Business-to-business (B2B) marketing is a science and an art. Digital marketing experts are gathering more information than ever before to help increase the success of a B2B campaign, and that includes buying trends based on social media posts. But as much as the technology and amount of information has changed, there are still elements that are essential to the success of any B2B marketing campaign.
Good B2B marketing is designed to reach people and not faceless corporations. People buy from people, and that is especially true in the business world. Your marketing is targeted at solving the most common problems your customers have and pointing out how much better your product solves the problem than anyone else’s.
It is the job of sales professionals to dig deep and find specific problems that will drive each customer to become a repeat buyer, but marketing collects information that helps understand why customers buy your products. When you can get your clients to invest their emotions into your product, then you will find a lot more success.
The job of a marketing group is to identify the target audience, find out why they buy, and then create a message that will bring customers to the table. Understanding your audience in the corporate world is much different than in consumer sales. With consumer sales, the marketing company for a lawnmower manufacturer knows exactly how much technical information to give because it is usually a member of the household who makes the buying decisions. But in the corporate world, buying decisions are usually a group effort.
How much technical knowledge does the final decision maker really need to decide to buy your lawnmower? How much input do the technical experts have in influencing the final decision maker? You need to know your audience to market B2B, and then you need to understand how much technical information your audience needs to make a decision.
Including comedy in parts of your marketing enhances the idea we talked about earlier of people like to buy from people. Professionals in the B2B marketing world know that the two most important parts of comedy in marketing are knowing when to stop, and knowing what kind of comedy works best.
In no way does self-deprecating humor work, and you should always avoid making direct fun of the competition. But when you find a way to make your audience laugh that is positively associated with your brand or product, then you humanize your marketing in a way that makes it feel accessible to your audience. Since businesses want to buy from people, humanizing your marketing makes a lot of sense.
When you find a marketing angle that works, your next step is to move on to the next angle and stay ahead of the competition. A good marketing plan is going to be copied by other companies, and that can start to confuse your audience. But if your company is always innovating your brand and coming up with new marketing ideas, then you will be one-step ahead of the imitators.
The tools and methods used in B2B marketing change on a regular basis, but the essential elements that make up a good marketing plan will always be the same.
