Some old-fashioned marketing tips still make sense, even with all the technology and modern tools at our disposal. Sometimes in the fervor of making sales and chasing numbers, our vision of what it takes to appeal to the human instinct becomes a little clouded. I’m as guilty of it as the next guy, and it happens most when I’m spending a lot of time in front of my PC, taking it all in. In today’s story, I’m going to give you some B2B marketing tips that might surprise you with how easy they are to do, and with how effective they can be in a world  that is overrun by mass marketing and technology.

The global trade game is constantly changing. However, there are some basics that can be extremely useful in securing a position with businesses who are looking for the best deals. While there’s a lot happening in terms of technology, sometimes a less modernistic approach is still a great way to refresh your marketing efforts, and help to capture sales from every facet of your buyer community, especially if that community is diverse and large. Here are some tips for B2B businesses that are tried and true:

• Tailoring Sales and Marketing for Different Generations
• Elevating Visibility through Community Involvement
• Podcasting as a Means of Reaching Out
• Making the Most of Traditional Media
• Celebrity Endorsements
• Cleaning Out the Attic

The world has changed substantially in the past 50 years, and there are a lot of differences between the generations of people who have formed solid buying habits through the decades. Pay attention to how younger shoppers buy, as opposed to the older ones. Some basic things – like pop-up ads and flashing onscreen alerts – are hardly acceptable to the older crowd, while they may be taken as no big deal by the younger ones.

Community involvement can really solidify your role in a community’s mind, and it never hurts to do something to contribute, either. Bringing your company down to earth as a real flesh and blood entity, rather than just another Internet-based business, will do wonders for you, if you work hard and make sure you maximize the “face time” with potential customers in the right venues.

Okay, it’s not exactly a traditional, old-fashioned way of broadcasting your message, but it’s principle is the same as the old radio spot, or even the TV ad. With the cost-effectiveness of Internet advertising, and the relative ease, every company should be doing this, and you’re no exception. With podcasts and other powerful forms of online media, a message can be put out that will not only inform, but perhaps also entertain.

There’s still a bunch of trade magazines and newsletters kicking around out there, and they are rad by devoted fans that like to see words in print, not on the computer screen. While you might be an exception (since you’re reading this now) to the rule, there are still a lot of people who prefer to see it on paper, and they also attach a great deal of their beliefs to the printed word. I think all the world’s newspapers would have switched to electronic format about five years ago, if that wasn’t true.

Don’t worry about allocating millions of dollars for one Hollywood celebrity to pose with your product for a two-hour photo shoot. There are a lot of hometown heroes out there, and they actually might carry a great deal more credibility with the members of that community than a smiling Tom Cruise holding a Chinese-made pipe valve in his hand.

Finally, there’s the old storage room, for all of you who have some warehouse or other facility that’s been in the same location for over a couple of decades. Maybe you’ve been there for the last fifty years… that would be even better! You could be sitting on a gold mine of kitschy and retro goodies that can be turned into the next hot advertising campaign, if you put them to use.

It doesn’t take a lot to get ahead, but it does take a lot of resourcefulness to look behind you. If you’re aching for a new way to communicate to your customers, maybe all you have to do is refer to history, and see what was being done a long time ago. Our world may change in leaps and bounds, but people generally stay the same.