Mascola B2B Marketing Blog, B2B Advertising Agency

B2B Myth of the Week: Research Is Overrated

The Myth: Research Is Overrated

The Truth: Research Is More Important Now than Ever

Is B2B research necessary? The answer is a resounding “yes.” The needs and perceptions of your audiences are constantly evolving. If you want to create content that resonates with your audience, you need solid research. Research isn’t a one-time thing. It needs to be continuously updated to keep up with changing market demand. What research can do is help you create engaging content, generate leads, and grow your company. While it may be expensive and sometimes time-consuming, the information you can gain is invaluable. And as social platforms allow you to hyper-target with more accuracy, research becomes even more important, allowing you to deliver the right message to exactly the right prospect.

Here Are 4 of the Most Important Things That Research Can Tell You:

Who Your Audience Is and Where they Consume Information. The first thing you should focus your research on is understanding your audience. And you may find some surprises. Today, nearly half of B2B researchers are millennials. This shift has taken place in the last few years and has completely changed buyer behavior. If you don’t know exactly who your audience is, you won’t be able to create content that interests them. When researching your audience find out who they are, what the want from you, where they get their information, and any pain points that they may have on the job. Understanding your audience and where they get information will help you determine the best way to spend your dollars and what to say to your audience when you do. Knowing the right places to share content will engage your audience and generate leads.
What Your Competitors Are Doing. If you don’t know what’s happening with competitors, you will inevitably fall behind. Look into prices and quality of their products, their online presence, and the kind of content they’re sharing. Having an idea of what your competition is doing will also help pinpoint what makes you different. Your company needs a unique brand positioning that separates you from the competition. In essence, competitive research helps you define your brand. When you survey prospects, you can also find out which brands they prefer and why. This will show you where you fit into the competitive set, and help you figure out where you want to go.
What the Purchasing Process Is Like. Unlike B2C, B2B buyers very rarely make impulse purchases. Buyers spend a good amount of time comparing prices, quality, and suppliers before making a decision. As the purchasing process gets more and more complex, it’s important to help simplify it for buyers. In order to do that, you need to do some research. Understanding the buyer’s path to purchase will help you fix any issues or challenges they face along the way. It’s also important to know what variables influence buyers at which point in the sale funnel. Is it price? Convenience? Quality? Knowing this information is crucial to guiding buyers through the process and improving customer experience.
How People Perceive Your Brand. Public opinion is one of the biggest influencers of brand perception. Many companies think they know how customers feel about their brand, but it might not always be the reality. There are a couple of simple ways to research how customers feel about your brand. One way is by monitoring what people are saying about you on social media. There are tons of social media listening tools that can help you track your social media presence. Customer surveys can be even more helpful when measuring brand perception as you can ask questions about specific areas you are interested in.

Research gives you the information and data you need to connect with your audience and position your brand as a strong competitor. If you want to keep up with the changes happening in your field and in the industries you sell to, your company needs to conduct in-depth research on a regular basis. It can make the difference between lagging behind and rising to the top.

B2B Myth of the Week: Sales Collateral Is No Longer Important

by MGB2B

The Myth: Sales Collateral is No Longer Important

The Truth: High-Quality, Tangible B2B Sales Collateral Can Leave a Lasting Impression on Clients

With all the buzz around online content, it’s easy to think sales collateral is no longer important. But consider this: there’s tons of technical information to share with clients. We can’t expect them to remember it all. That’s where sales collateral comes in. It serves as a tangible reminder of the benefits or your products or services. And it simplifies the sales experience so you can close deals. If that’s not enough, here’s four more reasons why well-executed sales collateral is an important part of your marketing arsenal.

4 Reasons B2B Sales Collateral Is Still Important

It Communicates Important Information Succinctly. It’s unlikely that your leads will remember everything you tell them in a meeting. Having information laid out in simple terms all in one place makes it easy to both digest and remember. And while having that information online is important, a brochure is something prospects can keep on their desk to remind themselves of your brand when making a purchase decision.
It Can Showcase Your Credibility. Rather than wait for your leads to seek out your case studies, hand them over directly. Seeing your success displayed in a quality document offers proof, reinforces your reputation, and is easily shared with other decision-makers.
It Adds to Your Brand Story. While it may be tempting to put all of your information online, your personality comes to life more so in a printed piece. The weight of the paper, the feel of it, the gloss or matte finish, all give your brand story more depth. In addition to creating consistency and credibility across your brand, it rounds out the personality you’ve created online and in your offices. From business cards to brochures to sell sheets, your collateral has the potential to strengthen your company’s image – so long as you create a high-quality experience.
It Can Close the Deal. According to Forbes, buyers go 70% of the way through the decision-making process before engaging with a sales representative. So if a buyer is more than halfway there when you meet, imagine leaving them with a high-end, well-designed, well-produced, and authoritative booklet or sell sheet. Since many companies are funneling their money into digital efforts, it could be the point of differentiation that seals the deal.

It’s easy to overlook printed collateral in today’s digital-first world. But that’s even more reason to make your sales materials stand out. Need help with the execution? Give us a call.

Repurposing and Repackaging B2B Content to Keep Your Audience Engaged

by MGB2B

Your brand has many needs: developing products that meet the needs of your clients, keeping your clients happy and satisfied with your offerings, maintaining a steady workflow between your marketing and sales teams, staying one step ahead of the competition… the list goes on and on. So when it comes time to develop content like white papers, blogs, bulletins, newsletters, and more, it’s no wonder that task can often fall by the wayside. Your brand’s own content can sometimes take a backseat to the hundreds of other priorities you and your team manage on a day-to-day basis.

You Should Know Two Things About Your Struggle with Content:

It’s okay!
There’s a way to create new content to distribute to your audience without actually creating new content.

You Might Be Thinking… “That Makes No Sense.” But Hear Us Out:

By taking existing long-form content you’ve created, like white papers, tech bulletins, or published studies and turning them into shorter, eye-catching, digestible content like blogs, infographics, and videos, you’re still creating new content without putting in as many man-hours that the former requires.

Writing something like a white paper takes a significant amount of time, research, and understanding of the subject. Your audience appreciates these types of content, but in an age where “content is king” and attention spans seem to shrink by the day, sometimes they don’t always reach the audience they should. By taking your extensive white paper and breaking it down section by section, you’re providing your audience with the same content, just in a form they haven’t seen yet. So you might capture the attention of someone who doesn’t have the time or patience to read a full white paper. As an added bonus, when you create these types of content and post them on your website and various social channels, you can link back to the longer-form content (and require an information capture to reveal it), so you’re accomplishing two goals with one post.

So How Do You Evaluate B2B Content for Repurposing?

Choosing the kind of content you want to turn into social-friendly posts is the biggest challenge you might face. When starting out, you’ll want to evaluate your library for two things. The first being, ease of digestion. What we mean when we say that is: how complicated is the message we’re trying to get across, and how difficult will it be to convey that in an infographic, video, or blog? The second thing to evaluate is time. How long will it take us to turn this white paper into something we can get out to the masses?

If you need to hold multiple brainstorming sessions, followed by multiple rounds of development, followed by multiple rounds of edits, it might be best to leave that content as-is. If you have something that you already know can be broken down easily (and quickly!), start there. As time goes on, you can hone your skills, and eventually tackle those harder-to-understand pieces. But for now, start slow, and be sure you’re crafting messages that will resonate with your audience.