B2B Marketing at a B2B Marketing Turning Point: Time to Rethink Your Approach
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B2B marketing is at a crossroads. Privacy legislation and third-party cookie blocking are forcing marketers to rely less on cookies and performance marketing and focus more on delivering value to the ideal customer.
Traditional funnel marketing, with a streamlined and predictable path to conversion, no longer matches the reality of today’s complex buyer journey. In addition, performance marketing (SEO, SEA, social advertising) is saturating. Every B2B company that is involved in online marketing focuses on this strategy first. As a result, we see the costs for acquiring customers rising. There are plenty of challenges in the B2B marketing landscape.
This is the first article in a series on B2B marketing in 2024
1. Why funnel marketing no longer works
The modern B2B buyer journey is not linear, but has hundreds of digital and physical touchpoints. The marketer who focuses on performance challenges has a big challenge because you simply can’t get everywhere with the marketing software you use. Customers orient themselves in various ways such as communities, events, network, podcasts and webinars. And yes, they (still) search via Google, but then they are already a long way in their purchasing process.
Are you only just becoming visible for the first time? Then there is a big chance that you will simply become comparison fodder. And your sales organization will embark on an intensive process with that.
Furthermore, decisions within B2B purchases are collective, involving multiple stakeholders. There is a buying committee. This reality cannot be captured in a simple funnel model, where the marketer focuses on obtaining contact details of individuals. You will therefore need to understand the purchasing process of your ideal customer and there is only one way to find out: talk to the customer and form an image of the purchasing process.
2. Classic lead generation is rapidly saturating
Purchases in B2B markets are not made by individuals, but by a buying committee where each individual takes on their own role. Yet many marketing strategies remain focused on generating individual leads. These strategies work less well in an era where every B2B company uses performance marketing.
This results in an increase in Customer Acquisition Costs and a decrease in the distinctive value. We see examples in practice where you pay €15 for a click in Google Ads on high-intent keywords. You can imagine that these become expensive leads.
There is also a big chance that these leads are in conversation with multiple companies. Not every lead becomes a customer. As a B2B marketer, your goal should therefore be to generate high-intent qualitative leads. And you can only achieve this by being top-of-mind at the moment that your ideal customer experiences a problem that you can solve.
3. Companies are becoming more conservative in making investments
The hesitation of companies to invest has intensified the battle for every customer. Marketers must work harder to gain trust and close deals, which reduces margins. This calls for strategies that focus on building relationships, trust and authority before potential customers are ready to seek solutions.
Also read: 15 B2B Marketing Tools for Better Processes & Positive Business Results
A position as a thought leader in the market is essential to qatar email list 476676 contact leads succeed in this challenging environment. Companies that fulfill this in the long term have a much greater chance of being at the top of the shortlist. And that is what B2B marketing is all about.
The impatience of sales and the CEO
The pressure to perform from sales and the CEO creates a to merge or not to merge: what does this mean for your agency? culture of short-term thinking, where marketers are driven to generate demand quickly. Especially ao lists when targets are not met. The CEO and sales then start to interfere with marketing, because they see the sales pipeline drying up.
But with the average buyer journey lasting 192 days, marketers need to develop strategies that both deliver short-term wins and build long-term brand equity. A B2B marketer needs to ensure that the pipeline is filled with quality sales opportunities.
The challenge is communicating the importance of long-term strategies like branding and demand generation , while balancing them with the short-term goals of the business. Is there a need for quick results? Then you know you need to sharpen your performance marketing again. Make sure you keep an eye on the long term and continue to put effort and budget into it. Otherwise, you’ll have a stressful conversation every quarter.
Also realize which growth phase you are in with your company. Are you a start-up? Then your budget focus will go to performance marketing. Are you a scale-up or beyond? Then you will also really have to work on branding and demand generation. Performance marketing works for growth companies, but it is too narrow a strategy to rely on completely. It is a strategy that saturates, while you want to continue to grow.
When you talk to the CEO and sales you will have to talk about conversion, Customer Acquisition Costs and pipeline velocity . How much do you put in and how much do you get out? You can make a CEO very happy if you can explain well why it is not necessary to hire an expensive sales colleague, because you focus on realizing qualitative opportunities instead of quantitative leads. Your customers are not a number and that already starts in this phase, right.