The B2B Marketers Dilemma

A couple of weeks ago, I identified three recurring b2b marketing trends and I shared them with you in this post, Three B2B Marketing Trends (To Avoid). Today, I introduce you to something you are more than likely already intimately familiar with, I am calling it, The B2B Marketers Dilemma. Here it is.

Am I right? Pretty close I bet. Quite frankly, if you are a B2B marketer, I think you have the most difficult job in the organization right now. You are likely championing your company’s B2B social marketing media efforts, while at the same time thinking the best approach would be for the entire organization to be asking itself, “how do we become a social business?” Not just, “how do we set up a Facebook Fan page?” If the former were the case, you could spend your time in a more meaningful way than convincing everyone a negative comment on a blog won’t kill you.

The reality is though, you are having to fight that fight, and to me that is just one of the reasons why your job as a B2B marketer is so challenging. But moving beyond those discussions, your most important work is in solving this dilemma for your organization. It’s vital to your success not only as a company, but also as a B2B social media and content marketing professional.

So how do you do it? Here are a few suggestions to get you started.

• Reassess all your spending from a buyer persona perspective versus “target audience” – When you have well developed buyer personas for the people involved in your buying process (notice I am not saying sales cycle), you know them intimately. You know their online habits, their daily struggles, their education level and much more. Once you get this close to your buyers, you find an entirely different point of view to assess where and how you are spending your marketing and advertising budgets to reach them.
• Evaluate the structure and roles of your marketing department – When marketing is changing as rapidly and radically as it is today, new thinking in required. Now, I’m not talking about “new thinking” in the sense that you need to come up with some new breakthrough, magical formula. I simply mean looking at the old way of doing things with a 2010 mindset. Apply critical thinking and develop better methods to serve your needs now and in the future. This covers not only evaluating the skill sets of the people working for you, but also their job descriptions and operational responsibilities. Build your department to support ongoing content creation.
• Talent matters, it’s time to evaluate yours – Gone are the days when you leave someone on your team, “because they have been with the company for so long,” or whatever other reason you may be making for an under performer. In the new world of B2B social media and content marketing, each and every person on your team needs to contribute, every day. If they have the talent, but not the skills, invest in training and help them grow professionally.
• Outsource – I’ve long been a proponent of outsourcing because of its ability to allow an organization to stay focused on it core competency. The same benefits hold true for b2b social media and content marketing. So whether it be outsourcing the creation of a video, white paper, or hiring a writer or editor for your blog, these are sound business decisions and one you should consider if you are understaffed.

There you have it, a few suggestions to get you started solving the B2B marketers dilemma. Ultimately though, what lies ahead in solving this dilemma is transformation, renewal, and hard work (lots of it). But don’t let that prevent you from pressing on. Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor will your b2b social media and content marketing strategy and execution.

Kindly share some of your ideas in the comments on how we can help each other solve The B2B Marketers Dilemma.

Jeremy Victor
B2Bbloggers