Let’s face it: Many see B2B marketing as the unsexy side of the industry. Lately, however, the sector has been growing its reputation and establishing itself as a beachhead for the industry’s best practitioners. To capitalize on this moment and drive the industry forward, B2B marketers must address some of the core issues, starting with reframing focus on the right parts of the marketing funnel.
Currently, most B2B marketers focus on the “messy middle” of the funnel, where significant effort is dedicated to messaging around features and function. The reason behind this is the necessary collaboration between B2B marketing teams and influential sales and product teams, many of whom lack a comprehensive understanding of marketing, brand, and demand. The LinkedIn B2B Institute recently found only 16% of marketing and sales teams are aligned in how they talk to their buyers. Worse still, there is only a 5% alignment between demand marketing and brand marketing teams.
The pressure to deliver a final product and feed their channels often leads to compromises, resulting in overly functional, feature-heavy, and text-based communications.
Meanwhile, research from Bain and Google shows that 86% of B2B buyers have a Day One List – a group of suppliers the buyer already knows they want to consider long before they are ready to make a purchase – and that 92% of them will purchase off of this list. Those messy middle materials won’t get you there.
B2B brands that win will work to align marketing and sales, focusing more on the highs and lows of the customer experience journey.
Here’s how you can start refocusing the funnel:
Double Down on Building a Brand
According to LinkedIn research, 95% of B2B buyers are not in the market to make a purchase at any given time. Winning B2B brands must allocate more of their budget to building brand and increasing awareness to be competitive. A great avenue to do this is through reshaping your creative. Start by telling a compelling story, and own and showcase your brand.
Good B2B creative evokes emotion, making people laugh, cry, or take note – just like good B2C creative does. Attention is critical for this, and often not on the radar when measuring the effectiveness of B2B ads. Additionally, you must ensure your creative features your brand prominently. Too often, B2B logos are flashed at the end of an ad, almost as an afterthought, failing to establish a connection in the viewer’s mind. Instead, place your brand in the context of the problem it solves, making it easily understandable. Then, show it often.
Recognize There’s a Person Behind B2B Buying
B2B buyers are humans, and so B2B is, in essence, also B2C. Keep this in mind as you build your owned channels and make decisions around media placements.
While it’s valuable to show up in more niche industry publications, placing branded B2B content in lifestyle media, for example, can be equally beneficial. Identify the B2C outlets where your target business professionals over-index. Maybe it’s running and yoga sites for doctors, or wine and golf sites for IT professionals. You should also be showing up there.
Once you’ve driven B2B buyers to your website, you’ll want it to look great. Although B2B organizations must continue using proven approaches like drip and gated content on their owned properties, it's crucial to avoid overwhelming visitors with pages and pages of complex information. Take inspiration from B2C sites and social channels. Create less content-dense pages, incorporate cleaner designs, and build an easier browsing experience and pathways.
B2B marketing has been operating at the status quo for too long. Now is the time to reclaim the domain and advocate for approaches that drive growth and yield tangible business results. Effective marketers will maintain proven methods while expanding their strategies with a renewed commitment to building their brand and communicating with their target audience in a manner that is enjoyable to receive.
Ultimately, this will earn their brand a critical spot on the Day One List – a win for marketing and sales teams alike.
