MARKETING WHITE PAPER - Icon Visual Marketing€¦ · marketing focused on the delivery of products and services to other businesses. Generally, the products and services are very

F I V E B 2 B M A R K E T I N G

M I S TA K E S T O AV O I D

MARKETING WHITE PAPER

Icon Visual Marketing is a leader in B2B marketing

in NSW. We are one of the largest full service B2B

marketing agencies in NSW and have worked

with B2B companies across many industries,

including manufacturing, industrial, engineering and

construction, to name a few.

We have helped many B2B companies to formulate

marketing strategies

that achieve sustained business growth. Here are

five marketing mistakes that B2B business must

avoid in order to effectively market their business.

Icon Visual Marketing is celebrating 16 years in

business in 2019 and our wealth of B2B marketing

experience has given us the knowledge and insight

to understand your business from every angle,

making it easier to develop marketing tools that

drive business growth.Joe Papadatos, Managing Director

Icon Visual Marketing

B2B marketing with Icon Visual Marketing

Call us on 1300 138 984 or email [email protected]

The Cutting Edge of Business to Business MarketingBusiness to Business Marketing is a specialist area of

marketing focused on the delivery of products and

services to other businesses. Generally, the products and

services are very technical in nature and require a different

marketing strategy and implementation process to see

sustainable sales growth and brand building.


Downplaying the importance of branding

Not strategically segmenting your target market

Failing to understand the importance of personal relationships

Not aligning marketing and sales

Confusing lead nurturing with lead generation

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Downplaying the importance of branding

Traditionally, branding has been somewhat limited in the

B2B market. Business marketers believed that the key to

their differentiation in the market was service, availability,

pricing and quality. Products were sold on features, not

benefits.

Today, the value of your brand and the experience that

your brand delivers will be key to your success in a B2B

marketplace. The value of the brand is not in the features

of the product but in the delivery of the benefits.

Brands have a strong influence on B2B purchasing

decisions. Just as consumers do, B2B buyers use the

vendor’s reputation as a short cut that reduces risk and

simplifies the evaluation process. In fact, brand is a major

factor in a B2B’s consideration for products. Because they

are buying for an organisation, not an individual, they

will not risk their business reputation on a little known or

questionable brand.

In today’s competitive business environment if you have a

business, you have must have a brand. And if your brand

is selling your company short, you need to do something

about it. Branding will give you a competitive edge and

create trust and emotional attachment, all of which makes

purchasing decisions easier.

A strong brand can enable you to command a premium

price. And most importantly a strong brand can make the

actual product features or benefits of what you are selling

secondary.


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Not strategically segmenting your target market2

Segmentation is at the heart of healthy, targeted growth. An organisation cannot satisfy the

needs and wants of all of its consumers. To do so can lead to a massive drain in company

resources. Segmentation is simply the process of dividing a particular market into sections, which

display similar characteristics or behaviours.

Having multiple market segments and revenue streams lowers the company risk of relying too

heavily on one target market group. By segmenting the market, you increase the benefits each

segment needs from your product or service. And by meeting each segment’s specific needs and

delivering a higher value proposition to them, you also increase the odds of a sale. If consistently

done well, market segmentation can also increase the lifetime value of your customers through

repeat business and referrals.

Segmenting your market allows you to:• Create separate marketing campaigns and offers;

• Upsell to the right customers;

• Improve customer retention by tailoring

communications and offers to customers;

• Direct resources to your most profitable areas; and

• Design products and services that closely

match the demands of a particular group.

Having multiple market segments and revenue streams lowers

the company risk of relying too heavily on one target market group.

To strategically segment your target market,

consider the following two segmentation types:

1: What are the markets your product can be used: • By application

• By company

• By market type

• By customer

2: What applications can use your product:• Equipment

• Processes


Failing to understand the importance of personal relationshipsThe heart of B2B marketing is the relationship between

the vendor and customer. When analysis is conducted on

any strong industrial market, the value the supplier brings

to the table should be measured against all the functions

of the business (i.e. technical marketing, corporate affairs,

manufacturing, etc).

The supplier needs to not only continue to provide a

superior technical product, but also know their customer’s

business well enough to suggest solutions to business

problems while continuing to develop products and

services to suit customer’s needs.

The vendor and customer relationship needs to be a true

partnership. Traditionally in the B2B marketplace, each

salesperson had a small customer base that buys from

them regularly. Sales and technical representatives visit the

customers often and were on a first name basis with their

customers. Many B2B suppliers had customers who have

been loyal and committed for many years.


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While the importance of relationships in B2B marketing

hasn’t changed, the nature of the business market has.

Salespeople have more customers to manage; their

time is torn between processing sales in the office and

being out in the field visiting customers and maintaining

relationships.

The challenge for the B2B marketer and sales team is

to maintain personal relationships with customers in

rapidly changing environments. All marketing activities

should be directed to establishing, developing and

maintaining successful relationships with customers.

B2B Sales teams should provide value add services to

their clients. Not only should they provide solutions to

business problems, but they should proactively identity

potential business challenges for their clients and

recommend solutions.

The consequence of emphasising relationships for B2B

marketing budgets are a relatively high expenditure

on people (sales and technical support) and a more

modest expenditure on other forms of promotion. But

the consequence of not emphasising relationships for

B2B marketing can be even more costly.

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Not aligning marketing and sales

The idea of a successful business needing sales and

marketing to work together isn’t new. But the idea of a

business successfully having sales and marketing working

together is a whole other issue!

Achieving alignment between marketing and sales

departments is the largest opportunity for improving

business performance today and driving sustainable

growth for tomorrow. When marketing and sales

teams align, they can create dramatic improvements in

marketing ROI, sales productivity, and, most

Importantly, top-line growth.

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B2B marketing should play a major role in all stages of the sales process, including:

• Engaging the market using digital channels such as email

marketing, web marketing, and social media marketing.

• Identifying prospects via market segmentation.

• Providing salespeople with the tools they need to

demonstrate the value of the product or service.

• Tracking each marketing activity at every point in the

sales process to understand which marketing activities

are actually driving revenue.

Marketing and sales representatives both want the same

thing – but they go about it in different ways. With

marketing and sales working in unison, both can actively

contribute to the sales funnel. By focusing on your sales

funnel, marketers and sales teams can become much more

effective.

Communication is the key here. Get your sales and

marketing teams working together more effectively by

enabling them to communicate easily with one another

and tying their responsibilities to the other department.

Teams will be more successful than individuals, on both

large and small scales. By tying together their goals and

creating a culture that encourages consistent and constant

communication, your sales and marketing teams will begin

working together for greater success.

4


Confusing lead nurturing with lead generationThe terms ‘lead nurturing’ and ‘lead generation’ often get used

interchangeably when they really refer to two different things.

Lead generation is core to the business sales process and

involves feeding leads into the sales funnel, qualifying the

leads by phone, making sales calls, and then converting the hot

prospects into actual sales. That’s a fairly standard sales funnel

and fundamentally comes down to a numbers game.

However, what the traditional sales funnel doesn’t take into

consideration are the not-so-hot leads – the customers who

may be interested in your product but are not quite ready to

purchase. They are still researching products or discovering

your brand, so how do we take these customers into

consideration during our overall sales process?

This is where lead nurturing applies. Lead nurturing is building

relationships with potential clients, even if they are not

currently looking to buy a product or service. They may have

signed up online to receive your newsletter or followed you

on social media, but they aren’t necessarily ready to make a

purchase just yet.

A hard sales call at this stage simply won’t work. You need to

first nurture these leads by helping the would-be customer in

their quest for information with various communications (such

as e-newsletters, landing pages, and social media posts) full of

tips and advice regarding your products and services.

Lead nurturing raises your company profile and overall

product/service awareness profile in the potential client’s

eyes, thereby making it more likely that the client will go

with your product or service once it is time to buy. Confusing

lead nurturing with lead generation can turn off a potential

customer and must be avoided in B2B marketing.

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FREE ONE-HOUR B2B MARKETING CONSULTATION

Need help marketing your B2B company? Icon Visual Marketing

is an integrated, full-service Sydney-based agency committed to

delivering cutting edge solutions for B2B businesses.

Let us take a quick one-hour dive together into your marketing

needs with our free one-hour marketing consultation and receive

our Top 5 assessment list of activities to power your business.

Talk to the Icon team today to learn how we can work closely

with your team to develop and deliver a B2B marketing plan for

your business.

Contact Us

Icon Visual Marketing celebrating 16 years in business in 2019

and our wealth of B2B marketing experience has given us the

knowledge and insight to understand your business from every

angle, making it easier to develop marketing tools that drive

business growth.

Ph: 1300 138 984

HEAD OFFICE:

12 Frost Road,

CAMPBELLTOWN NSW 2560


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MARKETING WHITE PAPER - Icon Visual Marketing€¦ · marketing focused on the delivery of products and services to other businesses. Generally, the products and services are very