The Top 5 Issues Facing B2B Marketers

What are the key issues facing B2B marketers? According to MarketingSherpa's Sean Donahue (who spoke last week at the Demand Generation Summit in San Francisco), the top 5 issues are as follows:

1. The Growing Committee. Sales cycles are now being extended and complicated by the addition of more decision influencers and decision makers. Research suggests that the average number is 21 in companies over 1000 employees (nearly 7 at companies with 100-500 employees). That's quite a gauntlet to run.
2. The Right Content at the Right Time. Given the expansion of the buying committee, marketers are challenged to present positioning and messaging content  that is relevant to varying parties at different stages of the buying cycle. In the awareness and research stages of the buying cycle, it's vital to provide content that addresses high level issues and buyer problems. This is where sellers are least confident in their development of messages. In the negotiation and purchasing stages, it's appropriate to produce content that's more product and solution oriented. Unsurprisingly, sellers are more confident  about producing this type of material.
3. Getting Landing Pages Built and Tested. Research suggests that marketers feel they have too little time to create stellar landing pages and believe like their departments are too overloaded with other work to do this right. This is a problem. It's where the rubber  meets the road. If the copy writing and layout are all wrong, conversions will collapse -- or never rise in the first place.
4. Being Everywhere. In 75-80% of cases, buyers say they found their vendors (not the other way around). This has to be a discouraging statistic as far as marketers are concerned. Won't their bosses slash their budgets if they find out that marketing is only influencing buyers in 20% of all cases? Not so fast. The point here is that you have to be available when the buyer is ready to act. Buyers may or may not remember that you influenced them in the first place. But you have to be there when they need you. As we've written previously, you better be in their peripheral vision. 
5. Handing  Off the Right Leads.  Many marketers continue to confuse mere leads with qualified or "sales-ready" leads. Big mistake. Better to have fewer leads, but better leads. Best practice marketers tend to generate fewer leads, but turn more of them into prospects and more of those into sales. The question is: What will it take to generate the right leads instead of merely more leads? If your marketing department is obsessed with the raw variety of lead, then its obsessions are misplaced.

What all this tells me is that organizations are going to have to get increasingly serious about generating relevant content that engages the right decision makers/influencers at the right moment. Strategically developed and compelling content can enable marketers to address all of these challenges. It's all about relevance and credibility. Without that, you are, well, incredibly irrelevant.      

Comments

[Conrad]

Britton,

Handling leads efficiently is probably the most important factor of the 5 IMO. I manage a few industrial supply directories that help connect industrial buyers and suppliers and I have seen companies mishandled leads quite often. Naturally, some leads are 'hotter' than others and those that can identify such are more often than not the one's turning more prospects into paying customers. Of course, the method(s) of generating those leads are just as important before one knows how to best handle them.

[Nettie Hartsock]

Britton,

I loved the point you make about relevancy and content. I think a giant opportunity exists for marketers who truly get this point!

Great insights!

[Unsung Zero]

I feel that just by setting campaigns to send tickler emails and scheduling the occasional phone call, it is very realistic to be everywhere, as stated in your article. Not everyone will have a need for your product all of the time, but if it is a good product, the chances are that all will have a need some of the time.

[John Gillett]

Being everywhere all of the time appears to be the most urgent initial challenge. An online presence is the first step, but a creative email campaign, direct mail, newsletters and the ocassional phone call keeps prospects aware of a marketing organization when a company does need your services.