In 2022, B2B Marketers should give up practices that can annoy users. Instead of following the crowd, bombarding prospects with email and assuming ads are marketing, B2B marketers should strive to be authentic and stand out from the crowd while delivering content that customers find useful.
2020 was one of the first worst years for B2B marketers in recent years. With the pandemic on the horizon, health and economic crisis, most B2B organizations began to find ways to cut their expenses. No doubt marketing, which has already been seen as an investment without much ROI, saw its budgets along with resources to an all-time low.
While the beginning of 2021 gave some hope and proved to be relatively stable than 2020, B2B marketing budgets didn’t witness much increment. In fact, as per a report from Gartner titled “The State of Marketing Budgets 2021,” marketing budgets fell from 11% in 2020 to 6.4% in 2021. This forced CMOs and B2B marketers to continue to operate under a stringent budget. But, 2022 offers a ray of hope.
Also Read: How Will the Role of the CMO Evolve in 2022?
Most marketing executives are optimistic about their increase in marketing budgets. In fact, as per Forrester’s “Predictions 2022” report, marketing tech budgets can increase from 19% to 25%.
With this information, it is crucial that B2B marketers stop operating in a “panic mode”. In 2022, B2B marketers should abandon some practices that may have worked in the short term but can annoy and aggravate customer dissatisfaction in the long run.
Here are three practices that B2B marketers should give up when stepping in 2022.
Following the crowd
In an effort to stay relevant in a fast-paced environment, many marketers started to adopt the same approaches that their peers were using, for example- trying to be on all platforms even though their buyer target group is not there. Without making respective adjustments to the brand’s unique vision and objectives, such imitations are deemed to fail.
Also Read: Lessons B2B Strategists Can Learn from 2021
In 2022, marketing executives need to stop what their peers are doing. They should take initiatives that will help them remain authentic while establishing themselves as an authority in the marketplace.
Over usage of email marketing
Email marketing is still relevant and one of the best marketing methods that are still delivering higher ROI. This makes a strong case for B2B marketers to set up an automated email direct mail (EDM) flow. But, most B2B marketers, in an effort to achieve their unreachable goals set up during the COVID-19, still use approaches that are ending up in the spam of prospects’ inboxes.
In 2022, B2B marketers should discontinue this rushed practice for good. They should become more empathetic and provide more practical, educational as well as helpful information to prospects so they can extract value from communication.
Believing ‘ads’ are the same as ‘marketing’
Another B2B marketing strategy that is irritating to prospects and customers is shooting them with social ads, sponsored content as well as targeted ads. As per industry experts, most B2B marketers are still guilty of believing that running ads is the same as marketing.
There is no denying that advertising is a crucial part of marketing strategy. But investing resources for ‘ad space’ while not focusing on other marketing activities such as organic inbound marketing is an expensive affair that is often not sustainable.
In 2022, B2B marketers should leverage organic content and earned media placement activities that can be easily scaled. This will help them create a range of exciting content for the prospects, build trust, and help drive an authentic community around the brand.
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