Why Most B2B Marketing Sucks, and How to Make Yours Better
June 21, 2024
Let’s have an honest conversation about the weakest sides of B2B marketing. In this blog post, top experts share their perspectives and offer concrete solutions. Dive into the article to join the open discussion of the marketing community.
Glad we got your attention with this catchy, albeit somewhat controversial, headline! Yes, B2B marketing can suck, but it also can be exciting, fresh, and innovative. It’s great when you can ride the wave of change in your industry and marketing in general, instead of being wiped out. And we do experience a lot of change, with 55% of B2B SaaS marketers confessing it’s harder to reach customers in 2024 than it was just 5 years ago.
And we don’t want to sound condescending either, as all of us in marketing, including professionals with 20 years of experience, are still learning. Instead, we wanted to have an open discussion about the weakest sides of B2B marketing, how to avoid these pitfalls, and instead propel our industry forward. In order to do so, we’ve chatted with top marketers and gathered some invaluable advice from industry experts and influencers, as well as contributing our point of view as a performance marketing agency. Let’s get into it.
Boring, Not Human Enough & Playing It Safe
When it comes to B2B audiences, it seems like some switch gets turned on, and marketers start treating their audiences differently from B2C customers. It is as if it’s not humans talking to humans anymore.
As Sara Pion, Senior Marketing Manager, Customer Engagement at Alyce, poignantly points out, “B2B marketing today could be as personal, as exciting, as thought and feeling provoking as traditional consumer marketing, but instead we opt for strategies we know will show up nicely in our attribution models.” She considers that those companies who dare to talk to their customers and market “like humans”, will ultimately succeed and evoke reactions. What Sara employs in her work is a 5-to-9 approach – incorporating personal details about audiences into the communication, not just marketing to a “persona”.
Micah Horner, Lead Product Marketing Manager at TimeXTender, echoes Sara’s sentiment and characterizes B2B marketers as “Say hello to Mr. Corporate”: “Traditional marketing often hides behind a sterile, overly-professional facade that lacks authenticity and personality. Heaven forbid we let our human side show and connect with an audience of other, actual human beings.”
He also adds that bland branding is an issue for B2B.
Generic logos and dull website copy that don’t stand out kill your marketing efforts before you have even started. In our agency practice, we notice that some clients have pages that are either not converting, or converting below the average market rate. In these cases, we apply our Conversion Rate Optimization process to turn that sluggish performer into a superstar. Apart from many rounds of A/B testing of various elements of the page, a big part of this process is improving and testing visuals — it makes a huge difference! So definitely pay attention to your visuals and copy, and don’t be afraid to stand out with your branding.
Another thing about B2B marketing pages is lack of empathy.
An intriguing 2019 research from Forrester “B2B Websites Still Fail Our Customer Engagement Test” has shown that most B2B websites lack empathy. Researchers have studied 60 websites across 12 industries, and nearly every website has scored poorly. What to do? Employ “Pathological Empathy” towards your customers – a concept coined by a renowned marketing expert and bestselling author Ann Handley: “When I say pathological, I mean really understanding, sort of getting inside their skin … to get a sense of who are they and how can you best engage with them emotionally.”
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Get Started“Me-Centric” & Lack of Community Building
Have you noticed how much of B2B marketing can come off like “Me! Me! Me!”? Brian Hansford, Vice President of Growth at LiveRamp, notes: “We have all had one-sided conversations at parties with that one person that talks about themselves the entire night. It’s boring. Marketing that only talks about your company and product is a turnoff.”
Building your B2B marketing as a “me-centric” model is a recipe for disaster. Instead, you need to focus on your audience, their likes and wants, as well as their journey with you. John Oh, Managing Director and Head of Growth Advisory at 85 Advisors, recommends: “Get an understanding of the buying process from the customer’s point of view. In other words, fight the temptation to think you know what they buy, why they buy, and how they buy. This step is especially important for funnel and pipeline management. Many have called this part of the process “mapping the buyer’s journey.”
Another thing is personalization of content, which 86% of B2B global SaaS marketers agree is key to success, according to the research by Exclaimer. Their CMO Carol Howley advises building “bespoke interactions” that address the unique needs of your audience, instead of doing generalized marketing.
When sharing with us her insights regarding B2B marketing, Anya Policht, Content Marketing Manager at Pricemoov, echoed the issues of lack of personalization and attention to the customer:
“B2B marketing often falls short because it tends to ride the wave of trendy topics with superficial content for quick visibility, rather than establishing genuine connections. To truly resonate, marketers must embrace authenticity and personalization on two fronts: being more personal and getting more personal with their ICP. This means showcasing the company’s values, experiences, and learnings, including transparency about failures and improvements – emphasizing its evolution.
On the audience side, deeply understanding the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is crucial. Tailoring messages to address specific needs, pain points, and buyer behaviors ensures relevance and engagement. Good B2B marketing forges meaningful connections and delivers real value, setting the stage for lasting relationships and business success.”
Another aspect of the “me-centric” approach is the lack of community engagement. Ineffective B2B marketing is a situation when you are “drinking your own Kool-Aid” – meaning, posting content and doing promotional efforts just to showcase your product or service, without inspiring discussions or involving your community/industry in any other way.
And another thing is influencer marketing.
I recently had a chat with a marketing expert and Fractional CMO Neil Schaffer. He has been advocating for influencer marketing for years now and even has written a book on this subject. We both have agreed that though influencer marketing has been around for ages, many companies, especially B2B, still lag in adopting influencer marketing strategies. Too bad, as they miss out big time! Neal stresses that you don’t need exorbitant budgets or celebrity partnerships to start getting tangible benefits: “Influencer marketing doesn’t mean spending millions of dollars to hire someone like Charli D’amelio or Kim Kardashian. Brands should start by tapping into people that already have a brand affinity for their product and brand.”
Doing Things “Just Because” & Lack of Data-Driven Approach
Performing B2B marketing activities in an “auto-pilot” mode, without carefully considering goals and objectives, your audience and measuring concrete business outcomes – this is one of the causes for B2B marketing that “sucks”, i.e. misses its target completely.
Make sure your goals are crystal clear, and use data to measure your outcomes, to test what works and what doesn’t. Also, prioritize your marketing activities and mercilessly remove those that don’t bring any value. Franki Chamaki, Marketing VP & Co-Founder at Hivery, recommends using a famous 80/20 rule for the B2B marketing efforts:
“Applying the 80/20 rule to your B2B marketing efforts can substantially improve efficiency and results. If you had to focus on just three things, they would be:
- Segmentation: Identify your most profitable segments and tailor your product fit to their needs.
- Content: Create content that aligns with the pain points of your top 20% of clients.
- Experiment: Continuously test and refine your strategies to discover what works best and define your future playbooks.”
In the 2015 research from Content Marketing Institute, only 30% of B2B marketers said they felt effective. Have things changed much since then? I suppose they had, but we need to go on and improve B2B marketing even further – through our work and honest conversations about what works and what doesn’t.
A perfect quote and call to action to wrap up this post is by Michael Brenner, Founder of Marketing Insider Group:
“Let’s get real about B2B content marketing. Most of it sucks. It’s full of jargon, self-promotion, and fluff. It doesn’t add value to your audience and can seem completely irrelevant. The truth is, your content doesn’t have to be boring or stuffy. It needs to engage, inspire, and connect.”
Takeaways
All right, so now you know what other B2B marketers think. But what are your thoughts on this subject? We’d love to hear from you! Share your opinion with us on a LinkedIn discussion thread, dedicated to this blog post.
Following the age-old wisdom of “two heads is better than one”: if you require any help with your B2B marketing efforts, consider hiring us. We seamlessly integrate into your team and scale your marketing efforts according to your needs. See our paid search, paid social, and CRO offering, or contact us directly.
Ekaterina crafts engaging and strategic content to drive brand awareness and audience engagement. Her expertise in digital marketing helps the agency deliver impactful campaigns and achieve client goals.