B2B marketing: a more positive picture

The Capsicum Group’s research report, featured in the January 2013 issue of Market Leader, painted a bleak picture of B2B marketing.

The accusation is that B2B marketers aren’t close enough to customers, don’t understand the businesses they work in and don’t align their goals with those of the organisation. The overall premise is that this is holding B2B, and particularly the service sector, back.
Omobono’s own research, conducted for the past two years with the Marketing Society among senior marketers from over 150 companies, paints a more positive picture.
Customer relationships are a top priority

We found that B2B marketers are extremely customer-centric.

Building customer relationships is the most important objective, with 33% putting it as their top priority (Figure 1) and 78% citing it in their top 3.

A huge amount of B2B marketing activity is focused on customer relationship building. Some activities are those that have always worked, such as face to face, while others are newer. Social media is now the third most important activity in terms of spend (Figure 2). Although spend on extranets is reducing, it is being replaced by private forums on existing social platforms and bespoke networks.

“For any product that’s highly technical, you can’t rely on an online relationship,” said one respondent with European digital responsibility in our in-depth interviews, “but digital can add significant value if used right. We use a tiered approach, separating out the various layers needed, from sales interactions on Twitter to technical chatter on closed social networks.”

“Everyone forgets their extranet ID and how to log in,” said another respondent, “so we’ve migrated the discussion to a LinkedIn forum, which works much better.”

Marketers clearly understand their role

Our respondents understand that while they need to get close to clients, the most valuable conversations happen with the technical specialists and experts in the business. Getting them in front of customers early in the sales process is a priority.

Our respondents are also building strong relationships in the organisation, enabling them to bring together the right resources to have the right conversation at the right time.

“We involve technical specialists pre-and post-sale. We’ve structured this to ensure they are reporting to the same person,” says the head of marketing of a computer software company.

A senior marketer at a major multinational business services company reveals: “Sales and service engineers share an internal chat system to highlight opportunities. This connects people internally who wouldn’t have talked previously.”

Aligned ROI is a priority

Marketers are critically aware of the need to align their marketing KPIs with the goals of the organisation and are working hard to address this.

“Too often, marketers do it for their own sake – for example, to cover their back for reporting, not analysing what really happens,” as one respondent put it. But they accept that marketers need to be accountable and to know where they are creating real impact.

Another respondent commented: “Marketing should lead sales but the pursuit of ROI turns into analysis paralysis. If you find a great creative idea that attacks a pain point then you can’t predict that in ROI terms. ROI should be a guide, not an ultimate goal.”

Addressing the connection between marketing measurement and organisational KPIs is firmly on the agendas of our interviewees. One remarked: “We need to move away from the current viewpoint, which is too financially based, and measure how we are getting closer to customers. So we use ROE – return on engagement – to measure what impacts our activities are having.” 

Marketers are aligned with buyers

One of the key findings of our research has been the level of alignment between what marketers are doing and what buyers want. Buyers rely on the information provided by companies to help them not simply select suppliers but to gather information and define their specific needs.

Perhaps that’s why our survey showed ‘Establishing a thought leadership position’ as the second most important objective for big companies.

As one of the respondents said: “Thought leadership is where you can lock out the competition, so we spend a disproportionate amount of time on it.”

Given the importance of putting an expert in front of the customer, it’s also no wonder that face-to-face events, seminars and symposiums still get positive feedback from B2B buyers, both in terms of positive responses to being approached and the percentage who had purchased as a result.

There is one word of warning, however. Customers are more open to receiving digital commun ications from existing suppliers than from potential ones, particularly via email and social networks such as Twitter, where buyers are more likely to engage. But they are also twice as likely to be contacted by potential, rather than existing, suppliers.

Marketers are a vital link

Overall, our research findings paint a more positive picture of B2B marketing than that provided in the Capsicum Group report. Marketers don’t play the same role as sales, nor are they as technically adept as specialists within the organisation. But they are a vital stepping stone into that organisation, creating an environment in which sales are not only possible but easier, or even a foregone conclusion.

And in a world where, according to Google, buyers are 57% of the way through they engage with a supplier, it is more important than ever that marketers keep on doing it.