7 sins of B2B online marketing

June 2007

Forget sloth, greed and envy, we’ve got the 7 deadly sins of BtoB marketing. Marketers can’t seem to rid themselves of these vices, but redemption is possible. Just avoid the 7 marketing sins that can kill any business.

Relying solely on the tried-and-true
Don’t get stuck in a rut. Rather than using the same tired marketing plan as last year, listen to new ideas; expand your horizons. If you stay only with traditional methods of marketing, you leave a whole world of opportunities unexplored. The key is to take the time to understand the needs of your customers and come up with creative ways of communicating your value proposition.

The hot trend now: online communities and blogging are emerging as powerful new ways to connect to customers. It’s like having a roomful of customers who you can pop in on any time, to ask them questions, get advice or just be a fly on the wall. The community gives you continuous customer feedback, 24/7.

A key point to remember about guerilla techniques: typically, the early adopters enjoy the most success. By definition, guerrilla marketing is not about the trends, it’s about the artful use of imagination and staying ahead of what everyone is doing.

Putting your eggs all in one basket
Too many marketers align their fate with too few marketing programs – a.k.a, the “putting your eggs all in one basket syndrome.” Whether it’s banner ads, pay-per-click campaigns or public relations, if your program loses momentum, or simply doesn’t work, your over-reliance on that technique can derail marketing efforts and sales. In the meantime, programs that could have had strong leverage never got a chance to prove themselves.

Ignoring free opportunities
Sometimes, what seems too good to be true, isn’t. BtoB marketers must reach a targeted group of potential buyers at a time when they’re ready to buy. Industry directories are a great way to reach buyers at that critical moment: when you’re product or service is top-of-mind, and they’re actively searching for it. And most are free! The key to getting more from your listing is to post it where your potential customers are. A good place to start is with well-respected business publications that serve your industry. As a service to their readers, most offer an online directory, or buyers guide, as a value added service.

Not updating outdated contact information
Whether it appears in an industry directory, on your website, landing page or in print, make sure your company information is always up-to-date. A change in area code, address or website URL means your audience is unable to contact you. If outdated information is out there, you’re throwing leads away. Most prospects won’t take the time to look up correct information, but rather they’ll move on to your competition, never to return.

Feeding the marketing / sales disconnect
It’s the black hole that leads get lost in. No one knows exactly where they go, but somewhere between the lead generation, and the inbox of a salesperson who can move it through the sales funnel, the lead too often gets lost or forgotten.

Even the largest organizations don’t have the systems in place to effectively disperse and manage leads. Customer relationship management (CRM) solutions can bring together integrated sales and marketing applications over a common infrastructure. But technology alone won’t fix the problem.

People are key. In many companies, the sales and marketing departments seem to be at odds with one another. Sales accuses marketing of producing low-quality leads. Marketing accuses sales of letting perfectly good leads go to waste. The teams have not jointly discussed and defined the sales process or the customer’s buying process. Both departments must work together to come to an understanding, to ensure that marketing gains useful feedback from the sales force about lead quality and that leads are tracked all the way through the process.

Ignoring the audience’s needs
More and more, salespeople are told to focus on the senior level of the organization. The trouble is the gatekeeper is often not a C-level. Rather it could be anyone from an assistant, middle manager, director, or a VP. The initial researcher has specific types of information to decide whether to move the prospective vendor on through the decision making path.

BtoB purchasing decisions tend to be made by committee, and each member looks for different facts and types of information. Successful marketers have different messaging for the various audiences. It’s more work, but it pays off in the end by generating more sales.

Putting too much credence on click-through rates
For online campaigns, the first question and often the only measurement marketers care about is the click-through rate. But if the ultimate goal is to generate sales, what matters more than the number of visitors who click through to your website, is who’s clicking and what they do after they click. When you think about it, click-through rates focus on quantity (think “traffic”), but what you need is quality (“sales”). Click through rates have their place, but don’t cast aside other metrics. Like evaluating the amount spent on advertising versus the amount of product sold. For every dollar invested in an advertising project, how much revenue came in as a result of it?

Take these tips to heart and you just might be the marketing saint your organization has been looking for, to increase ROI and revenues.