effective for each sector to target potential leads and convert them to ideal clients. The common base between these sectors is their products and services, but each company has to find creative ways to showcase its competitive advantages to stand out.
The Middle East has abundant oil reserves and is the established holder for 27% of the international oil production market. From Saudi Arabia, UAE to Iraq, Iran, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait, the oil and gas sector in the Middle East is eventually the most prominent, with global oil corporations actively engaging in related activities for collaborations and partnerships.
The surplus of oil production makes it a competitive niche for state-owned companies to stay ahead of their competition and convert the ideal leads. Like other industries, the energy industry, especially oil and gas organizations, is looking for innovative marketing strategies to excel in their marketing campaigns, stay ahead of their competition, and close the best deals from the lots.
At YourTarget, we are a team of experts with years of experience in inbound marketing and know how to leverage the best opportunities to grab the ideal deals, increase your business visibility and get ahead of the competition.
Feel free to contact us and discuss the next upcoming opportunity for your oil and gas company.
Why is B2B marketing crucial for oil and gas organizations?
B2B digital marketing is challenging for the oil & gas industry. It involves detailed planning, thorough understanding, and factual channelizing of relevant resources for reaching potent markets.
Nevertheless, digital marketing is crucial for thriving in a competitive market.
Oil and gas companies have lagged in adopting the most cutting-edge digital marketing trends and initiatives – be it social media marketing, content marketing, or the usage of easy analytical tools. Statistics indicate that oil & gas companies generally have minimal marketing funding (a mere 7 percent).
For years, the sector has leaned chiefly on traditional marketing tactics like conferences and trade shows for product showcasing and has thus encountered lengthy sales cycles.
Now in the fast-paced business environment, these outdated marketing techniques fail to emphasize the competitive benefits of B2B companies.
The solution lies in digitally developing a unique buyer-supplier interface that can benefit both.
Research shows that innovation-friendly oil & gas companies have embraced the latest digital marketing strategies, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC), website designing, etc., have developed a well-deserved market for themselves.
B2B marketing can be advantageous for the oil & gas industry in numerous ways:
- Competition – The oil & gas industry is highly competitive. You need to adopt digital marketing to out stand the competition. Running SEO-optimized websites and frequent customer interaction through social media platforms help leverage competitive advantage.
- Reach – B2B Oil and Gas customers nowadays depend heavily on online research for making purchase decisions. Around 91 percent of them want an easy and friendly user experience on the internet. Easily functional websites from your end, and supported top-notch content promise a better client reach.
- Personalization – B2B customers find mass marketing frustrating. Personalization is crucial to impress modern clients. With digital technologies, you can easily personalize the marketing campaigns.
- Customer Churn – Digital marketing via automated, algorithm-driven methods enables checking the attrition rate for B2B companies.
- Product Knowledge – Strategically positioned ‘contact us’ forms on company websites, e-newsletters, etc., providing accurate product information to prospective buyers can be a smart move to attract potential leads.
5 inbound marketing strategies for companies in the oil and gas industry
1. SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is improving your website’s position in search engine rankings for keywords relevant to your business—the oil and gas industry; being a competitive niche requires ranking higher on SERPs to attract ideal clients.
With SEO-optimized content, the website gets recognition, outstands the competition, and sets itself as an authority in its niche. One of the best things about SEO is that it is cost-effective, which means high ROI.
To apply SEO with the oil and gas company, start with first optimizing the website content, i.e., optimizing the URL of the website pages. The best URLs have clear, concise descriptions of a page’s content, with the words separated by dashes (-). Next, conduct in-depth keyword research to discover what type of content people are looking for and what their search intent is.
Thirdly, create helpful content keeping the sales funnel in mind. Valuable and fresh content attracts organic visitors to the site and helps gain quality backlinks from high-domain authority sites. These four factors can help the oil and gas agency rank higher on SERPs and convert the potential leads.
2. Content Marketing
Content for the oil and gas industry is crucial for acquiring leads and compelling them to close the deal. Businesses who wish to work with your company need to know what sets you apart from your competitor.
Content marketing can be a game-changing strategy to increase your sales, gain customers’ trust, generate leads, and place you as an authority.
There are several forms of content that you can apply to promote your business effectively. From search engine optimized blog posts and informational guides to infographics and case studies, you can create valuable and informative content that helps you differentiate your brand, build customer trust, and help you stay ahead of the competition.
3. Social Media Marketing
The ultimate goal of any marketing approach is to increase revenues, prospects, and customer loyalty. In particular, social media marketing strategies are designed to grow your company by engaging with your target audience and building relationships. This strategy helps increase the visibility of your brand in front of targeted customers.
Social media is a vast platform to increase your brand awareness and engage with your potential clients by nurturing them with the company’s insights, sharing industry news, and participating in discussions in the comments section to engage more with targeted audiences.
4. Email Marketing
Email marketing is highly cost-effective and targeted to different segments of audiences. The marketing experts believe that email marketing has the highest ROI amongst other digital marketing strategies. And to establish a successful brand in the industry, you need to defy boundaries and keep expanding your prospect list. An adequately strategized email marketing helps in achieving just that and much more.
YourTarget specifically designs your email marketing campaign to personalize your customer’s experience and help you:
- Strengthen your brand presence
- Drive relevant traffic to your website
- Generate quality leads for your business
5. Pay Per Click(PPC)
Advertising is still an essential part of the marketing mix despite a crucial shift in how companies market themselves. The Internet caused a significant change, transforming the advertising industry in numerous ways. One of the most notable was making ads easier to monetize using pay-per-click ads, or PPC.
PPC stands out to be a clever digital marketing strategy to nurture clients when they are ready to convert. PPC campaigns are measurable, which makes them easy to run. Also, it is a clever trick in the website’s early SEO to increase the brand’s visibility and target potential clients.
PPC campaigns are a proven strategy for converting leads into clients for the oil and gas industry. The most crucial step while applying PPC campaigns is to choose the keyword carefully as it determines how competitive you have to bid and how often searchers look for it.
Conclusion
The oil & gas sector can no longer neglect the significance of digital marketing technologies in boosting ROI and overall growth.
In the modern era, Inbound Marketing is the best method for the energy sector, particularly the oil and gas industry, to convert the visitors of a website into leads, clients, and, subsequently, promoters of the business. Aligning posted content with the clients’ interests makes it possible to naturally attract the traffic of potent clients, who can be converted and satisfied over time.
The world is developing at a fast pace, with new technologies coming up every day. Yourtarget has a team of qualified experts, always available to assist oil and gas companies in the Middle East to optimize the digital marketing strategy and influence the market.
Feel free to book a free consultation with our team of experts now!!
