An Effective B2B Marketing Strategy: Why Messaging and Audience Matter

Sometimes your B2B marketing strategy isn’t effective. You’re not getting the results you were aiming for, and you’re trying to figure out why you’re missing the target. It’s critical to have a marketing plan with quantifiable key performance indicators so you can measure your ROI — but having a strategy and executing on it is only the first step.

Whether you’ve been using strategic marketing or trying out spaghetti marketing (0 stars: do not recommend!), if your B2B marketing tactics are not paying off, it’s time to take a hard look at your messaging, your audience, and your content, and pivot accordingly.

Time and Money: Two Things an Effective B2B Marketing Strategy Needs

Marketing is an investment. Creating a fancy new website and declaring it a failure when you don’t have ten new clients the first month is sort of like taking up running and wondering why you didn’t qualify for the Olympics six months later.

Successful marketing isn’t a one-time expense that skyrockets your business to record-breaking growth. It’s a longer-term play — a marathon, not a sprint. That said, if you’ve been at the same strategies for 18 months to a year and the needle still isn’t moving, it’s probably time for a change.

Is Your Marketing Message Clear and Compelling?

Ask yourself these questions:

• Is it easy for people who visit your website to understand what you do and why it matters to them?
• Can you succinctly communicate what you do and how it solves your customers’ problems?

When it comes to messaging, “clear” trumps “clever” every time.

There are typically two reasons businesses are ineffective at marketing message strategy:

• They don’t know their audience, or
• They focus on selling themselves rather than addressing the needs of their customers

Who Is Your Ideal Client? Developing Customer Personas

Think about a first date. If your date spends the entire time talking about themselves and how great they are, how does that make you feel? On the other hand, what happens when your date focuses on asking you questions and actively listening?

That’s the thing about humans — we want to be heard. It makes us feel seen and validated. It builds trust. No one ever enjoys being talked at.

So this begs the question — how well do you know your clients? Have you interviewed them to develop customer personas and messaging that resonates with your ideal prospect? This process will supercharge your marketing strategy.

You also need to determine where your leads are in the buyer’s journey. If a prospect is early in their journey, they may be interested in a free educational webinar but not far enough along to want to schedule a consultation with a sales rep.

What is The Problem You Can Solve for Your Ideal Client?

It may be time to slow your roll when you consider how buying patterns have shifted:

• 80% of the buying decision is made before the buyer has spoken with a salesperson
• 33% of all buyers desire a seller-free sales experience — a preference that climbs to 44% for millennials

This means that the buyer, rather than the seller, typically has the upper hand in sales meetings these days. Marketing messages must reflect empathy for the client’s challenges and needs. If you don’t show empathy and understanding in your marketing content, you will lose them before being given the chance to offer an answer verbally.

Are You Answering Your Buyers’ Questions?

When prospects search the web, they usually start with a question — and that question typically starts with solving a problem or gaining knowledge.

Consider this scenario: your video conferences keep freezing up at work. Maybe you search, “why is my network so slow?” This search leads you to information, and you might read a blog with some ideas for troubleshooting on your own. Later, your next search may be, “what is outsourced IT?” Eventually, “who are the best IT providers near me?”

Now, what if you had content on your website that answered this business owner’s very first questions? By the time they realize they need managed IT, they’ve already interacted with your site several times. Your experience has been that you answered their questions with both authority and empathy. They’ve developed a virtual relationship with you before ever speaking to a salesperson.

It’s a lot easier to gain trust with your prospects at the beginning of the buyer’s journey than it is to play catch-up at the end. Make a list of the questions your personas likely have and make sure you’re answering them on your site — especially your B2B marketing blog. (Or someone else will!)

Need Help Building an Effective B2B Marketing Strategy?

We realize that developing an effective B2B marketing strategy can be confusing for business owners, sales managers, and even marketers. You feel like you’re doing everything right but can’t seem to rise above the digital noise to attract the right leads.

We specialize in B2B marketing solutions. Any marketing that drives results starts with identifying your ideal customer, understanding their challenges, crafting clear and compelling messaging, and developing an effective marketing strategy that meets them in the buyer’s journey. Our team would love to help you craft a plan that gets you the results you’re going after.