We’re all familiar with certain myths about B2B marketing — that it’s dull, corporate, and unimaginative. But marketing has evolved in recent years thanks to the enormous increase in online work. Young marketing professionals especially aren’t settling for content that’s dry or unimaginative anymore, so let’s take a look at some key myths that exist for B2B marketers.
1. Your ads must be serious to be successful
As we’ve mentioned, there is a persistent myth in B2B marketing that your content needs to be strictly professional (read: serious) to be effective. By nature, much of B2B content is technical, regardless of the industry. But at the end of the day, the goal of your content is still to connect with people, and the most successful content is that which is engaging and memorable.
In fact, according to an article in Forbes “On average, B2B customers are significantly more emotionally connected to their vendors and service providers than consumers.” This might be because of the amount of time that B2B marketers and their clients work together, as opposed to consumers who purchase a product or service one time only.
The shift to remote work has significantly impacted the nature of the work environment, and what was once read as professional might now come across as outdated. In order to connect with your audience, you must be able to cater to people who already spend hours every week watching online video content.
2. B2B marketing isn’t well suited for social media
It is commonly believed that B2B marketing isn’t as effective on social media, or that LinkedIn is the only social media presence worth curating. While it is true that LinkedIn is the standard social media for professional use, there are 3.8 billion social media users, and not taking advantage of this as a tool to connect with your audience is needlessly limiting the scope of your marketing strategy.
3. Marketing is a switch you can flip on and off
Investing in your marketing strategy inconsistently will not produce immediate or lasting results. Instead, a marketing campaign needs a significant amount of effort to be established, and then consistent lower-level effort to be maintained. The podcast Death to the Corporate Video describes marketing as being closer to an old-fashioned water pump rather than a light switch — it might take some thirty seconds or so of pumping before water starts flowing, and then less but consistent effort to keep the water running.
While research is key to building an effective marketing strategy, it might feel like an impossible task to find all the data you need. But doing that research doesn’t need to be an enormous effort every time. Godfrey.com suggests that you break down the information you need into bite-sized chunks — for example if you’re looking for feedback on a new series of logos for your brand, you might send samples to major stakeholders and a sample group of your target audience.
5. B2B marketing can’t make use of influencers
Just like in the B2C realm, B2B marketers work closely with influencers in their marketing campaigns. Influencers might promote services through events, social engagement, and brand advocacy. Collaborating with influencers, who can build a relationship of trust with your audience, can help to avoid the stereotypically impersonal feeling of B2B marketing in your next campaign.
Conclusion
There are lots of stereotypes about B2B marketing being boring and generally the “lesser” form of marketing in comparison to B2C. Challenging some of these beliefs like those we’ve looked at today can help improve your B2B marketing strategy.
At VidOps, we’re passionate about creating engaging B2B content.
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