The constantly changing marketing dynamics coupled with the rapidly changing customer behavior, are prolonging the B2B marketing cycle and making it more complex than ever.
Any mistakes in the current uncertain marketing environment only results in hurting the already strained marketing budget.
Most B2B enterprises fall prey to the preconceived notion that a single mistake won’t disrupt the business operations. But with economic uncertainty and enterprises looking for new ways to reduce their expenditure, marketing leaders need to be careful before making any move that could result in sabotaging their marketing budget. They must learn what the most common pitfalls that have the potential to sabotage their marketing efforts are.
Below are a few factors that marketing leaders must focus on that ruins the marketing budget and the steps they can take to address them:
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Going after only C-suite Executives
According to a study conducted by Google, though 64% of C-suite executives are responsible for the final decisions, 24% of those who also play a significant role in influencing the buying decisions are not from the C-suite club.
If the enterprise brand only invests in marketing with the sole purpose of targeting the C-suite alone, they can miss out on the opportunity to reach out to the other key decision-makers of an organization.
Read More: Leveraging Customer Marketing as a base for Developing Customer Loyalty
Though C-suite’s importance cannot be ignored, developing a concurrent strategy for non-C-suite provides an opportunity for a broader reach while maximizing the opportunities.
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Not Considering the Millennials
A study conducted by McFadyen revealed that 46 % of all B2B buyers are millennials. Furthermore, most of them belong to the 18-34 year old demographic. As most millennials join B2B enterprises and have a say over buying decisions, it is detrimental not to consider them while developing a marketing strategy.
Enterprise brands must make an investment to research the content and media channels that the various age groups consume.
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Only Generating and not Nurturing Leads
To survive and potentially thrive in the market, it is critical to growing the customer base by generating leads. But, only focusing on marketing efforts on generating leads and neglecting the nurturing and building relationships is a bad investment, especially in today’s economic crisis.
Hence, it is critical that brands take a holistic approach and focus their attention on achieving objectives such as reputation management, brand awareness, lead generation, lead nurturing as well as client retention.
Read More: The Future of Affiliate Marketing – Beyond the Covid-19 Pandemic
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Developing strategies that are not agile
Today’s economic uncertainty has depicted that the changes are inevitable. From technologies and trends, everything fades away with time. Even a substantial amount of data can become obsolete. Hence, brands must craft their strategies from the start that are flexible and can be adjusted to the available marketing budget.
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Overlooking A/B tests
A/B testing, or split-testing, enables marketers to identify the variables in the campaigns that actually work. Only by spending just shy over 5% on conducting A/B and split-testing enables enterprises to protect their marketing budget and to effectively utilize it for the promising prospects and leads.
