As many assume, B2B (business-to-business) marketing is not as inspiring or adventurous as B2C (business-to-consumer) brands. Many people believe B2B marketing is too mundane and less eye-catching. Results shown on a WHM survey show that 48% of customers believe B2B marketing bores them.
With that high percentage, we’re here to demonstrate that those results can be proven wrong. Your business has the potential to be deemed innovative and insightful–the way to challenge this perspective is to present your narrative and create a compelling story.
We all love a good story, especially ones that evoke feelings. B2B storytelling helps to humanize your brand, and using the power of B2B storytelling can change perspectives and form long-lasting connections with your audience. Let's explore some of our B2B marketing tips to make your business more captivating and see what actions you can take to bring your brand to life.
The Boring Perception of B2B Brands
B2B marketing is often overlooked by the freedom and creativity B2C brands possess. While it is easier for B2C brands to use trends, celebrity advertisements, and social media to their advantage, B2B companies focus more on the technical side by advertising products and services. Due to the nature of B2B campaigns, many believe they are unenthusiastic and too complex.
The perceptions that B2B marketing is boring is due to these key factors:
1. Complex Technical Jargon
The services B2B companies provide can often involve complex technologies. Marketing these products can often be met with technical jargon that is hard to understand, leading to a disengaged audience. While B2C campaigns benefit from simplicity and visual appeal, B2B marketing typically provides overwhelming amounts of information to a specific audience.
2. Lack of Emotional Appeal
B2C marketing has more room to provide a personal touch, whereas B2B marketing strives to maintain professionalism. By prioritizing logic, and rationality, B2B campaigns can be interpreted to a wider audience as less relatable.
3. Conservative Approach
By focusing on reliability over creativity, B2B companies become more conservative. Due to this approach, many campaigns are seen as basic and predictable. Taking a creative risk isn’t typically done in the B2B world for fear of losing their target audience.
4. Different Target Audiences
B2B audiences are typically business buyers who look for services that provide visible benefits to their workforce, often considering ROI and durability. This practical approach typically makes B2B marketing appear less enticing. Despite these attitudes that customers might have towards B2B marketing, it does not mean your company has to abide by that impression. The key is to create a balance–be informative while remaining human and use the power of storytelling to your advantage.
Identifying the Problem
To create a captivating marketing strategy for your B2B business, it is important to be aware of tactics that are not working in your favour. Start by asking yourself these questions about each campaign you’ve built.
1. Are you reaching the right people with the story you are telling?
The best way for your audience to understand your campaign is to effectively tell a story. Is your brand’s voice going to resonate with your customers? Are you aware of their interests?
2. How much creativity can you realistically use?
The goal is not to mimic the fun, colourful, laid-back approach of B2C brands, however, it is still useful to add a bit of creativity to be noticed. Your campaign can still be knowledgeable and engaging while capturing the attention of your audience at the same time.
3. Are you facing “death by committee” when offering creative suggestions?
Death by committee means that creative ideas become diluted and broken down into uninspiring content due to the constant editing and knit picking of management and stakeholders. Are you letting yourself or others lose sight of your original ideas?
4. Do you understand what challenges you face as a B2B company?
The world of marketing is constantly evolving. The best way to stay on top of the ever-changing industry is to track analytics, understand your brand voice, and how you can use it to attract the right crowd.
5. How up-to-date are you on your strategies?
Using outdated methods to market your brand can impact the effectiveness of your campaigns. Look back at your previous campaigns to see what was successful, and what you can adjust to keep up with current trends.
By reflecting on these questions, you can get a bigger picture of what steps to take to revitalize your B2B marketing campaign. Identifying these problems allows you to lose the boring reputation and gain a memorable and inspiring image.
Solutions to Make B2B Marketing Engaging
To effectively transform your B2B marketing campaign, implementing these solutions will give you a clear vision of how to implement creative B2B marketing ideas.
Powerful Storytelling
Storytelling is the backbone of marketing in the B2B space. The best way to effectively tell a story is to introduce a character–this could be a returning customer or a relatable figure. Next is to create a problem that your business has the resolution for. Explain your actionable steps to address the problem, then exhibit how your products and services saved the day. Finally, remind your audience of the solution you provided and how it positively impacted the character's life.
Targeted Email Marketing
Segmenting your audience into specific groups and tailoring your campaigns to fit each unique individual is the most effective way to utilize email marketing. Relevant information is what keeps your audience engaged, such as targeting success stories to the specific needs of a client. Addressing pain points and providing solutions to a specific demographic will build customer loyalty and trust.
Creative Campaigns
Rather than chasing the latest trends like B2C campaigns do, try developing multiple B2B personas. Give examples of different solutions to different problems to add more value to your business. Understand that the more answers you have to each problem in your story, the more buyers are likely to trust and invest in your products or services.
Conquering Business Limitations
Each business has its own goals and visions to reach a target audience. Losing track of your goals can dilute the effectiveness of your campaign. To stay on top of your goals, provide data-driven statistics, past performances, and analytics to prove to others that you can still target your audience and utilize creativity at the same time.
Advantages of Modern Marketing Trends
To make your business more effective and engaging, adding these tailored trends to your campaign will enhance the overall appeal of your B2B marketing.
Master Digital Platforms
In this era of social media, having multiple social media platforms for your B2B business will provide a bigger outreach. Sharing your story across different channels such as Instagram and Facebook will increase your relatable reputation. Social media isn’t just for B2C channels, you can also take advantage of these platforms.
Video Meetings and Webinars
As discussed previously, many people view B2B campaigns as boring. One reason for this is the lack of personality present in these campaigns. An accessible way to show your brand's personality is through video meetings and webinars. Real-time interactions encourage your clients to ask questions, engage directly, and get to know you personally as a business owner.
Effective Marketing Mix
Measuring your social media channel’s performance can give insight as to what platforms your business thrives on. While it is encouraged to promote your brand on every platform, focusing on the sites that your customers prefer is key to prioritizing the success of your marketing campaigns.
Storytelling Framework for B2B
Creating an engaging B2B story requires structuring. Here are the key factors when introducing storytelling to your marketing campaign:
Character: For your story to feel relatable, making your customer the hero of your story allows them to envision themselves in your narrative. Your customer is the superhero, and your services are their superpower.
Problem: Find the issues your customer faces. This is a necessary step so you can offer to fix their problem.
Plan: Outline how your products or services are the solutions to their problem and address their needs. Explain how their work operations can be made easier and more effective if they invest in your resources.
Success: Show them how their operations differ from before, now that they have utilized your solution. Remind them of how your products and services benefited their business and created a positive outcome.
Real-Life Examples: Use previous case studies and reviews from real-life clients to show the success of the products you’re offering. Showing that other businesses deem your services reliable and credible proves to your future clients that they will receive tangible benefits when implementing your business strategies.
Transforming from Boring to Inspiration
Understanding that effective storytelling, targeting campaigns, and embracing modern marketing trends can actively change the public perception that B2B marketing is boring. Start embracing the power of a story and use that to drive your success. It is up to you to share your story and don’t forget to make it an unforgettable one.
Contact us today to get your story out there.
