Why are B2B companies so bad at marketing themselves?

Most business-to business (B2B) companies are going from bad to worse at marketing themselves because they are too busy looking left, right, and behind them instead of talking straight to their customers. It’s not a lack of understanding about who their customers are that’s causing the diversion, but rather a distracted understanding of how to market the real value they can provide them.

In the haze, B2B companies all seem to be saying much the same thing, with ubiquitous language contributing to fuzzy positioning that makes it difficult for potential customers to distinguish between them. There is a lot of jargon mixed with fluff to sell solutions – and everyone has one. It’s just not clear what they do or how they address specific needs for specific customers. 

The overused word “solutions” is a vague and lazy way of marketing. It’s not a product, it’s not a service, it’s not a company—and it’s certainly no indication of what anyone really solves.

At present, B2B marketing online is largely based on what the competitor next door is doing. It’s the easiest path. The one with the least resistance. And it’s quantifiable and justifiable: “If they are doing it, we should be doing it.”

So, the focus is on who they are, what they do, and everything that goes into being all that. They’re good at talking about the revolutionary products and procedures that make them great but it’s not about the customers. The customer-centricity that  business-to-customer companies have emphasised for years is just missing in the B2B space.

Yet customers have precise problems that need solving. These customers and prospects, who are searching for products or services online and are increasingly coming from outside companies’ regional areas, are being left to figure out for themselves what all of it means.

B2B buyers are consumers too. Like consumers, 94 % of B2B buyers are looking for education, assessing credibility, making comparisons and determining value online before they engage with and invest in a new product or service for their organisations.

By failing to meet buyers’ needs digitally, companies develop what is termed a “customer-centricity gap”. Customer-centricity gaps happen despite companies investing in online presence and digital customer experiences, because there are lags in personalisation, understanding the customer and delivering communication to meet customer needs.

B2B companies see the potential of e-commerce to grow their business into new and global territories, and the market is growing. Investment in e-commerce websites is burgeoning, with B2B companies moving online to garner their piece of a bigger market doing business and transacting online.

But what is holding back the realisation of the full potential of this online presence for B2B companies is lagging thinking and a lack of scrutiny when marketing their products.

Traditionally, B2B companies have had very well-defined sales strategies that are executed acutely to target very specific customers and the very specific challenges they have. The approach would be to have a sales force that engages with customers on a one-to-one basis, selling the ways a product or service could solve a problem for them. And they have grown to be very successful this way.

Now we are talking about doing this at scale, and globally. It’s about taking that real-world approach and adapting it online with the same level of scrutiny and with the same level of commitment and capital, knowing that in the long run, it will pay due dividends.

Digital customer experience and sales channels are set to become the primary points of differentiation for B2B companies. But while e-commerce marketplaces and digital technologies are disrupting the way B2B companies sell, marketing is struggling to catch up with poorly defined communications and marketing strategies.

Legacy approaches to marketing in the B2B space have relegated it to the position of being  the poor cousin to sales, which is still considered the money end of the business. But that’s only until pipelines dry up and the scramble to modernise begins.

It’s time to put sales-focused, product-centric models to bed and start modernising. The expansion of e-commerce in B2B and the development of new business channels in different sectors present huge opportunities for organisations to differentiate, stand out and position themselves more competitively in their sectors.

But they need to stop looking left and right at what competitors are doing. That’s just moving with the marketplace when it moves, and it is solving for competitors rather than solving for customers.

If B2B companies really focused on the customer-centricity of their marketing, especially from an online perspective, they can move the dial first and move at a pace ahead of the curve instead of playing catch up or, at best, just keep up.

This means shaking the vague and positive positionings, scrutinising the language that is being used and really unpacking what it is they do for their customers.

Alex Wright is co-founder of Correlate Digital.