First thing first: B2B marketing is complex! It is filled with challenges that can make it difficult to reach the right audience and drive meaningful results. From identifying quality leads to building strong relationships, marketers often face hurdles that demand innovative strategies and solutions.
Let’s explore the common pain points businesses encounter and how to overcome them for greater success.
Most Common Challenges in B2B Marketing and How To Overcome Them
There are some common pain points when it comes to business-to-business marketing. Identifying and tackling these can pave the way for higher customer retention and satisfaction. Some important considerations are discussed below.
Generating Quality Leads
Marketing efforts are judged on the quality of leads that they generate. In B2B marketing, typically only 27% of the identified leads are “qualified” while the rest are misfit (MarketingSherpa).
Reaching out to too many unqualified leads gives you the impression that you are trying to score customers but the lead-to-customer conversion ratio remains low.
Tips on How To Generate Quality Leads: To generate quality B2B leads, create a detailed buyer persona to target the right audience and refine your marketing messages. Define lead scoring criteria based on actions that show buying intent, like page visits or meeting requests. Use the right channels, such as social media, email, and industry-specific platforms, to find and engage these leads effectively.Keep in mind that most leads generated effectively in case of B2B marketing is through events and webinars (32%)
Long Sale Cycles
B2B sales cycles are longer than B2C. They are often made more complicated since marketers have to send emails, make numerous phone calls and what-not to lock in a client. Sometimes, you can go months without scoring any sale. According to a recent study published in August 2024, the average cycle can be as long as 104 days.
Tips on How To Reduce/Manage Sale Cycle Length: Identify and fix any bottlenecks that slow down your process. Ensure that leads are well-qualified before spending time on them. Moreover, use valuable, relevant content to help buyers make decisions, and share social proof like testimonials. Move sales forward by showing prospects how your product can help, without being pushy.
Issues With Budgets
It is a challenge to position your business/service as something that can make a strong impact. As a result, most companies settle as low-cost providers which isn’t beneficial in the long run. B2B companies set approximately 8.7% of their overall budget on marketing.
Tips on How To Set a Budget for B2B Marketing: Align your spending with business goals and expected ROI. Prioritize channels that provide the best lead generation and conversion rates, such as content marketing, paid ads, and events. Regularly track and adjust your budget based on performance to ensure efficient use of resources.
Problems With Handling Sales Data
Large amount of data needs to be analyzed by marketers which has become quite challenging. They have to keep a check on how leads interact with the business, which channels are most beneficial, what webpages they view frequently, which metrics are most important, etc.
Tips on How To Handle Marketing Data With Ease: To improve sales effectiveness, define clear KPIs that align with your goals, such as increasing market share or revenue, and focus on metrics that matter. Avoid using excessive sales tools that generate unnecessary data, and only use those that provide essential insights. Implement a revenue operations (RevOps) strategy to centralize and organize sales data.This helps sales teams work more efficiently and even increase sales productivity by 10-20%.
Efficiently Measuring Return on Investment
It is a challenge to measure quantitatively the impact of marketing efforts on sales. Moreover, it is problematic to identify exactly which marketing channel is benefitting your product/service so more budget can be allocated to it specifically.
Tips on How To Measure ROI for your Marketing Efforts: Track activities that directly influence sales, like a buyer’s decision after a sales call, but remember that other factors may also play a role. Gather feedback from customers to understand what convinced them to make a purchase. 53% of successful marketers put customer feedback as the #1 tactic for improving customer experience and growing sales.
Poor Collaboration Between Different Departments
Sales department has to be in close coordination with marketing efforts to generate more leads and acquire new customers. Unfortunately, many B2B companies fail to understand (or implement) this. Perhaps that is why only 31.2% of the companies align these two departments for collaborative output.
This is because prospects often like to interact with both, marketing and sales representatives, before closing the deal. Misalignment can result in loss of potential customer’s interest as well as have many other detrimental effects. As per a study highlighted in November 2023, poor sales and marketing alignment can lead to loss of sales, loss of customer trust, deprived customer positive experience, etc.
Tips on How To Align Sales and Marketing Department for Better Results: To convert B2B leads, sales should define the essential contact information needed and communicate with marketing. Develop processes that enable smooth collaboration between sales and marketing teams, including how leads are transferred. Use CRM software to track contacts and progress. Implement a revenue operations (RevOps) strategy to align sales, marketing, and customer success teams towards common growth goals, with access to accurate customer data.
Involvement of a Group of People In Drawing a Decision/Delayed Decisions
B2B purchasing decisions often involve a committee with different priorities. The department using the product values ease of use, while executives focus on budget and cost. Both groups influence the decision, with research showing that 64% of C-suite executives and 24% of non-C-suite employees have final authority in B2B purchases.Involvement of multiple decision makers often delay the process.
Tips On How To Streamline The Decision-Making Process: Identify all decision-makers involved (user, procurement officer, and executive). Understand their individual needs and pain points. Use account-based selling to craft your messages for each decision-maker, offering relevant information and industry-specific use cases to address their concerns and move the sale forward.
Unutilized Avenue of Social Sales
Social selling is an underutilized platform for B2B sales, with 64% of teams using it achieving their sales quotas, compared to only 49% of those who don’t. This highlights the potential of social media for reaching B2B leads and boosting sales performance which is currently lagging.
Tips on How To Make Marketing More Effective With Social Sales: To effectively use social selling, focus on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter where your leads are active. Provide valuable content that educates and engages, while diversifying your posts (educational, curated, and promotional). Join relevant groups to connect with prospects and schedule posts using tools for consistency. Use social listening tools to track key terms and understand your leads’ pain points.
Staying Up To Date With Recent Technological Trends
Marketing has become more of a race, the sooner you catch up with the trends, the better chances you have to grab the customer’s attention and score a sale. In this regard, staying ahead of technological requirements is crucial.
Currently, only 28% B2B marketers are confidently using the right marketing technologies to excel in relevant fields like marketing automation, performance marketing, etc.
Tips on How To Stay Ahead In Technological Needs: Marketers should invest time in learning emerging trends and adapting their skills accordingly. It is important to peek into industry needs and join tech communities to keep pace with rapid changes.
Take-Home Message
Overcoming B2B marketing challenges can be tough but success lies in understanding your audience, using the right platforms, and consistently providing value. By addressing pain points with strategic solutions, you can build stronger connections and stay ahead of the competition.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the 4 Cs of B2B marketing?
The 4 Cs of B2B marketing are Customer, Cost, Convenience, and Communication.
What is the biggest challenge in crafting content for B2B marketing?
The biggest challenge in crafting content for B2B marketing is understanding the target audience’s complex needs and delivering valuable, relevant information.
How to build a strong B2B brand?
To build a strong B2B brand, focus on clear messaging, consistency, customer relationships, and demonstrating industry expertise.
