B2B marketing is becoming more and more challenging. Technological advances, target audience expectations of content relevance and user experience are constantly increasing, at an unprecedented pace. Respondents to the HubSport “B2B Marketing & Trends 2023” study also confirm this - 78% of respondents agree that marketing has changed rapidly in the last three years.
At the same time, times have become more uncertain, economic conditions have changed, and some fear a long-lasting downturn, which will lead to budget and personnel cuts, particularly in marketing.
B2B marketing often lacks coherent principles, but these help to strengthen brands and make businesses more resilient and growth-oriented, especially in times of uncertainty. Short-term thinking and spontaneous measures, which can undermine long-term strategies, often prevail.
In B2B marketing, most teams focus almost exclusively on setting up demand generation mechanisms and mainly work on the lower end of the sales funnel to channel short-term generated marketing qualified leads (MQLs) into the company. But this does not improve the quality of leads or the performance of most demand generation campaigns.
In this way, the conflict between brand and demand, sales and marketing continues to build up. In any case, findings from the LinkedIn B2B Institute or marketing experts from Les Binet prove that the balance between awareness and demand, between brand and sales, must be intelligently interlinked, especially in B2B campaigns and their media strategies.
Together with our partner agency The Croc from London and colleague and head of media, Robin Pierce, we recommend that you consider the following principles when designing and implementing:
Rely on the power of emotions and increase your profile and awareness. Everyone is more likely to remember a creative commercial or a humorous B2B social media campaign than the hundredth boring webinar or white paper. Create topics for conversation and retain your audience emotionally. Especially when competitors are cutting their budgets, it is the perfect opportunity to stand out and thus effectively make a name for yourself.
What has made you successful so far does not necessarily guarantee your success in the future. We often forget that 95% of our potential buyers have not yet been reached by us because they currently have no current needs, are not yet in decision-making positions or simply do not know us. According to a study by the LinkedIn B2B Institute, machinery and equipment, financial advice or framework contracts are more likely to be re-tendered every five years. This means that only around 20% of your target audience is in acute need. Translated to the quarter, only 5% of the target audience is relevant to our MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) metrics. Does this mean that we do not want to address the remaining potentials of the future?
Awareness campaigns are not about indiscriminately spreading information and reaching out to a broad target group. Instead, you should focus on developing a deep understanding of your potential buyers in specific categories. This requires the precise identification of your characteristics, behaviours and habits, which gives you a valuable knowledge advantage over your competitors. Unfortunately, we all too often see superficial persona models and journey mappings, which offer little more than a simple overview. These are often based on assumptions instead of facts and contribute little to successful campaign planning.
Make an effort to define relevant categories and positions that are important to your target audience.
Continuously building a brand is a step-by-step process. By consistently anchoring your brand in the minds of your target group, you sustainably increase awareness. This can be achieved by being present over time with innovative and surprising campaigns and messages. Such an approach not only optimizes the results of your ongoing performance marketing, but also helps build a strong and long-term brand image.
Consider vibrant brand activity. Shorter intervals with highly effective brand advertising are more effective than a big wave that then disappears into thin air again. In addition, the synergies between awareness and demand increase the performance plateau of your demand-gen campaigns.
Identify decisive moments that have a significant impact on entering the funnel. Don't focus too much on direct conversions. Always think about what drives people in your industry and what their pain points are.
Companies often invest significant budgets in marketing tools and technologies, yet less than 44% of the available features are being used. For example, one of our customers spent years paying for an enterprise plan with Salesforce to send out a newsletter every three months. Consider making full use of your tools or better investing your budget in the media needed to reach your target audience.
Many campaigns often only take effect in parts of the consumer journey. Optimal campaign ideas also take into account content that accompanies buyers on their journey over the long term. Good journey maps are the only way to deal with the confusing B2B journey. Journey maps enable us to capture important moments and channels. Here, you can invest in higher production levels and continuous optimization of your customer journey models.
Measuring the success of B2B campaigns can be complex, which is why it is important to clearly define your metrics and to follow market developments and react accordingly. Ask what are the real correlations between KPI and business success. Adjust your campaigns to these insights in a timely and agile manner. Traditional media agencies often react lengthy and give away a lot of money as a result.
Especially in difficult times, we must avoid thinking too short term. Marketing automation and customer relationship management (CRM) tools, data and technologies, including AI, only help us if we develop and track a strategic plan for our brand and growth. The right balance between brand building and sales activation is crucial.
The media and campaign team at Uhura Digital helps you develop and roll out the optimal strategies, journey maps and media and performance plans. Just ask.
Source: HubSpot 2023 B2B Marketing Strategy & Trends report Martech Alliance State of Martech 2022/23 report
