Marketing is the business embodiment of “If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make noise?” Have you really created a great product or service when nobody knows or hears about it? Optimizing your marketing strategy is critical to the success of the B2B business. Still, many B2B marketers don’t get their money’s worth. Why?
In this article, we’re going to cover the most common B2B marketing pitfalls and how to avoid and tackle them.
1. Don’t understand your customers
One of the most important mistakes B2B marketers make is the assumption that all of these customers should be treated equally just because B2B companies get fewer customers than B2C companies.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t provide the same quality of service to your customers. This means that they are different and should be marketed differently.
What should I do?
Segmentation is just as important in the B2B area as it is in the B2C area. Your customers are divided into groups based on certain properties or characteristics you have specified, e.g. B. by industry, size and location.
By segmenting your customers, you can create a far more bespoke marketing strategy. This means that email or conversation marketing techniques are personal to your customers.
These targeted and targeted campaigns give you a competitive advantage over other companies. Nearly 80% of B2B marketers believe that personalized marketing initiatives vastly improve business relationships between customers, and over 50% believe that they directly increase conversion rates.
Clean up your data
B2B companies often have a lot of data about their customers. Suppose you are a company that offers video conferencing software. Your data is focused on industries you’ve been successful in, such as: B. Large offices and companies. After cleaning your data and doing some research, you discover that one of your customers is using your software for their Deaf program. This knowledge opens up a completely new industry and segment for you.
Image source
2. Neglect of social media
While social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools, it is often overlooked by B2B marketers. Some say it is difficult to connect on social media as a company just selling to other companies. Others say their industry is not attractive enough to the average social media user.
What should I do?
Social media isn’t just for B2C companies. Social media can help B2B companies:
– Find and contact potential customers through platforms like LinkedIn.
– Position yourself as an industry leader by creating quality content.
– Use social media engagement to build existing customer relationships and encourage others to join your network.
– Discover additional information about customers that can help them understand their preferences and close the deal.
The most important thing your B2B company wants to achieve through social media is to tell compelling stories. Finding your brand voice and engaging publicly with your customers can humanize your business.
You don’t have to get involved in elaborate social media campaigns. Using social media can be anything from advocating your own employees to sharing content of your product or service in action.
3. Creation of uncreative calls to action (call-to-actions, CTAs)
Whether you are a B2B ecommerce company or a small supermarket on a street corner, you need something that will remind your customers to buy. For example, let’s say you’re a company that provides an Integration Platform as a Service (IPaaS) solution and you’re spending a lot of money on a great-looking marketing video that explains what IPaaS is. But you don’t have a clear CTA encouraging people to buy.
This is a mistake that many B2B companies make, which results in a decrease in the conversion rate.
Image source
What should I do?
B2B CTAs should not only be available, they should also be well timed and creatively placed. The reason for this is that B2B products or services are usually more complicated to explain than B2C products. A simple “buy now” or “click to view” button on a landing page is not enough.
Here are some of the best ways you can create an innovative B2B CTA:
– Make a free sample of your product from your CTA. After customers view the demo or video of your product or service, offer them a trial with a CTA like “Here’s a free trial for ten days starting today”.
– Turn your CTA into a timer. Offer an exclusive offer for a limited time only. This increases the urgency of the customers and encourages them to close the deal.
– Offer a guarantee. Essentially, this is a promise your company makes to the customer that they will love your product. For example: “If you don’t like within a month, we’ll give you every penny back.”
4. Forget about tracking your progress
Tracking your campaigns is critical to a successful B2B marketing strategy. Take your customer service department as an example. You will receive various incoming calls from customers, often with problems, complaints, or feedback. This feedback is then noted and the necessary changes are made. Your marketing team needs to do this too.
One big mistake B2B marketers can make is not keeping track of their metrics and making sure that the money they are spending is actually generating income.
What should I do?
Here are some of the critical takeaways that all B2B marketers should continuously pursue:
– The percentage of potential customers and leads that convert into paying customers. This is about verifying that your marketing is collecting quality leads.
– The percentage of leads that actually engaged with your marketing strategy. This is to ensure that the marketing is going to the right people.
– The average cost of a customer. Find out here if you’re spending too much on marketing and how you can make better use of your budget.
5. Skip the testing process
You have likely spent weeks, months, and even years creating, testing, and retesting your product or service. Every single component has been taken into account. This must also be the case for marketing.
Testing gives you insights that can help you make decisions about your next campaign. This is both time and cost effective, but it is ignored by many B2B marketers.
What should I do?
The most important thing is to realize that everything needs to be tested, from full marketing campaigns to the color of the CTA button on your landing page. The best way to do this is to create a test strategy:
- Plan – Find out what you want to test, e.g. B. Keywords, button size, CTA text, email layout, etc.
- Investigate – To do this, you need to investigate your competitors and audience to see what you think they prefer and narrow it down to a few options.
- Test – Choose the appropriate test type. Typically, A / B testing is used. For example, this creates two of the same CTA buttons, but you change one variable, such as: B. the color. Then you track the success of each one and choose the most effective variable.
- Optimize – don’t assume that there is no better option. Test regularly to make sure you are getting the best results every time.
Image source
6. Increase the workload of your employees
Marketing isn’t just the dazzling and fast-paced environment they portray in the Mad Men series. There are many worldly, but also important, tasks that must be performed, such as: B. Planning campaigns and social media. These tasks are time consuming and often leave employees unoccupied.
What should I do?
Using robotic process automation (RPA) for these tasks saves time and allows your marketing team to focus on more meaningful and engaging tasks.
RPA is a process that uses machine learning software to perform tasks based on the instructions you provide. This can be anything from lead nurturing to sales tracking. It’s faster and cheaper than employees and ensures there are no human errors.
To conclude
One of your main goals should be to expand the reach of your B2B business. The only way to do this is to improve your marketing. From the points above, we can see that it’s important to get to know your audience, take full advantage of social media, instruct the audience to buy, track and test your campaigns, and finally, automate it.