Businesses sometimes overuse marketing strategies. Whether B2B or B2C, marketing doesn’t impress customers as before. In fact customers can bore easily of your marketing approach.
A recent WHM survey looked at the B2B advertising market. It concluded decision-makers are indeed bored. They want creative and engaging ads as part of their buying journey. While consumer side advertising gets the lion’s share of marketing budgets, B2B marketing remains a lucrative segment of the industry for those who specialize in it.
For the 30+ million small businesses in the US who get B2B ads, receiving a dull and uninspiring marketing content is just as problematic as large enterprises.
In the press release, WHM partner Audrey Merritt said, “The truth is, the vast majority of buying decisions are emotional.” And if they are bored with the first thing they see about a particular product or service, they will not get involved emotionally, at least not in a positive way.
Merritt adds, “It’s hard to sell something if you’re boring people to death. So much B2B marketing falls flat because it doesn’t make the audience feel something.”
According to another WHM partner, Thomas Whalen, customers want to know who you are and what you can do for them before you start pitching. And the survey offers some great insight into what B2Bs are looking for so they can be better served.
B2B Marketing Statistics
The most revealing question in the survey was, “All other things being equal, do you wish that advertising for business products and services had more of the creativity that consumer advertising is generally known for?”
More than 4 in 5 or 82.6% said yes, with the remainder 17.4% responding no. So for the vast majority, better advertising is the way to go. But the answer to the next question almost contradicts the first question.
When asked what do they think of the ads they currently receive, more than half or 52% said they are just as interesting as consumers ads tend to be. The other 48% said it was boring and not as creative. So there seems to be a certain percentage of decision makers who are indifferent to the ads they are getting.
With that in mind, the next obvious question is if the ads actually inspire them. And the answers are very telling because only 22.4% said they are often inspired by the ads. For the remaining 78.6% the answers range from sometimes at 50.1% to 24.3% rarely, and 3.2% who said never.
Websites
One of the ways a business finds out about another company is through its websites. And B2B websites are in most cases not as creative as the B2C side.
In the survey, the respondents were almost split in half regarding their view on websites. A slight majority or 50.6% said the sites of business products and services are just as interesting and creative as consumer websites tend to be. The remaining 49.4% said they are boring and not as creative.
Buying Decision
Can a more inspired B2B ad help in making better buying decisions? Again an overwhelming majority or 80.8% said yes with 19.2% stating it wouldn’t.
The goal of an ad in any marketing campaign is to persuade or convert consumers or businesses for that all-important sale.
Even though the approaches may be different, the survey from WHM has proven they both want to receive engaging and inspiring ads.
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