Marketing has a unique role shaping public perception of your brand. Many B2B marketing challenges a business faces demand cross-functional efforts, but marketing can lay the foundation for victory – and, sometimes, it can deliver the knockout punch.
Five big B2B marketing challenges and How to Address Them in 2018
Building Market Share
Market share can come at the expense of competitors or result from building awareness within your target market. In either case, success starts with a broad base of helpful, informative Web content that builds trust by answering the burning questions that motivate your prospects.
Innovating Products and Services
To be effective, innovation needs to be based on structured and repeatable processes. While these fall outside the purview of the marketing team, marketers make a powerful contribution: They collect data from prospects and customers that can inspire compelling new products and services.
To get that data, make sure you’re using progressive profiling to understand the needs of your prospects as they move through the buyer journey. Also ensure there’s marketing collateral that supports post-sale follow-up and gets more information as customers mature within your brand.
Customer Retention
Retaining customers becomes more pressing in crowded markets. B2B buyers have a slew of options and make the decision to move on suddenly. The marketing team can help a brand be more dynamic in identifying and meeting unmet needs.
If it’s been a while since documented contact with a customer, a quick check-in can make a big difference – maintaining a customer-first experience is key! Marketing and sales teams both benefit from a Customer Relationship Management suite with visibility into recent interactions.
Process Improvement
Like so many things in marketing, process improvement thrives on data. The more data you have about your operations, the easier it is to spot places where you could be doing even better. One way to start out is to make sure you’re using a content calendar.
If you’re having trouble figuring out where to start, odds are good you’re using lots of tools that aren’t talking to one another. Call an all-hands marketing meeting and find out which parts of your technology stack aren’t pulling their weight.
Outmaneuvering the Competition
Used well, competitive intelligence can spark amazing initiatives. Many marketing and SEO tools are focused on competitor data: One of the easiest to start with is Spyfu. If other firms are ranking for keywords you want visibility in, use their existing content to figure out what would be an even better resource for prospective customers.
Proactive digital marketing helps enterprises overcome some of the toughest B2B marketing challenges around. In 2018 and beyond, always be looking for ways to improve, do more, and deliver results faster.