Digital B2B marketing: Six myths that persist

Myths are part of literature and stimulate our imagination. But when it comes to marketing, we want to dispel them and let facts speak instead. In this Insight, you’ll learn why social media and SEO remain relevant, who makes a good B2B influencer, and what role emotions play in B2B marketing.

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Myth 1: Emotions have no place in B2B marketing

In the B2B environment, buyers and clients often focus their marketing campaigns on facts and figures in order to convince their target group. But behind the decision-makers who are being addressed are real people with human feelings, and these must not be ignored in your B2B marketing strategy!

In the B2C sector, we are all familiar with the often cited studies on the buying psychology of end consumers. Researchers came to the conclusion that 70, 80 or even 90 percent of all purchasing decisions are made emotionally or unconsciously. Why shouldn’t these research results also apply to B2B buyers? Of course, they are primarily guided by internal specifications, prices, performance and availability. But the final conviction for a product is based on the certain feeling of having made the right decision. Questions such as “do I trust the company?” or “are there public voices/references that speak in favor of the product/service?” are relevant in a potential customer’s buying decision – as are customer loyalty, service, external perception and integrity. At the latest, when competing products hardly differ from each other in terms of figures and performance, customers turn their focus to the emotional purchase factors.

People make their purchasing decisions emotionally or unconsciously up to 90% of the time.

Want to know how to smartly integrate emotional aspects into your digital marketing strategy?

Myth 2: Nobody reads the texts on your website

This may be true if you don’t pursue a content strategy and simply don’t care about your website texts. Normally, however, the majority of B2B buyers look for valid information on the Internet in order to be able to compare solutions and products with each other. The more detailed and readable you present your products or services on your website, the higher the probability that the reader will turn into a customer. However, the myth that hardly anyone reads B2B content still persists today.

When designing your website copy, however, you should keep a few things in mind. First, there are different types of readers: scanners and readers. So you should design your content in such a way that both types of readers get their desired information quickly and without barriers. While the scanner only skims the content and therefore focuses exclusively on the hard facts, the reader is looking for good and detailed texts that not only convey the most important data, but also tell a story. So offer the scanner clear facts in the form of lists and intermediate summaries that appear well-structured in the text and at the same time invest time in good, readable texts that cover your topic comprehensively.

Important for your content strategy: buyer personas, reader types and good texts

In addition, the most precise possible buyer profiles, so-called buyer personas, help you to create a content strategy. Once you have created all relevant buyer personas based on your existing data or surveys, you will notice how helpful they are when creating your website content. Good copywriters address the problems of decision-makers, offer added value to readers, and always keep an eye on reader behavior in search queries.

Myth 3: The CEO is the most important target group

The days when only board members were allowed to decide on the purchase of products or services are long gone. Due to increasing specialization – especially in the complex B2B environment – and the ever flatter hierarchies in companies, purchasing decisions are being made more and more democratically. Basically, whoever provides the best arguments and has the greatest expert knowledge in their niche should also have the greatest influence on the buying decision.

B2B marketing therefore now rarely addresses CEOs and board members, but rather focuses on project managers, IT administrators and other professionals who manage small or large departments, depending on the product and industry. Here, too, the following applies: Analyze your target group as precisely as possible in order to capture their needs and use them profitably in marketing measures.

Myth 4: Social networks are mainly suitable for B2C

Some entrepreneurs continue to assume that social media channels are not suitable for their “dry topic”. But more than half of B2B customers use social networks to find out about products. In addition to “leisure” networks such as Facebook or Instagram, business platforms such as LinkedIn or XING play a crucial role in B2B marketing.

These allow marketers to address their target group directly, as decision-makers on such platforms are particularly receptive to job-related content and communication. Companies can publish their blogposts or events on LinkedIn and Co. and thus build a bond with potential customers, place native ads or attract positive attention through discourse. Social media offers plenty of opportunities to position B2B topics.

Benefits of B2B use of social media:

  • More awareness
  • Stronger customer loyalty
  • Targeted positioning of content

Myth 5: Influencer marketing does not fit into the B2B environment

Instagram influencers hold skin creams or technical products up to the camera, tell emotional stories about the products, or engage in classic advertising? This is no longer a marginal phenomenon, but represents a large part of modern B2C marketing. But there is also a lot of potential for influencer marketing in the B2B environment. Particularly complex markets with products that require explanation can benefit sustainably from real experts who can influence purchasing decisions. Particularly suitable as B2B influencers are:

  • Charismatic CEO’s and other decision makers.
  • Employees with real expertise who represent the company in the best possible way
  • Brand ambassadors with a wide reach
  • Satisfied and credible reference customers
  • Recognized industry experts

These can appear as authentic experts on social media or during informative business podcasts.

Myth 6: SEO is no longer relevant

We have one more myth for you: Because Google and other search engines are constantly changing their algorithm, there is often the feeling that you don’t gain any real control with SEO measures anyway and that current SEO tools might already be outdated tomorrow. And yet, on Google, we look less at the ads at the top and more at the first organic results to find out about specific products or services.

What you should know: A one-time SEO optimization is too little, regularly tweak your content!

SEO optimizations are therefore still important, but what many do not understand: It is not enough to invest a lot of time and money in optimizations. Rather, the algorithm updates oblige companies to regularly update their content and adapt it to current requirements. Progress is therefore also important when it comes to search engine optimization.

Want to learn more about which digital marketing measures are best suited for your B2B sector?

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