B2B marketing is a constantly changing game, and everyone has something to say about best practices. You can read thousands of blog posts about tips, listen to podcasts and webinars, and attend conferences for the latest industry news.
But while it's important to stay up-to-date with the changing digital marketing landscape, there are some prevailing myths we hear from clients that data and routine testing have proven wrong. Read on for B2B marketing misconceptions to drop this year.
Some marketers who want to scale quickly think that "money in, money out" is a simple equation. They believe that they need to pour huge budgets into advertising platforms -- and that the more they spend, the more they will get out of it.
However, some of the most successful businesses don't start with huge budgets -- they start with lean, testable strategies across a variety of channels. By starting with a small budget and testing which channel, targeting method, and creative mix resonates with your target leads, you can smartly determine where to scale your efforts and money.
Another reason this myth is wrong is that you need to be considering not just the quantity of leads generated from advertising, but the quality. If you generate 100 leads by spending $100, but 90% of those leads aren't really a good fit or churn quickly, you haven't really found advertising success. In fact, we've found from our efforts that companies with an iterative paid strategy that focuses on converting and retaining high-quality leads can spend less over time while earning a lower CPA and more business impact.
And as the final nail in the coffin for this myth, many of the major advertising platforms such as Google AdWords and LinkedIn lead generation are capped by performance, not cost. For example, you can outbid all of your competitors, but with poor quality scores, you won't earn high volumes of impressions no matter how much you raise your budget. So it's important to focus on the quality of your advertising and content, and then scale your budget when you discover what's working.
You live and breathe in the world of your business. However, once you jump outside of your bubble, you find that most of your target leads care very little about your company and in fact care mostly about themselves and their own business -- how to fix problems, and which solution providers will help them overcome obstacles and achieve growth.
Company-focused articles are not only irrelevant to most of your leads, but they are unhelpful for SEO. This is because unless a potential lead is already searching for your company, they won't come across a company article. So by investing in articles about new hires, company events, and culture updates, you are not bringing in a wide net of people who have not yet heard about you.
As an alternative, invest in building a strong SEO keyword strategy and publishing blog articles that are educational and help diagnose and solve pain points.
Oftentimes, companies try to be all things for everyone. They fear losing out on a lead if they narrow in on their messaging. This is especially difficult because paring down a complex business with lots of unique features is incredibly difficult. That's why so many companies have trouble doing it — but creating a clear and concise value proposition is a huge differentiator for many industries.
With your messaging, follow these tips:
Above all, put your ideal customers and clients first in your messaging. Phrases like “Great customer service” are not differentiators and can be used by any business. In fact, "50 years of experience" is a very tired tagline, and touting experience or skills or the age of your business are not generally strong for messaging.
Stand out from the crowd by understanding your audience pain points and framing all your messaging from there.
Redesigning your website is a huge investment in resources. It can be extremely beneficial -- in fact, with a combined lead generation and website development strategy, we’ve increased website conversion rates by 4x. However, you don’t need a complete redesign. The best method is growth driven design.
Growth driven design involves publishing a lean site, then gathering data on performance in order to make ongoing optimizations. For example, adding forms, optimizing for SEO, updating messaging, and creating more interlinking between pages.
Growth driven design is a continual investment into your website. You improve performance by monitoring and testing website changes for your conversion rate and engagement metrics, like clicks and number of pages visited. It’s the better option financially and for lead generation.
The main message for the direction of digital marketing is being, iterative, and smart about your budget to get the maximum ROI on your investments. Make sure you’re spending your time on metrics that matter -- like SEO growth and lead generation.