What’s Missing In Your B2B Marketing Strategy
What’s Missing In Your B2B Marketing Strategy? 5 Key Elements You Don’t Want to Overlook
A car engine without a water pump. A baseball team without a shortstop. A guitar without a D string.
All it takes is one missing piece to prevent something from working as it should. Your B2B marketing strategy might excel in certain areas, but a single overlooked element can cause results to stall out.
I’m not talking about tactics here, because those can vary on a case-by-case basis. But there are specific considerations and focal points that ought to exist in pretty much every marketing strategy, and if we fail to account for them we are doing ourselves a disservice.
This isn’t a matter of covering bases or checking boxes. This is about thinking through your marketing approach holistically to set it up for sustainable growth. If any of the following aspects are amiss for your team at a strategic level, I highly recommend addressing them.
Common Gaps in a Modern B2B Marketing Strategy
#1 – You Don’t Have a Sophisticated Content Promotion Plan
I came across two different blog posts in the past couple weeks highlighting common mistakes in content marketing – one from Social Media Today, another from Business 2 Community – and they both mentioned this in some form. There’s a good reason for that: Way too many marketers out there are narrowly focused on content creation, with promotion of said content lagging behind as a distant afterthought.
When we say that a simple checklist doesn’t suffice, this is a prime example. If you want to make a real impact, it’s simply not enough to blast the same blurb and link across all social channels, every time, and call it a day. Your promotion plans should be built in from the beginning. It should align with the purpose and goals of the specific content in question. And it shouldn’t fall into the cyclical trap of sameness that eventually causes audiences to tune out.
There are plenty of creative ways to prop up content and get people’s attention. I really love the assortment of creative promotional tactics shared by our Lane Ellis earlier this year. If you’re feeling limited in ways to gain exposure, TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden’s mega-list of 50 content promotion tactics is an essential read. Pick the ones that jibe with what you’re creating, and who you hope to reach.
#2 – You’re Not Getting Maximum Mileage from Your Content
An excellent piece of content deserves more than one fleeting opportunity to be consumed. Yes, promotion is important to maximizing your investment in creation, but so is the extensibility of your creations. Repurposing is a concept that tends to be overly simplified – there ought to be more to it than just republishing a blog post six months later, or turning your podcast episode into a readable transcript.
Like promotion, repurposing should be wired into your planning from the get-go. When you conceive a content idea you think will hit home with your audience, think about the different ways you can package and present it. More formats equates to more ways for people to find and experience it. Staggered rollout equates to more opportunities for getting noticed over time.
It’s important to remember that not every eventual hit is an immediate winner.
