The marketing landscape has always been dynamic. But staying ahead of the curve has never been so crucial for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) as now. This year’s B2B marketing challenges need innovative strategies to overcome them. Although traditional advertising has its place, such methods are fast becoming outmoded.
This article reviews the new challenges for B2B companies like yours. It highlights these obstacles and some of the most effective lead generation strategies to overcome them. But let’s begin this piece by reviewing the issues marketers are wrestling with this year.
This Year’s Top B2B Marketing Challenges
B2B marketers are grappling with some old and new marketing challenges this year. There is increased competition, fast-evolving technology, and data privacy concerns. That last point is worth a special mention. Tighter restrictions on data collection and its use affect how companies collect, handle, and use the information to personalize messages. At the target audience end, your business must adjust to changing buyer behaviors and rising expectations.
All the above challenges demand adaptive strategies to engage your audience effectively.
New and Old B2B Marketing Challenges Collide
Some challenges remain consistent, while new ones evolve from the ever-changing business landscape. Some have come about in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic uncertainties, and the current state of inflation. But B2B marketing challenges vary in relevance and impact. How they influence your business depends on several factors. Examples are your industry, your audience, and the marketing strategies employed.
Permanent Changes vs Temporary Factors
B2B marketers must recognize the distinction between permanent and temporary changes. Temporary uncertainties stemming from the effects of COVID-19, recession fears, and inflation forced companies to act fast. Savvy marketers developed agile marketing strategies to adapt quickly and mitigate risks. Permanent changes also demand innovative—yet longer-term—approaches to keep content and messaging relevant and competitive.
This table summarizes temporary and permanent factors as they relate to B2B marketing.
| MARKETING CHALLENGES | TEMPORARY CHALLENGES | PERMANENT CHALLENGES |
| Growing competition | Recessions, market fluctuations | Dealing with increased digital competition and globalization |
| Acquiring new prospects | Temporary fluctuations in lead quality or availability | New lead generation strategies for capturing quality leads |
| Content saturation | Lost business to viral campaigns or short-term trends | Information overload, standing out in a crowded market |
| Changes in buyer behaviors | Cultural shifts or external factors influencing short-term trends | Evolving purchase patterns and buyer preferences |
| Rising customer expectations | Fads and passing trends driving shifts in buyer expectations | Highly-targeted personalization, seamless experiences |
| Fast-evolving technology | Short-term disruptions caused by emerging tech or innovations | Keeping up and investing in rapid technological advancements |
| Data privacy concerns | Immediate impact felt by new legislation or data breaches | Working around stricter privacy regs and consumer demands |
| Establishing brand authenticity | Bad publicity or unforeseen crisis causing reputational challenges | Trust building through social responsibility and transparency |
| ROI measurement | Seasonality or marketing campaigns causing temporary fluctuations in ROI | Resource allocation and skills needed for data analysis |
How New Challenges Are Affecting B2B Marketers
B2B marketers must adapt to new challenges as buyer journeys become increasingly complex. Your job is to personalize marketing messages at scale. For this, you leverage emerging technologies while complying with stringent data privacy regulations. Most importantly, you should deliver exceptional customer experiences to achieve the best outcomes.
Next are six of the top B2B lead generation challenges and strategies to achieve this:
This Year’s Most Effective B2B Lead Generation Strategies
This section looks at six of the trending lead generation strategies for this year. Keeping up with new developments is vital if you’re to outcompete rival businesses. Your lead generation efforts should drive growth by targeting the right audience. With the correct tactics, you will develop relationships, optimize ROI, and gain valuable market insights.
1. Content Marketing Strategy Tips
Quality content—in all its forms—is king for attracting an audience. The most effective B2B content publishes relevant material using the most effective marketing collateral for each stage of the sales funnel. Ensure you tailor your content to the needs and pain points of the target audience. Thought leadership also plays a crucial role. It helps differentiate you from rivals, builds trust, strengthens your brand, and attracts quality leads.
Popular types of B2B marketing content include:
- High-quality blog posts
- Infographics
- Videos and podcasts
- Brochures/flyers (printed or digital)
- Whitepapers, eBooks
- Presentations, slide decks
- Social media content
- Case studies
The marketing collateral used to communicate your content, products or services, and brand message matters. You need to use the channels that will reach the right eyeballs at the right time and have the most impact.
Bold Entity Ensures Your Brand Stays Top of Mind with Leads
Do you need to raise brand awareness among your target audience? Bold Entity is a professional digital marketing agency that helps B2B companies shape brand strategies and achieve goals. By leveraging our expertise, we develop comprehensive, tailored approaches that effectively communicate the unique value proposition of your company brand.
Talk to Bold Entity to Find Out How We Make B2B Brands Iconic
2. Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
The theory is simple, but Account-Based Marketing can be quite tricky to get right. It targets your high-value accounts with personalized marketing to drive conversions. The idea is to use tailored content and messaging to give valued leads the best customer journey possible.
The points below highlight the potential ABM challenges faced by B2B marketers:
- Identifying the right target accounts can be a complex procedure
- Implementing ABM needs significant resources, e.g., personnel, technology, budget
- Coordinating efforts that align with sales and marketing teams is challenging
- Personalizing multiple campaigns simultaneously can be demanding
- Measuring impact and attributing success in ABM is complex
- Obtaining and analyzing accurate data for target accounts takes time
- Coordinating and executing ABM strategies is overwhelming for novice marketers
A professional agency is often better at ABM than small in-house teams. This is due to their specialized expertise, extensive first-rate resources, and objectivity.
3. Marketing Automation with AI Support
You may be familiar with some aspects of marketing automation. Having the right tools streamlines lead nurturing, scoring, and qualification processes. Moreover, automation with AI support improves personalized communication and efficiency throughout the buyer’s journey. You have plenty of free automation programs at your disposal. However, the best tools are costly due to their powerful and unique features.
Some of the best AI and automation tools used to address B2B marketing challenges are:
- Data analysis programs that deliver valuable insights from large data sets
- Lead scoring using AI algorithms that prioritize and segment leads
- AI-powered chatbots that offer instant 24/7 customer support
- Predictive analytics on customer behaviors helps identify opportunities
- Automated tools that simplify marketing workflows and personalization
- Sentiment tools used to analyze customer feedback and sentiment
Automation and AI support is getting more powerful by the day—make sure you use it.
4. Influencer Marketing: Brand Ambassadors
Like them or loathe them, social media influencers can be incredible brand advocates for B2B firms. Partnering with industry influencers and the best thought leaders has several benefits. They help expand brand reach, build credibility, and generate valuable leads from their followers. Moreover, engaging influencers to promote your products or services boosts your visibility and trust among the target audience.
5. Social Media Advertising
Social media (SM) has been instrumental in B2B campaigns, and the trend continues. Today’s SM Ad platforms offer even more targeting capabilities that help you reach specific audience segments. Paid social media advertising, done well, is a highly-effective way to generate leads, drive traffic to your website, and increase brand awareness.
Other social media benefits are engaging ad formats and robust analytics. However, paid SM ads can be a costly endeavor for inexperienced marketers. Those who don’t know how to navigate this medium get low conversion rates and lose traffic to the competition. And if the content isn’t unique and appealing, it risks ad blindness among those it targets.
6. Omnichannel Strategies
Omnichannel strategies are another growing trend in B2B lead generation tactics. They give consistent customer experiences across multiple channels and touchpoints. Thus, content must be constant across all your B2B marketing platforms, both online and off. That includes websites, mobile apps, social media platforms, email, flyers, posters, and others.
Here’s a summary of the main benefits of the omnichannel strategy for B2B marketers:
- Seamless customer experience across channels
- Improved targeting
- Enhanced data collection
- Increased brand visibility
- Higher conversion rates
- Effective lead nurturing
- Improved attribution
These things combined create lead magnets, giving you a major competitive advantage.
What to Do if You Feel Lost
Many B2B companies face similar marketing challenges. Not every SMB has the luxury of a full-time, dedicated team of experienced marketers to create, run, and tweak campaigns. Then there’s the question of budget and technology resources. And because trends, tools, and tech are forever changing, these problems become exacerbated with time.
Going It Alone Is Difficult—There Is Help Available
Tackling these challenges without the people, skills, and resources can be overwhelming and time-consuming. And the wrong or hurried approach can see money go down the drain—fast! Your marketing efforts don’t have to be like this. Instead, consider expert guidance and support from an experienced marketing team for your lead generation.
Why Partner with a Digital Marketing Agency?
The most successful B2B buyers’ journeys are supported from start to finish. Professional digital marketing agencies know how to navigate these B2B marketing challenges. They have the expertise, extensive resources, and, of course, objectivity. And let’s not forget the advanced strategies used to leverage your data and optimize campaign performance.
Your Digital Marketing Partner
Bold Entity has access to the latest, most powerful tools and industry insights. That puts us in a perfect position to identify opportunities and deliver fresh perspectives. And our expertise in B2B marketing avoids wasteful efforts and ensures effective lead generation.
See How Bold Entity Can Drive Your B2B Marketing
This Year’s Marketing Challenges In Conclusion
Thsi year’s B2B marketing challenges present fresh obstacles for SMBs. There are clear changes in buyer behaviors, competition, evolving tech, and data privacy concerns. Therefore, your lead generation tools and strategies must also adapt. B2B companies need innovative approaches and tactics to overcome these shifts in the marketing landscape.
Firms lacking the people, knowledge, and resources to compete should consider partnering with a professional digital marketing agency to stay ahead of the game.
