What's the number 1 thing every b2b marketer should be talking about but isn't?

I think that website conversion optimization is the number one thing B2B marketers should be thinking of but are not ... and by WCO I mean a focus on converting more of the visitors coming through the home page and driving them to your offers and content. With so much focus paid to landing page optimization, which is vitally important, we are missing a very important point....that with the rise of "Buyer 2.0" every single prospect and customers visits your website at some point in the buying cycle. It's easy to overlook the fact that a 1 point increase of conversions out of the 100 visitors to an offer page is not going to have the same impact on the bottom line as a 1 point increase out of the 1000 visitors to your home page.

The huge #1 thing that's missing from most B2B marketing is DIFFERENTIATION — what makes you different than the other guys.

That's the number one thing every buyer wants to know, yet most B2B marketers don't focus on it. Probably because differentiation marketing is hard to do. Much easier to pump out the same old generic "We're-wonderful-buy-our-stuff."

And you'll also notice that even in the marketing trade media such as BtoB magazine and on professional sites such as Focus and LinkedIn, there is almost NO discussion of differentiation. It's the elephant in the middle of the room. But why talk about the stuff that's hard to do and no one seems to understand!? Much more fun to talk about the shiny "new" stuff (like SM) that's free and fun and easy enough for any 12-year old to do! Right?

Al Shultz
www.alshultz.com

My feeling is that many B2B marketers do not spend enough time talking about how their salespeople sell. Salespeople are knee deep in the buyer persona every day and always pivoting in the way they position their product and company to get the right angle and earn the chance to show a prospect more. The B2B marketer is after the same thing to connect with prospects via a wider reach and with less time and attention from the prospect to get the message through. It would be impossible to adapt and morph marketing messages at the same pace in which a good salesperson can pivot.

Most good salespeople will not go out of their way to share their "magic talk tracks" or silver bullets for making the right connection with a prospect. In fact, in my experience the best ones can’t even tell you how or what they do if you just flat out ask them. However for the B2B marketer, there are gems in every successful demo or closing call that if captured, could be the translated into the next message that makes a successful program. Have your best salespeople record their demos or phone calls or have them role play with you and the rest of your marketing team. Talk about what you heard and how those messages that prospects responded favorably to could be summarized or articulated into a content piece or event to increase conversion rates.

Is the entire organization living up to our promises and/or are we over-promising or promising things we cannot deliver?

After all of the lead generation dust settles, have we driven leads with a story that "everyone" in the company is standing behind?

This is the elephant in te room.

Marketing does not end where sales picks up. Everthing an organization does has marketing impact. The customer experience encompasses everything from the first touch, sales, service, and support, through accounting, logistics, production, etc.

Marketing may not have control over other departments, but knowing how each department fulfills the marketing message and impacts the customer experience is essential to delivering a relelevant message that is being lived up to.

Differentiation is indeed #1, but not the only thing! What benefits will the client receive from you/your company? How will working with you change theitr life? It's about him/her/them, not about glittery products or spangled services.... tell the prospect What's in it for them.

I agree that differentiation is the biggest problem for B2B sellers today. While companies think they are different, to buyer ears and eyes they sound almost exactly alike.

Without differentiation, margins shrink, win percentages drop and other bad things happen.

In many B2B companies, "high tech" and "high touch" strategies have fallen out of balance.

The number one issue that B2B marketers ignore is the growing need for human contact and personal relationships. Many of us continue to hide behind social media and lead conversion strategies as "THE" way to connect with customers. It is a compliment to, not a substitute for, sitting down with your target audience and discovering their unmet and undiscovered needs.

My B2B marketer colleagues who organize live conferences and customer advisory board gatherings have seen significant increases in market share and customer mind share. I'm inspired by B2C companies such as ING Direct (where the CEO spends time talking to customers in their cafes and call centers) and Zappos.

I am on board with Jason's answer and believe this is vital for B2B marketers but to answer the original question I think the one thing that needs to be discussed is what it really takes to transform marketing & sales to succeed in today's Buyer 2.0/led market and that is change management.

In the past two weeks I have seen offers being pushed out to the market making promises of transforming your marketing approach in less than two months and deep dives into process with full findings in a week or less. I think as service/solution providers (and I am a part of one) and B2B marketers, we need to be realistic on just what we need to do to change from the traditional state into a buyer focused state.

Quick does not necessarily mean better and there is certainly a difference between right and right now. To many marketers and for that matter vendors are going to market with a message of quick i.e. 1-week, less than 60-days. This isn't a carnival or a rapid weight loss program. Change takes time and must be managed. It takes a different mind-set, skill set, detailed discussions with sales, development and implementation of process, optimization of technology. And all this can be done in less than 2-months?

Change management is a key factor that many organizations overlook and to be truly successful it takes more than marketing. At the very least it must be marketing & sales working collaboratively to drive the change. In doing this they will have better engagement with their buyer leading to a better selling approach.

Carlos Hidalgo
@cahidalgo

Innovation. Of business models, of products and of solutions. Radically new ideas that will solve customers' problems. We're living in the age of innovation, and so many B2B marketers are enveloped in "what is", not "what could be".

Frankly, B2B marketers too readily forfeit the battle over customers' need fulfillment, in my opinion.

I think we sometimes makes the marketing task to complex. The first and foremost important thing is to know the unique selling point of your product and then, with a hole lot of enthusiasm, use that knowledge to promote it through the channels which we know, If it is old fashioned methods or modern depends on where you find your audience. Try Linkedin as a channel in California to sell water pumps and you will hit many likely customers, try it in Thailand and you will hit very few. It is of course exiting to move to new media but like Lisa say, the human touch should not be underestimated. People buy from people and then it is down to your knowledge and enthusiasm for your product.

The #1 thing that people should be talking about in B2B marketing is that the King Has No Clothes. We have all been conned into believing that spending time, effort and money on SEM, SEO, CRM, FB, Twitter, and SMM is the path to success. But it is a con.

There's no question that direct mail is dead. Advertising is doomed by clutter. Decision makers don't go to trade shows. And markets have fragmented. There is also no question that you have to have a presence on the Web. But that doesn't mean that spending tens, or hundreds, of thousands of dollars (or hours) on Internet marketing is the answer. (Full disclosure: I own a B2B telemarketing firm. But I also have a patent in social media that is heavily licensed.) If they ever work, it is only in the exception.

Prove to me that you can deliberately, regularly and reliably generate qualified leads (i.e. appointments with decision makers who have a need, and who want to talk,) cheaper with Internet Marketing than with cold calling and I'll change my tune. But that's the dirty little secret no one wants to talk about.

The marginalization of implementation work. That requires an engineering-type mind that makes more money by increasing efficiency and lowering cost. Entrepreneurs in the marketing space don't have that. They take the opposite approach and just make more money instead of paying attention to those factors.

I raise this point because the lower end of the implementation work is quickly being marginalized, from the bottom and the top, and if you aren't setup to make money by selling strategy, research, and insight, you will disappear like the middle class is disappearing in political terms.

Great question, Craig.
In an ever-changing market, B2B marketers must always question and reevaluate what worked in the past and NOT take it for granted today!
Some B2B marketers tend to over-generalize. That could be a costly mistake.
Also B2B marketers need to stay alert to new trends and dig for technologies that can help them work smart not hard.

To be honest a lot of people in B2b are talking about social media but are they doing it in the right way. Here's a whitepaper on B2B social media which you may find interesting. If you have any questions after it, feel free to contact me.

http://www.siliconcloud.com/the-definitive-guide-to-b2b-social-media/

http://www.siliconcloud.com/contact/

This all depends on who your target market. The content should be relevant to them! Let me link you to a whitepaper to help you. Contact me if you have any questions!

http://www.siliconcloud.com/10-tips-for-a-winning-marketing-plan/

http://www.siliconcloud.com/contact/