B2B Marketing Insights: Why you're not making sales through social media ads — and what to do instead
If you’ve poured time and money into social media ads for your business, with no noticeable difference to your bottom line, you’ve probably been bombarded with advice from well-meaning marketing pros and other business owners. They’ll tell you things like:
“You just need to up your spend.”
“Tweak your sales copy.”
“Refine your audience even further.”
But here’s the thing:
None of that will work if you’re trying to up your sales.
Why? Because, while those tactics may well work wonders for businesses chasing B2C sales, B2B is a whole other ball game, for several reasons.
The B2B sales cycle is longer.
B2B products and services typically demand a higher price — they aren’t just a quick purchase, they’re an investment. When the financial stakes are so much higher, the sales cycle will require multiple touchpoints and more time for decision making. A single ad just won’t cut it.
Long-term relationships are critical.
B2B sales often involve repeat purchases or long-term partnerships. Whether you’re looking for a supplier of raw materials for your products or trying to secure a trustworthy accountant, you don’t want to be searching for a new provider every other month. Again, it takes time — and multiple touchpoints — to secure a relationship of this type.
Decision by committee.
B2B purchasing decisions are frequently made by committee. That means you have to nurture relationships with multiple different people, with different goals, working across a variety of departments, in order to secure a sale.
So, if a single social media ad — or even a series of ads — couldn’t possibly negate these challenges, how do you generate more B2B sales?
You’ll be relieved to know that there are numerous strategies that will help you build the relationships you need, shorten the sales cycle, and ultimately increase your chances of closing a sale.
4 ways to generate more B2B sales.
1. Build personas.
Remember the “decision by committee” challenge? Help overcome this by carefully considering all of the stakeholders that might be involved in the purchasing process and thinking about what their different goals and objections might be. When you’ve created accurate personas you’ll find it easier to drive communications and strategic marketing decisions.
2. Drive brand awareness/recognition.
Building brand awareness takes time but recognition will ultimately help shorten your sales cycle. While social media activity is unlikely to help you close the sale, it is an effective way to start creating awareness of your product or services.
Account-based marketing, content, emails, thought-leadership pieces, events and conferences, paid media, speaking opportunities, and influencer marketing can all be used to increase brand recognition — just be sure that you use an intelligent communication strategy that consistently highlights your key differentiators.
3. Implement relationship marketing/industry relations.
Contributing to and being part of industry conversations should be an integral part of your marketing efforts.
And developing personal relationships should be a key consideration too. When people get to know you well, either as a client/customer or as a fellow professional, they will champion your business and initiate word-of-mouth referrals, particularly if you’ve met face-to-face and are on first name terms. So make an effort to develop relationships with as many stakeholders and influencers as you can.
4. Increase interest and leads.
Create a targeted list of contacts, associations, and organizations where you can find and engage your target audience. Then garner their attention with a solid content marketing and engagement strategy. Around 80% of B2B buyers prefer to get product or service information from blogs, articles, and other content, so that’s a great place to start.
It’s also a good idea to ensure your marketing and sales departments are closely aligned — as marketing reels in the leads, you need to know that your sales team is ready to address the customer’s specific needs and offer a tailored solution.
Closing B2B sales will always be more complex than closing B2C sales but when you understand the key differences in the process — and how to overcome them — you’ll feel confident enough to ditch the fruitless ad spend and concentrate your time, effort, and finances where they’ll make the most impact.
If you’d like more tailored advice on creating a marketing strategy that will increase your B2B leads and sales, I’d love to help. Contact me now for a free marketing proposal.