Are marketers killing digital marketing?
With the rise in digital advertising efforts, there’s been a lot of talk of the “dot com bubble bursting” and how “math men are overthrowing the mad men” with Ad Words and SEO taking up more oxygen (and budget) than ever before.
As I read the (depressing but insightful) article by Jesse Frederik in the Correspondent dissecting how much money organisations are losing in their online advertising efforts — and how the marketing teams who’ve been made aware of this are turning a blind eye… I started thinking about digital marketing in general, particularly the efforts I see in the B2B space.
Having worked in this space for over 4 years, the problem with the way too many B2B marketing teams are approaching “digital marketing” is now glaring me in the face.
It used to be that “if you spend X dollars on ads, you’ll get Y dollars in revenues”. A simpler time. Now, marketers are having their digital marketing efforts questioned more than ever before — with some going so far to say that “the industry survives because nobody dares measure it with meaningful metrics.”
Meanwhile, those behind the scenes who are left running digital campaigns grow more complacent with minimal engagement rates — accepting that “it’s just the industry standard now”.
The average email click-through rate across industries now sits at a measly 2.62%
As Frederik so aptly puts it:
“Marketers are often most successful at marketing their own marketing.”
We accept “open rates” “likes” “downloads” and “click-throughs” as a measure of value. But actually, in the context of B2B, the reality is that 98% of “marketing leads” NEVER CLOSE.
You can claim that these efforts boost awareness and will pay off later, or blame the sales rep for dropping the leads — but there’s no escaping the reality that getting your customers attention (and keeping it) is just going to keep getting harder.
B2B marketing messages are the least trusted by buyers.
So why is this happening? Why the lack of trust? Why hide behind metrics that don’t translate actual value? Why is a customer choosing to delete your email before even reading it?
My view is that too many marketers are trying to get more cut-through in the wrong way — digitising old methods of engaging with people when, in reality, buyers have completely changed the way they buy.
With every new channel, tactic and campaign, buyers are growing more practised at fading you out. The competition isn’t just other businesses — it’s ad blockers, spam folders and the mindless thumb scroll past your paid pop-up… Mass lead generation activity is just leaving a trail of online “noise” in its wake.
This problem can’t be solved with a better CRM, automation, increased SEO and AdWord investments — or my personal favourite “just creating MORE CONTENT”.
Buyers are tired of being sold to, and doing more of the same is exacerbating the problem — meaning the role of marketers has changed.
As your customers become more self-informed, spoilt for choice and weary of a disingenuous pitch, our role now is to educate, create value, solve their problem, and enable them to engage with your business on their terms.
How we do that is a topic for another post, but for now, let me leave you with these 3 golden rules I’ve picked up from my time working in a company that’s crafting a different way of engaging with B2B buyers digitally:
- Speak to your customers, not at them.
- Lead to your solution, not with your product.
- Provide a differentiated sales experience above all else (after all, this is 53% of the reason a buyer will choose you)
Don’t wait until your ROI is put under the lens to question whether there’s a better way of engaging the buyers of today. The hype of digital marketing is fading. Are you prepared for what comes next?
