Why B2B Businesses Need to Invest in Marketing

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In the last episode, I mentioned that I met Danny Harris at Content Marketing World. He’s a regular listener to my podcast. Thank you, Danny! We did a Zoom meeting a couple of weeks after the conference. Danny is amazing. He created several nice frameworks to tie the customer journey, marketing channels and sales stages together. I am very impressed with his work. Thank you for sharing, Danny.

I asked him if he had any question that he wants me to address in my podcast.

He had a fundamental question: “Why do we need to invest in B2B marketing?”

I totally understand why he asked that question. I work with many manufacturing clients and senior management of these companies are not too fond of marketers. For the longest time, many B2B companies were able to grow with minimal or no marketing support at all. That was, obviously, before the digital era. Sales made calls and closed deals with personal visits and phone calls. They also provided information to help buyers make decisions.

However, things have changed in the past 20 years. It’s no longer just sales helping buyers make their decisions. Buyers are doing their own research before contacting sales reps. In some cases, buyers know more about the products and technologies than the salespeople, thanks to the Internet, Google Search and content marketing. There is loads of free content out there that buyers can read and consume

3 Main Reasons that You Need to Invest in B2B marketing:

1. You need to have a digital presence and be searchable. If people can’t find you on the Internet, they will go to your competitors. The first thing buyers do when they want to find something is to search. If you are not searchable, that means they can’t find you. If they can’t find you, you can’t even give them an opportunity to know you. BTW, a website doesn’t mean you are searchable. It just means you have a website. There are many tactics you need to use to make yourself rank higher organically when people search. All these are not free. You need to invest in your website and search strategy.

2. Take control of how you want your buyers to learn about your company and products. Some information may not be correct and there may be some negative things online about your company and products. The best way to refute that is to create content to show your own point of view on your own platforms. The platform may be your website, your YouTube channel, your community, but, again, it is not free.
3. Go where your buyers go. Again, you can’t wait for your buyers to show up at your door or come to your website. You need to go where they go. Unlike in the good old days when salespeople liked to go to conferences to find prospects, because many prospects attended events, now many prospects are online. You need to know where they are and go there. Again, this is not free, either.

Still, many B2B companies are not investing in digital marketing.

The only thing I want to say is that buying behaviour is changing and you need to change with it. Your sales approach needs to change. If you don’t do digital marketing, you are giving your competitors opportunities to take your customers. The choice is yours.

Danny, I hope that I answered your question.

I am, in a way, a B2B company, I am making hefty investments in my B2B marketing efforts, and so should you.

Again, if you like the content, please subscribe to the podcast. If you are a YouTube watcher, subscribe to my YouTube channel. I publish one video a week.

Before you leave, make sure to check out the previous podcast episodes.

Have a great day!!