Every January there are an ever-increasing number of surveys regarding the marketing challenges facing marketers. This year we’ve pulled out the top three threats from a cross-section of influential reports.
With today’s ‘lean and mean’ approach to business, it’s perhaps not surprising that time was the most frequent single-word concern.
That it significantly outweighs other marketing challenges is down to many reasons, not least the vast knowledge you need these days to develop and implement a successful marketing campaign.
Without the right knowledge, even a good strategy can fail during implementation so you need to have expertise in many areas.
For large companies, this isn’t such a problem – they can afford to employ specialists in niche roles. That approach, however, is not viable for SMEs and consequently this puts enormous stress on the person responsible for marketing.
A successful campaign needs a:
It is virtually impossible for one individual to keep up with the knowledge required to remain competent in all these areas. There are simply not enough hours in the day, so another solution has to be found.
Marketing and selling success ultimately depends on the customers’ decision to buy from you. That means you have to understand your different ‘buyer personas’.
You need an insight as to their goals and challenges; you have to know what keeps them awake at night so you can provide information that addresses their pain points.
Creating killer content that delivers answers can be daunting. You have to appeal to different target demographics and you have to make it compelling and authentic.
High quality content is a competitive advantage that you need to have in your B2B digital marketing campaigns.
It’s no use creating great content, however, unless you have the right platforms to present it. That requires, amongst other things, a well-designed and consistently updated website that provides timely and flawless user experiences on any device.
With customer acquisition costs rising yearly, the long and short of it is that B2B marketing is getting harder.
Companies are having to ramp up their content marketing and inbound campaigns, aligning all their content back to the buyer journey.
With more and more content out there, the credibility of the content you author is of the upmost importance.
It is imperative to create a believable impression regarding your credibility and, in the B2B arena, a great way to establish this is via customer testimonials. Associating with names that are prominent and respected in your industry can help to instantly generate trustworthiness.
Blogs too are a powerful tool to build authority. Well-researched articles accompanied by informative images or visuals enable readers to more easily absorb the information presented.
For complex marketing challenges, video is a potent platform to showcase your abilities, whether with testimonial, product/service or corporate videos.
The most efficient way for SMEs to deal with these marketing challenges is to engage a professional B2B marketing agency.
A good agency will not only provide the skill sets required, but will also take the weight off your shoulders. It will create and distribute credible tailored content to your target audience, freeing up your time to focus on the core aspects of your business.
To discuss a particular challenge or to learn how Midlands marketing services agency, Leapfrog Marketing, can save you time, create great content and establish credibility to help you win more business, call Alan Myers on 0116 278 7788 or email: alan@leapfrog.uk.com