Just because your B2B marketing strategy is working now doesn’t mean that it’ll be working six months or a year from now. That’s because every industry is now in the midst of rapid change brought on by the digital transformation of companies. The term “disruption” gets thrown about it a lot these days, and for good reason – there’s perhaps no more powerful term to describe what happens when an upstart dethrones a former market champion.
And, just as companies can fall prey to disruption within an industry, so can B2B marketing strategies. That’s because technology is also changing the world of B2B marketing, everything from marketing automation (the use of software to automate many repetitive marketing tasks) to social media, mobile and big data.
Just ten years ago, the cornerstones of a successful B2B marketing strategy included email, the webinar, the trade show, the whitepaper and the in-person meeting. A decade ago, there was no Facebook, no Twitter and definitely no Snapchat. The iPad had not yet been invented, and even the iPhone was new and noteworthy. Flash forward to today, and B2B marketers are confronted with how to translate their messages for a new generation of social networking sites and mobile platforms. Those that can’t figure it out are at risk of being disrupted.
So how do you avoid disruption if you’re a B2B marketer?
First and most importantly, you want to focus on scalability. Your B2B marketing strategy has to scale at the same pace as your company or industry is growing. If your strategy is not scalable, it’s not going to survive. You can think of scalability in terms of simple numbers – a marketing strategy should work just as well for 100 people as it does for 1,000 people or 10,000 people or 100,000 people.
That sounds obvious, but just think in terms of social media. It’s relatively easy to keep up with 100 nodes of a network, but how do you keep up with 1,000 nodes of a network? Just think of an example from your everyday life – how many people can you realistically keep up with on Facebook each day? Or think of the simple telephone call to a potential prospect – how many phone calls can you realistically make in a day? Unless you give up and give in to the robo-caller, your telephone marketing strategy is not scalable.
Secondly, you need to focus on the cost effectiveness of your marketing strategy. That’s because disruptive entrants come up with new ways of generating more leads, nurturing more customers, and delivering more sales in a way that’s more cost-effective. It’s simple bottom-line thinking: all things being equal, a strategy that has a lower cost per acquisition is going to sound a lot more attractive than a strategy with a higher cost per acquisition.
And, finally, to avoid disruption, you’re to have to think in terms of new KPIs that haven’t even been created yet. Each KPI is a way of keeping score – but what if the game changes? Then those old KPIs are also at risk of changing. That’s why it’s always interesting to hear some of the ways that companies are measuring success – often, they’re at the forefront of developing brand-new KPIs.
For example, take social networking – the old KPI was “number of fans” but the new KPI is “engagement.” That’s because new digital audiences don’t function like old analog audiences. Simply broadcasting your message to as many eyeballs as possible doesn’t work on digital – you need to engage.
By focusing on these 3 key factors – scalability, cost-effectiveness and KPIs – you can spot the warning signals that your old B2B marketing strategy may be at risk of being disrupted.
Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.