The marketing field has basically become unrecognizable in the last 20 years. Traditional advertising methods are becoming increasingly inefficient, which is why brands are turning their heads toward digital channels.
No matter the business you’re in, any global company can take a chunk of your business overnight. Savvy marketers from various countries can start an online shop or become digital service providers with minimal investment. In other words, anyone can be considered a potential competitor.
Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t beat the opponents and carve out a place on the market. If you’re proactive and quick to adopt the newest technologies, you can easily stay ahead of the curve.
In this article, we’ll analyze the 9 biggest marketing challenges in 2023 and share a few suggestions that will help you overcome them.
1. Support social values
Nowadays, you can’t sell anything without showing at least some semblance of social responsibility. Organizing events for the local LGBTQ community, people of minority and other jeopardized groups is the best way to show that you care.
Although everyone’s aware of the concept, not all companies implement it the right way. To make matters worse, this has become such a common marketing strategy that consumers are starting to see right through it. Putting a pretty rainbow sticker on your Twitter won’t cut it in 2023.
Instead, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to show real engagement. Here are a few tips that you can implement in your daily routine:
- Organize real charity events with brands that are known for social activism. Just by working together, you will become recognized as someone who’s invested in the local community and social improvement.
- Share interesting facts on social media to promote a cause. Build awareness across the board without being condescending or annoying.
- Organize giveaways. The best way for a brand to show its commitment is by using money from its own pocket.
- Integrate a social cause in your brand message. Make sure it’s well-known that you stand for something. As ludicrous as it might sound, being in business just for the money is often criticized by younger generations.
The great thing is that you can experiment a lot with this concept. No matter what you do, try to be genuine. Another thing to keep in mind is that there’s no need to support all these causes. Just focusing on one specific issue is usually better as it will prevent the dilution of your company message.
2. Humanize the brand
Staying on the topic, brands are becoming more and more reluctant to deal with companies that lack a human approach. Entrepreneurs have thrown away their suits and ties and have replaced them with more casual outfits. If you can’t connect with your target audience, it will become increasingly hard to sell.
Modern brands need to show their real face to connect with other businesses. Aside from building trust, it will also show a vulnerable side which many people nowadays appreciate. Here are a few tips that will help you add human flavor to your messaging.
- Use images with people on your site and social media. This can help break the aversion that most entrepreneurs feel when they land on your pages.
- Ideally, the people in your images can be of different genders, ages, and ethnicity. Aside from showing diversity, this tells other brands that you’re working with all profiles of people.
- Young entrepreneurs are often reluctant to deal with companies that have unethical practices. Describe how you’re creating products and treating your employees. Any positive practice can go a long way in closing a B2B client.
- Think about how you behave on calls. Although you need to be clean, well-dressed, and polite, that doesn’t mean you should be stiff. Don’t be afraid to show some personality and to talk about things that matter to you.
- Live events were always the best way of closing clients as they allowed you to create a human connection. It’s a much better solution than spending a bunch of money on generic ad messages.
No matter what, always try to be more approachable. Generally speaking, all you need to do is be a good person and show that you truly care about others.
3. Redefine marketing approach
If you ask any economist, they’ll tell you that businesses can never invest enough in marketing. According to the traditional way of thinking, every dollar spent on advertising can improve your brand awareness and sales.
Unfortunately, in a world where even Netflix has ads, it’s becoming harder and harder to differentiate yourself from the field. That being said, spending excessive resources on marketing might even become harmful to your business, alienating you from the consumers.
Still, that doesn’t mean ads have suddenly become worthless. They still have value, but only if you do them the right way. In the end, we need some method to reach our customers, right? So, to reach B2B clients in 2023, you’ll have to redefine your approach.
Here are a few tricks that will help you do just that:
- Reverse engineer your competitors’ optimal marketing channels.
- Use data to draw actionable insights.
- Create revolutionary messages that stand out.
- Be prepared to take risks.
- Don’t spread out your resources.
- Most importantly, don’t spend money if you’re not 100% it will work.
The days are long gone when you could spend money on TV ads and be certain it provides results. Nowadays, client companies can perform their own research online and find brands that fulfill their needs. Some campaigns are so awful that they can completely set back a business without providing anything of value.
For some of these points, you just need to have an innate marketing talent. In other cases, you can move the needle with proper market research. Whatever the case, make sure to use the right online media and create a marketing leadership benchmark report after every project.
Most importantly, you need to be very purposeful when creating these messages. It’s a process that shouldn’t be rushed, as any misstep can easily come back to bite you. Among others, you need to pay attention to marketing and sales alignment.
4. Explore cheap and free channels
One of the good ways to increase the profitability of your B2B marketing campaigns is by using cheap and free channels.
Despite all the issues you might encounter during modern advertising, there are still ways to generate value with minimal investment. Some of these methods might not be that effective in a vacuum, but when combined with other approaches, they can significantly increase brand awareness.
Here are a few suggestions that you might wish to explore:
· Affiliate campaigns
Nowadays, companies use affiliate campaigns to sell their products and services online. Partners are paid a percentage of sales, ensuring that the company never has to invest money (except for software and outreach).
· Networking
Networking is also a good way to get some good marketing traction. Nowadays, you can get lots of exposure just by keeping in touch with influencers and other large brands. These connections open new promotional avenues, including guest appearances and joint campaigns.
· Guest posts
Speaking of guest appearances, guest posts are another cheap way to gain new site visitors. As long as you have a content writer, and most brands do, you can outreach to other blogs with a juicy proposal. Not only does this provide traffic benefits, but it can also boost your SEO.
· Social media
Although you can reap additional benefits by investing in social platforms, it’s also something you can do for free. Like with any other digital marketing process, you’ll still need to invest a lot of time and be aware of the best practices. Still, this promotional method is much cheaper than Google ads.
5. Create tailor-made content
Companies have always tried to attract the biggest audience possible. However, given the growing global competition, you have to narrow down your focus.
Creating tailor-made content has several noticeable benefits:
- Reduces marketing costs.
- Increases efficiency.
- Improves brand messaging.
- Helps attract a specific audience.
Nowadays, there are so many different brands online that it’s often hard to make heads from tails. Companies are often interchangeable, with similar messaging, name, and brand practices. This is why you need to separate yourself from the pack whenever you can.
When a person lands on your website or social media, they should expect a certain type of content. Even if you have a team of several content writers, they need to be on the same page and have a similar style. This alone can make your business recognizable.
However, content customization goes beyond simple styling. You should also create a type of message that your potential audience expects to see. Analyze your ideal demographics and learn more about their consumer preferences. Use this data to spring them into action, thus increasing conversion rates.
6. Rely on SaaS
Based on everything so far, you can easily conclude that efficiency is the name of the game. Marketing teams don’t necessarily have to increase the scope of their advertising, but instead, they need to focus on things that work. So, make sure to play smart, not hard.
SaaS has become the focal point of global marketing. Whether you’re running SEO, PPC, SMM, email, or affiliate campaigns, you need software to automate processes. On top of that, these tools provide a plethora of data that will help you analyze performance and focus your resources on things that work.
Here are examples of SaaS that can help your B2B marketing automation:
· SEO tools
If you’re looking to increase organic traffic from search engines such as Google, you can’t go wrong with platforms such as AhRefs. This data analytics software is fantastic for the global audience showing how they behave when visiting the site. Among others, this can help you understand the type of content and products that are interesting to them.
Aside from analysis tools, you can also use various other products. For example, you can utilize things such as Grammarly and SEO Surfer for your content, speed testers, mobile-friendliness testers, etc.
· SMM tools
If you’re serious about your social media game, it makes sense to invest in software that will help you track and automate processes. We can recommend platforms such as Sprout Social, Hootsuite, Buffer, etc.
These nifty apps can tell you more about your audience. However, they’re also crucial for performing various other menial tasks. You can use them to track comments, post across several platforms, and track earnings.
· Email tools
Depending on how much your company relies on email campaigns, this software can be less or more valuable. Email tools are great for bulk campaigns when you wish to send numerous messages simultaneously. They’re also fantastic for tracking people’s responses and creating templates and other copies.
MailChimp is one of the top tools in this field. You can also tinker with Omnisend and Sender. Make sure to check their feature before purchasing one.
· Project management tools
If you have a large international marketing team, it makes sense to invest in project management software. These platforms help you track various tasks, deadlines, and responsibilities. So, if you’re doing a large project that consists of numerous moving parts, you can stay on top of each one of them.
Trello is a platform that most businesses use. It’s a simple software that works under the drag-and-drop principle. Aside from that, you might also consider getting Asana or Monday.
· Communication tools
Everything is easier when you use Zoom or Skype. Like project management tools, these apps are invaluable for any marketing and sales team. Some of them, such as Slack, also allow you to exchange files and track other actions.
7. Simplify buyer’s journey
We’ve already mentioned how important to create content that speaks to your ideal buyer persona. But you need to do much more than that. You need to make sure your website visitors are valued and heard. Most importantly, you have to make their buyer’s journey easier.
Whenever creating a social media post or website article, you need to leave a trail of breadcrumbs that will lead people to your site. For example, interlinking is the best way to drive traffic down the sales funnel, but also something that can help your SEO.
So, how do you simplify the buyer’s journey? Here are a few tricks:
- Create a website structure that would allow people to reach your product pages in just one or two clicks.
- Use interlinking to point to pages with higher priority (not necessarily product pages).
- Make yourself available by using a webchat feature.
- Have a reliable support team and sales reps that work 24/7.
- Create several social media profiles that would allow simple and direct communication.
- Make sure your business data is updated and available in Google and the largest online directories.
- If it makes sense, provide transparent pricing.
Most importantly, don’t force companies to jump through hoops during the buying process. As they’re preparing to make a purchase, don’t push newsletters and other nonsense on them. Instead, just take their credit card number and finish the sale.
Another way to simplify the journey is by providing more and better product specs. Show potential clients how your products work in practice so they know exactly what to expect. Avoiding questions can make you look untrustworthy.
Similarly, you should give them several payment options and several purchasing options. If possible, you should even provide customized product or service features. And while upselling is still important, it’s much more important to close a new account.
8. Avoid forceful marketing strategies
Nowadays, a brand’s main job is to be available. Pushing products or services upon other businesses usually backfires because client companies have simply become too smart. What’s worse, there are so many options available that a brand can always go to another place.
Unlike the good old days when you could appear at someone’s doorstep with a vacuum cleaner and sell it, clients perform due diligence before any purchase. So much so that endlessly browsing the web has become a vital part of a customer’s journey.
Data is easily available, and it doesn’t take much time to assess all available offers on the market. Of course, you should still give quotes when someone asks for them, but you shouldn’t instantly presume you’ve made a deal.
In the last few years, there have been a few cases where companies have become notorious for their aggressive marketing. And while some people will check out your products after seeing an ad, they’re less likely to purchase them based on how you packaged the message.
9. Emphasize image search
Image search has become a crucial element of online shopping. When looking for nice shoes, you’ll likely browse through Google’s image search instead of the regular results. Furthermore, the search engine has added certain things to its algorithm that would improve these results.
And while image search isn’t as important for B2B clients, it’s still something that you need to optimize for. In the worst-case scenario, you can get lots of relevant traffic that will improve your other marketing efforts and brand visibility.
If you’re struggling with your online marketing, we suggest that you contact MiroMind, an elite B2B SEO provider!