B2B marketing is an unknown topic to many casual consumers who have little interaction with business other than buying their weekly groceries (myself included). Having joined B2B Marketing with my journalist hand at the ready, I was introduced to the world of corporate marketing. So, as an outsider, what have I learned about B2B marketing in my first two weeks?
I was quickly met with what appeared to be a new language – everything from ‘low hanging fruit’ to ‘growth-hacking’ – otherwise known as business jargon. While this might appear to offer an element of formality, even the statistics reveal that marketing professionals are fed up with using impenetrable language. Brands and potential partners have begun to yearn for more of a human touch.
This has encouraged brands to break away from traditional marketing methods, to embrace creativity which is surely a good thing. As Javier Nieto, VP of global marketing at Worldpay, told me in an interview about the brand’s new animation campaign: people are bored with email. To the outsider, business can seem as grey a topic as the grey pinstripe on a corporate three piece suit – but it doesn’t have to be.
Companies willing to come up with ingeniously creative campaigns benefit from better results. It’s clear to see going the extra mile works for brands. The businesses you’re selling to are just as clued-up on marketing strategies as you, so offering a campaign shining with creativity shows dedication beyond common campaign rhetoric.
But pulling off such high-quality content marketing takes a lot of time and effort. So it was no surprise when interviewing marketers about their favourite work apps, many revolved around organisation. Whether you choose digital or physical, marketers are still clinging to their sticky notes in the realisation that planning (and knowledge) is the key to being able to juggle B2B marketing successfully.
My entrance to the world of B2B is a lot like going out for dinner with the menu in a different language. You sit twitching as you read down a list of incomprehensible words hoping you can somehow make sense of something that will taste half-decent. You order the unknown and are, surprisingly, served a colourful dish of delicious food – a slight relief compared with your friend’s bland dish. Creative marketing brings the same relief to me. The word business throws up all sorts of b-words: boring, bland and beige. But breaking out of the strictly corporate shell with creativity can reveal a fun and frankly much more interesting core.
