Navigating the B2B marketing space can feel like walking through a maze, especially for beginners... there's a lot to take in. To make your journey smoother, let's debunk seven prevalent B2B marketing myths.
All B2B buyers behave logically and rationally
Cold calling and cold email are the only strategies
B2B marketing is really expensive
It needs to be serious
LinkedIn is the only platform for B2B
It’s only worth it for really big businesses
Social media ads aren’t effective for B2B
Myth #1: All B2B buyers behave logically and rationally 🧠
Reality:
While logic and data play a part, let's not forget that B2B buyers are humans, swayed by emotions and personal aspirations.
Many want to impress colleagues, climb the corporate ladder, or simply feel validated in their choices.
Therefore, your marketing strategy should:
Address both emotional and rational needs.
Cater your ads, content + funnels to different seniority levels, as needs may differ.
Not only entice them but also arm them with logical arguments for internal discussions.
Three potential angles to focus on with your ads and content are:
Reducing the ball-ache and effort of their work
Make the individuals look good to bosses/peers
Make you more money!
Myth #2: Cold calling and cold email are the only strategies 📞
Reality:
Traditional tactics like cold calls and emails might seem like the B2B standard, but there's a world of opportunity out there.
A lot of B2B businesses marketing is outdated... Especially small businesses!
They’ll have a few (or many) bored, unmotivated, unguided sales/marketing people being given a list of barely qualified prospects to call and email.
These people don’t want to be contacted like this and it’s draining for everyone involved.
Plus just doesn’t make sense with all that’s possible out there?
To add in to these time consuming, ineffective and expensive (in terms of staff) and frankly quite annoying tactics...
I could throw in exhibitions/conferences which are hideously expensive and ‘networking’ which is a bunch of people in a room trying to sell each other.
Wouldn’t it be better to use the marketing strategies that are scalable, work while you sleep and gradually persuade, inform and even entertain people into turning from a stranger to interested to a qualified lead?
Some companies, especially in the B2B SaaS industries get this and go massive on digital marketing, content, lead magnets and social media advertising to reach customers with information around their pain points where their attention is.
Replicate how you buy stuff in normal life.
Imagine if a sales rep from Nike or Gymshark tried calling you up all the time asking for 30 seconds to "hear about our products"!
Myth #3: B2B marketing is really expensive 💰
Reality:
While mega-corporations have deep pockets, that doesn't define the B2B scene.
But also because a lot of the content/guides/videos like this or even marketing agencies serving the market are all created for these huge enterprise businesses.
Multi millions in budget, thousands of staff in well-paid middle management roles shuffling PO’s and paper from one side of the desk to another because someone in Silicon Valley made an amazingly profitable product 20/30 years ago.
But that’s not the majority of B2B businesses.
We know, work with, have worked in smaller B2B companies.
Accountants, IT services, Marketing agencies, Research agencies, sales companies.
These are the vast majority of B2B businesses who sometimes shy away from an actual marketing strategy and rely on grafting with sales.
But it doesn’t have to be this way...
Not everything is vastly expensive.
We have B2B clients who we routinely generate hot leads every single month from marketing budgets from £1k per month.
We pick the right channel, with the right offer and these leads can regularly convert to 10s of thousands of pounds in yearly revenue making the ROI on these campaigns colossal and setting up their business to grow without breaking the bank!
Myth #4: It needs to be serious 😴
Reality:
Why why is B2B marketing so boring? So crap.
So uncreative.
Stock images and copy that’s written in a way no human ever speaks to another human...
No wonder most of it doesn’t work!
People are too scared to create something that might slightly piss someone off it ends up being bland beyond belief.
And doesn’t hook or convert ANYBODY.
That is one of the biggest issues is like we said in point 1 people look at it in a weird way and think oh we are a business talking to a business so we can’t use any humour, or emotion and just end up being abit fucking weird and overly formal and it doesn’t work.
It’s human to human.
Be creative and create something that stands out.
If it pisses off/ angers/ turns off/ pushes away 10% of your audience- fucking great as it will likely pull in a similar amount much closer than your other marketing ever would.
Myth #5: LinkedIn is the only platform for B2B 💼
Reality:
Yes LinkedIn is great for B2B marketing, yes its where people who work ‘in business’ look busy in between meetings.
Yes it has great targeting tools with their ads platforms allowing you to target individuals by their job roles, seniorities, companies they work for and what products/services they are interested in buying.
BUT it's not the lone one! Platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and even Reddit offer tremendous potential for B2B marketing.
Right now you may have come here from a clip off Instagram or TikTok.
I keep hammering home this point... People are people!
Target people where their attention is.
We’re seeing awesome results and examples of B2B brands and campaigns generating leads day in day out from TikTok and Twitter.
Reddit, Quora and more can do the same if you can answer people’s problems and build trust.
Work with your strengths and again look at your own screen time.
Facebook and TikTok’s algorithms are the strongest in terms of feeding people content they are interested in so be specific and make it obvious who you’re speaking to, filtering out those who AREN’T your target audience is equally important.
I bet Twitter will get there too under Elon’s guidance and work on the algorithm as it’s already improving and amazing in the world we’re in for ad agencies/marketers/ business owners
Myth #6: It’s only worth it for really big businesses 🏢
Reality:
B2B marketing is often associated with large companies, but businesses of all sizes can benefit from effective B2B marketing strategies.
Like earlier points with the budget and being boring. It’s along the same lines.
Don't fall into the trap of presuming B2B marketing can't be done by your business!
If anything B2B marketing is EVEN more important for smaller businesses who know they have a good product or service and are eager to grow!
A battle-tested strategy we use for small B2B businesses and services is:
record a few short video pitches (so what you’d pitch a prospect in a meeting room)
This pitch needs highlighting your target audience’s pain points drawing them in and then introduce your amazing solution and a call to action
Run a few versions of this video to lead forms/ landing pages to a few different audiences as an ad campaign on either TikTok, LinkedIn or Facebook (tutorials for all 3 are available on our YouTube channel)
This lean, mean strategy is purpose-built for small B2B services to get more leads, more often from sensible budgets
Rather than wasting time on pointless crap that doesn’t deliver ACTUAL tangible results and revenue!
Myth #7: Social media ads aren’t effective for B2B 🤳
Reality: Now we’ve hinted at this a few times...Social media advertising.
Paying to appear on people's social media feeds.
So why is this amazing for B2B organisations?
People don’t care about your bake sale or your staffs charity run or any of the other organic content you slave away over and no-one actually see’s because they probably follow quite a lot more interesting things on their socials.
Like pictures of puppies, pizza places and previous exes posing!
So how to get their attention...? You pay!
Just like the leading B2C ecommerce organisations.
There is a reason this is the underlying play for ALL those big businesses
It works.
And the targeting capabilities which I’ve mentioned can work SO well for B2B as you can laser-target people who you know will be interested and even more exciting is RETARGETING people who are already interested and considering buying from you.
Plus these systems work for people selling £30 t shirts, and kitchen gadgets.
So what about applying the best practices to them for your 5 and 6 figure service contracts or products?
That’s why we love this industry and our clients love us.
Because it’s not yet common.
And most that are aware of it are not experts like us and are doing a shit job.
So if you’re a B2B business you’re basically like a Premier League player playing in a Sunday league match full of hungover idiots
Time for your NEW commandments for B2B marketing...
1.All B2B buyers behave logically and rationally B2B buyers are people with humans and desires
2.Cold calling and cold email are the only strategies Focus on scalable systems that generate leads while you sleep
3.B2B marketing is really expensive Start small, test what works and grow
4.It needs to be serious Be the ones that stand out. Funny or controversial. But be you
5.LinkedIn is the only platform for B2B TikTok can do wonders in finding your audience
6.It’s only worth it for really big businesses 1 man B2B businesses/services could be the future
7.Social media ads aren’t effective for B2B Start using targeted B2B ads on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube as well as LinkedIn
8.And if you are busy- work with us!