Can a website redesign solve b2b marketing problem?

Perceived Marketing Problems

1. Not enough leads
2. Not enough MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads)
3. Not enough pipeline
4. Not enough marketing activity (blogs, social posts, etc.)
5. Not enough marketing attribution on that activity

Actual Marketing Problems, its not the b2b website

1. Unclear Target Customer:
   • Issue: Lack of a clear understanding of the exact target customer leads to generic and ineffective marketing efforts.
   • Solution: Develop detailed Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) through market research and customer feedback to identify and focus on the most valuable segments.
2. Unknown Customer Journey Position:
   • Issue: Not knowing where the customer stands in their journey makes it challenging to deliver the right message at the right time.
   • Solution: Map out the customer journey and identify key touchpoints where your marketing efforts can effectively engage and influence potential customers.
3. Lack of a Compelling Message:
   • Issue: Without a compelling message, it's difficult to capture the attention and interest of potential customers.
   • Solution: Create value propositions and messaging that resonate with your target audience by addressing their specific pain points and needs.
4. Inefficient Channels:
   • Issue: Not having an efficient and scalable channel limits your reach and impact.
   • Solution: Identify and optimize the most effective channels for your target audience. This might involve testing different channels and analyzing performance data to scale the successful ones.
5. Limited Resources/Expertise:
   • Issue: Lack of resources and expertise to scale the channels that are working can hinder growth.
   • Solution: Invest in building a skilled marketing team and consider external partnerships or tools that can help scale your efforts efficiently.
6. Insufficient Channel Testing:
   • Issue: Not properly testing new channels means missing out on potential growth opportunities.
   • Solution: Implement a systematic approach to test and evaluate new channels, ensuring a data-driven decision-making process for scaling successful ones.
7. Misalignment Between Marketing and Sales:
   • Issue: Lack of alignment between marketing and sales teams leads to disjointed efforts and missed opportunities.
   • Solution: Foster collaboration between marketing and sales to ensure a unified go-to-market (GTM) strategy and shared metrics for success.

Unified GTM View and Metrics:

Unified GTM Strategy:

• Importance: A unified GTM strategy ensures that all efforts are aligned towards common goals, creating a cohesive customer experience.
• Implementation: Collaborate across departments to build a comprehensive GTM plan that includes clear objectives, strategies, and metrics.

Unified GTM Metrics:

• Importance: Unified metrics help track progress and measure success across the entire customer journey, providing a holistic view of performance.
• Implementation: Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that are relevant to both marketing and sales, such as customer acquisition cost (CAC), customer lifetime value (CLV), and conversion rates.

Rebuilding the website is not a solution to the deeper marketing issues outlined. Instead, focusing on understanding your target customer, refining your messaging, optimizing and scaling efficient channels, and ensuring alignment between marketing and sales will address the root causes of your marketing challenges. By adopting a unified GTM approach with shared metrics, you can drive more effective and impactful marketing efforts that contribute to overall business growth.

Should your b2b marketing sell benefits or features?

Analysis of selling benefits versus features highlights a crucial nuance in effective marketing, particularly for SaaS companies. Here's a breakdown of why this approach can often miss the mark and how to refine it:

The Misinterpretation of "Selling Benefits"

Overemphasis on Ultimate Outcomes:

• Common Mistake: SaaS companies often focus on broad, ultimate outcomes such as increased revenue, improved ROI, or enhanced efficiency.
• Why It's a Problem: These outcomes are too generic and do not differentiate the product from numerous other solutions that promise the same results. They also inadvertently place the product in competition with a wide range of alternatives, including those that require less commitment and fewer resources.

Example: Marketing a car solely on the premise of "go more places" puts it in competition with various forms of transport and lifestyle choices that might be more convenient and less expensive.

The Importance of Specificity and Segmentation

Tailoring Benefits to Specific Needs:

• Segmentation: Benefits should be framed around the specific needs, environments, and situations of different customer segments.
• ICP Focus: Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) targeting is crucial. Marketing messages should address the unique challenges and circumstances of these specific groups rather than aiming broadly at the Total Addressable Market (TAM).

Example: Instead of promoting a car on "go more places," focus on benefits tailored to different segments:

• For families: Emphasize safety features, spaciousness, and convenience.
• For urban dwellers: Highlight compact design, fuel efficiency, and ease of parking.
• For adventure enthusiasts: Showcase off-road capabilities and durability.

Making Marketing Customer-Centric

Customer-Centric Messaging:

• Understanding the Customer's World: The real effectiveness in marketing comes from shaping messages through the lens of the customer’s specific world. This involves understanding their daily challenges, preferences, and the context in which they operate.
• Compelling Communication: By addressing how the product uniquely solves their particular problems or enhances their specific situation, the message becomes more compelling and resonant.

Example: For a SaaS product aimed at small businesses, instead of just saying "increase your revenue," the message could be tailored to:

• Automate routine tasks: "Spend more time on what you love by automating your daily admin tasks."
• Improve customer engagement: "Boost customer satisfaction with our easy-to-use CRM that keeps you connected with your clients."

Conclusion

Selling benefits over features is a good starting point, but it must be done with a deep understanding of the customer segments. By focusing on the specific needs and circumstances of these segments, and shaping messages to reflect their unique challenges and environments, SaaS companies can create more compelling and effective marketing strategies. This approach ensures that the benefits communicated are not just generic outcomes but are perceived as relevant, valuable solutions to the targeted audience's specific problems.