B2B marketing report from the Content Marketing Institute reveals something quite worrying about the state of many businesses today – a whopping 59% of B2B organisations don’t have a clear idea as to what successful content marketing looks like.
(Image source: contentmarketinginstitute.com)
And that’s not all. Of equal concern for any inbound marketing agency is the revelation that 37% of B2B marketing professionals are only somewhat, not very, or not at all committed to content marketing, marketing strategy, and search engine optimization.
True, just over two-thirds (67%) of B2B marketers stated that their organisation was either “very” or “extremely” committed to content marketing. But this is 2017, and that figure really should be much closer to 100% by now.
Why Organisations Struggle with B2B Marketing
In today's dynamic digital landscape, mastering B2B marketing strategies is crucial for organizations looking to connect with their target audiences. B2C brands have seamlessly integrated social media marketing into their digital approaches, but B2B organizations often grapple with the intricacies of business-to-business marketing. Navigating these challenges is essential for delivering relevant content to the right audience, ensuring a successful presence in the competitive market.
B2B is catching up, but there’s still a fair way to travel for a lot of companies, particularly when it comes to refining strategies and driving positive results.
There are a couple more statistics from the Content Marketing Institute’s B2B marketing report that we want to draw your attention to. First is the fact that a massive 88% of B2B marketers agreed with the following statement: “Content marketing is an important component of our organization’s program.”
As an inbound marketing agency, we find that relieving – even if commitment is somewhat lower than what it should be.
The second is a graph showing some of the precise factors B2B marketing teams struggle with – factors that indeed have led to a decrease in marketing success.
Time. Content creation. Management. Strategy. Commitment. Budget.
Those are the top six factors that organisations have stated that they are struggling with from a B2B marketing perspective.
As an inbound marketing agency, we adeptly address the intricate challenges inherent in B2B marketing. Beyond the broad considerations of reaching business buyers, optimizing for search engines, and aligning your marketing team, our expertise extends to strategically navigating diverse marketing channels and engaging with dynamic social media channels. This holistic approach ensures a comprehensive and effective strategy tailored to the evolving landscape of B2B interactions.
We don’t want you to make those same mistakes. So today we’re sticking a big bright flag in three of the most common ones, so you know what to avoid.
Check out the following blogs to learn more about B2B marketing strategy:
- How do I Start a B2B Marketing Campaign? | A 2023 Guide
- Campaigns for Tech B2B Marketing: A 2023 Improved Guide
- Effective B2B Marketing Campaigns: 6 Great Example
3 B2B Marketing Blunders to Avoid
1. Not Using Inbound Marketing Personas
What’s an inbound marketing persona?
Quite simply a semi-fictionalised representation of your ideal customer.
Inbound marketing personas help you identify exactly who it is all of your B2B marketing efforts will be aimed at.
In the dynamic landscape of B2B marketing, your target audience goes beyond the corporate entity to include individuals with significant buying power within those organizations. Leveraging marketing automation software, implementing strategic email marketing, and deploying innovative tactics, such as social media marketing and business-to-business marketing, allow you to engage effectively with these key decision-makers and other businesses. This comprehensive strategy enables you to showcase your highly specialized solutions, making a substantial impact in the evolving B2B landscape.
Creating inbound marketing personas helps you identify precisely who those people are, and from there you can start creating content that will catch their attention.
Far too many B2B marketing teams make the mistake of forgoing inbound marketing personas – to their peril.
Here’s a great little infographic you can use to start creating your personas today, and read our previous post ‘How to Develop Inbound Marketing Personas’ to learn more.
(Image source: luismaram.com)
2. Focusing on the Wrong Platforms
It’s important for all organisations today to build a robust presence on social media. However, not all platforms are created equal, and there’s very little point in piling resources into Facebook marketing when the majority of your prospects are more likely to be found on Twitter.
All B2B marketing efforts need to be focussed on generating the highest returns possible. If you’ve spent some time formulating strong inbound marketing personas, then you should know whether it’s on LinkedIn, Instagram or anywhere else that these returns are likely to be made.
When it comes to marketing, don't try to be everywhere at once. Focus on platforms that work best for your business customers. Building strong marketing campaigns on these platforms can help drive business growth, rather than trying to engage in business-to-consumer marketing across a wide variety of platforms that may not be effective.
3. Your Strategy Doesn’t Move Prospects Along the Path to Purchase
We’ve seen that 59% of B2B organisations don’t know what successful B2B marketing looks like. So let’s elucidate the issue.
Successful B2B marketing means attracting strangers to your website, converting those visitors into leads, those leads into customers, and those customers into returning customers.
(Image source: hubspot.com)
As you can see from the infographic above, different types of content are used at different stages of the buyer’s journey.
A content strategy specifically designed to move prospects along the path to purchase is what successful B2B marketing looks like (provided it works, of course – but refining and optimising the strategy over time is all part of the process).
When B2B marketers don’t have a clearly defined strategy, they can often mistake engagement – such as a high number of social shares of a blog post, for instance – for “success”, and then scratch their heads wondering why more sales aren’t being made.
See our previous post to find out ‘How to Use Content to Move Leads Through Your Sales Funnel’.
Back to You
These are just three of the most common B2B marketing mistakes that we see a lot of as an inbound marketing agency. Others include optimising the wrong metrics, trouble with marketing automation, poor customer retention strategies, failure to use personalisation, and many more besides.
We don’t want you to make those mistakes, so if you need help with your B2B marketing tactics, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with the inbound marketing experts here at Incisive Edge today.
