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Although a very generic word, as it means something different for every company on the market, “marketing” truly is key in business.
Think about it – you could have the best product or service out there that would instantly solve your audience’s problems and fulfill their needs. Yet, if no one has ever heard of you and your product, you won’t sell.
That’s when marketing takes center stage.
No matter what it means for your business, marketing is the one thing that will tell the world about your brand and your product/ service, and it will convince them to purchase.
But succeeding in marketing is no easy job for a business. There are many things you need to know, consider, and do in the right way to convince people to buy from you. What’s more, when it comes to B2B marketing, things get a little bit more complicated because you’re trying to sell to people who know how business works, and their purchase decisions are made with profit in mind.
Luckily, although difficult, it isn’t impossible to plan a successful B2B marketing campaign. That’s if you succeed in avoiding these common B2B marketing mistakes:
1. Not Knowing Who You’re Selling To
This is by far the biggest mistake you can make as a marketer, no matter if you’re selling to the average consumer or another company. Not knowing exactly who you’re trying to convince to purchase your products or services is the mistake that can make your entire strategy fail.
Not having a defined target audience simply makes you make all the wrong choices. You’ll fail in understanding what your audience wants and needs, how to reach them, and what type of content engages them. In other words, your marketing strategy will be inefficient.
How to Avoid It?
Understanding your target audience is vital for both marketing and sales – two essential parts of any successful business as they are interconnected. If you’re marketing is correct, you’ll sell. If not, well, you won’t sell.
To avoid this mistake, you need to know who you’re planning to sell to. Keep in mind, especially in B2B companies, there are key people whose profile should be part of your data related to the target audience. These key people are often the ones who make purchase decisions, so they are the ones to pay the most attention to.
To understand your target audience, conduct B2B market research. This will help you learn all the insights about your market, including potential customers.
2. Being Too Late to the Party
No matter the industry you’re in, know that there’s a lot of competition out there. Like it or not, there were plenty of other entrepreneurs who saw a business opportunity out of the same business idea you had. And that’s okay.
However, what can be tricky about it is how you deal with this much competition, because if you’re not doing anything about it, customers won’t choose you over your competitors who are actively trying to stay ahead.
What exactly does all this mean? It means that when your potential buyers look for products or services, your company should be among the first to display an offer and possible solution.
How to Avoid It?
Constantly improve your offline and online presence so you are among the first sellers your target audience sees when they look for a product or service they need.
In fact, your company should also be the one that creates the need in the potential customer or helps them discover a need they did not know they had, and then provide a solution that lies in your products or services.
3. Focusing Too Much on the “We” and Too Little on the “You”
There’s one rule in copywriting that says for every “we” used in a paragraph, you need to mention the customer at least three times. That’s because, like it or not, in your marketing, you don’t really matter. What the customer wants and what your product/ service can give them is what matters.
If you start all your copy with sentences like “we are the best,” “our product is the best on the market,” and other things like that, without actually saying why and more importantly, why your potential customers should care about it, it’s doubtful you’ll sell.
Here’s the deal – all companies will say the same things about their brands and products/ services, so to really stand up from the crowd, instead of telling your target audience that you’re awesome, show them how that helps them.
How to Avoid It?
To avoid this mistake, you should revise all your content (website, social media, offline marketing content, etc.) and overall marketing approach to ensure that it focuses on the audience.
Ensure that your content and copy actually hit your prospects’ pain points and address them by showing how your company and product/ service are the solutions.
4. Not Testing Your Campaigns
Every IT specialist will stress the importance of testing your work before releasing it. While you may not get so technical in your marketing campaign, you still have to test your campaigns to ensure their effectiveness.
Skipping the testing part is a frequent mistake done by companies. Wishing to release their products or to reach their goals too fast, many brands skip the testing process at the cost of investing resources in an ineffective campaign.
How to Avoid It?
Test your marketing campaigns! No matter what type of strategy or content you’re using, test it before investing more resources in it.
5. Not Telling Your Audience What You Want
As harsh as it may sound, you also need to tell your audience what you want them to do after interacting with your content (no matter the type of content you’re using to reach them). In other words, you need to use calls-to-action (CTAs for short).
For example, if the potential customer spends a few seconds or even minutes reading your copy or watching your ad and gets convinced that your product/ service is worth their money, but then you give them no contact details, how can they reach you? They won’t!
That’s how calls-to-action work. They guide your potential prospects to take actions that you want them to take, whether that is to contact you for more details, visit your store, or purchase.
How to Avoid It?
Use clear CTAs in your content. Better yet, avoid the generic and already spammy CTAs like “click here” and try more personal and descriptive CTAs like “Get a tailored offer here.”