Majority of B2B Advertising is ‘Ineffective’
Recently, new research done by LinkedIn B2B Institute and System1 has revealed that 75% of B2B brands are unable to create advertising campaigns that lead to long-term growth. Such findings have surfaced only recently and will have significant influence on the B2B industry at large considering how disappointing they are.
The Research Process
As Clarke Jonas from the writing service reviews site Best Writers Online puts it, “Such research is important for different industries, but for B2B particularly. It helps B2B marketers and business owners better understand what they are doing wrong and correct it. For example, if you use free plagiarism software, you know about the importance of text originality, but many marketers might not be aware of it and could be making simple mistakes.””
The research analyzed 1600 B2B ads that were shown to 6 million people from all around the world during a six-year period. The research used System1’s FaceTrace emotional meter which rated ads on their contribution to long-term market growth.
The Findings
As Olivia Donovan, an expert on B2B content marketing from TopWritingReviews notes, “The findings of LinkedIn and System1 reveal a problem that many have either ignored or simply didn’t know about. Now that everyone is aware of it, we need to take the necessary measures to improve the methods we use to organize our B2B marketing campaigns.”
75% of all these ads received a one-star rating (or even less) which pretty much means that these ads didn’t contribute anything to long-term growth. Moreover, none of the ads managed to get a five-star rating which was the maximum score they could get.
A good five-star ad is the one that uses emotions, intensity, and fluidity and can help brands grow 3% on average in the long term. Such ads use characters and emotions, a story arc and a soundtrack, fluidity and intensity to promote brand awareness among the target audience. Yet, many B2B ad campaigns don’t have such elements or characteristics.
What this Means
As Sebastian Evans from the content marketing reviews site Online Writers Rating says, “Considering what B2B business owners usually value and what they tend to focus on when managing their businesses, it is only logical that such findings were eventually brought up. It’s upsetting but it’s the truth. We need to change the way we treat marketing for B2B.”
One-star ads usually mean that the brands behind them rely on categories instead of strength of the subject which means they focus on short-term results rather than long-term ones. Such treatment of marketing is actually the result of the way B2B companies function as opposed to B2C companies.
B2C companies primarily rely on marketing to deliver their products to their target audience and make these customers come back for more. B2B companies, on the other hand, have this kind of reliance on their products that prompts them to focus more on product development and sales rather than marketing.
As a consequence, B2B companies don’t use as much creativity in their marketing campaigns. These are rational people who don’t think a creative approach will benefit them which is why they don’t use creative marketing as much.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, it’s definitely worth looking at this research and using it to improve your own B2B marketing strategy. Use the recommendations from this article to work on your B2B ad campaigns and establish a long-term relationship with your target audience.