Businesses at times overuse their marketing strategies. Whether they pick B2C or B2B marketing to go with, the process itself no longer impresses customers the way it used to. In fact, these days, if you are not careful, your marketing tactics can easily end up boring them.
A recent survey conducted by advertising agency WHM looked at the Business-to-Business (B2B) advertising market. It concluded that purchase decision-makers are bored and wish for creative and engaging advertisements as part of their buying journey. Although consumer-targeted advertising is pulling on the major share of business budgets, B2B marketing is still a lucrative part of the sector for those that specialize in it. Receiving uninspiring and dull B2B marketing content is equally problematic for small and big enterprises.
“The truth is, the vast majority of buying decisions are emotional,” said the WHM agency partner Audrey Merritt, in a recent press release. Besides, if customers are fed up with the first thing that they see concerning a particular service or product, they will not get involved in it emotionally. “It’s hard to sell something if you’re boring people to death. So much B2B marketing falls flat because it doesn’t make the audience feel something,” added Audrey Merritt.
As per Thomas Whalen, another WHM partner, customers want to know two things before considering any pitch: who you are, as well as in what way can you serve them. The recent study provides some great insights into what B2B customers are looking for, and how they can be served in a better way.
Statistics on B2B Marketing
One of the most telling topics of debate which the survey raised was this: “All other things being equal, do you wish that advertising for business products and services had more of the creativity that consumer advertising is generally known for?”
Over 82.6% respondent customers in the survey answered in the affirmative, with the rest answering NO. So the vast majority of respondents have given a thumbs up to better B2B advertising only. However, the answer to another question just about contradicts this one. When asked what they make of the advertisements they receive today, 52% of the respondents said they are equally interesting because ads targeted to consumers tend to be. On the contrary, the other 48% said B2B marketing was not as creative, but rather boring. Apparently, a certain percentage of purchase decision makers are indifferent to the advertisements which they get.
Taking that into account, the next question is whether these ads really inspire them. The answers are extremely revealing since only 22.4% of respondents said they are oftentimes inspired by these ads. The other 50.1% said they are occasionally drawn in, 24.3% said they seldom feel that way, and 3.2% basically said “never”.
B2B Websites
A way in which one business discovers things about another is through the latter’s websites. In most cases, B2B sites are not nearly on par with those used by B2Cs, on the creative side that is. In the study, the respondent base was split into nearly even halves on this matter; where 50.6% of them said the websites of business services and products were as creative and interesting as consumer sites tend to be, the other 49.4% thought otherwise.
Better Buying Decisions
The survey asked participants if they believed a more inspired advertisement would help in making relatively better buying decisions. 80.8% said yes, while the remaining said it wouldn’t. In any promotion campaign, the aim of an ad is to influence or draw businesses or consumers towards that very important sale. While approaches towards that differ among businesses, the WHM survey has proven that most consumers wish to get inspiring and engaging advertisements to go on.
