In today’s competitive B2B landscape, companies are constantly seeking effective growth channels to drive engagement and revenue. However, many organizations fall into common pitfalls when leveraging conventional strategies such as podcast guest posting, email marketing, partner co-promotions, and influencer marketing. By failing to focus on valuable content, committing insufficiently to initiatives, and lacking a clear strategy, these companies often miss out on significant opportunities for growth.
Podcast guest posting
B2B companies pitch themselves or company leaders often get interviewed on podcasts that cater to the target audience. Also, podcast guest post is also carried out in webinar format.
Focus only on founders
The podcasts are focused more on the founder or story and less on valuable insights or real data/experience – This makes the content less compelling and less likely to drive action.
Inconsistency
Companies do only a few podcasts (e.g. 3-4) and then conclude podcasts don’t work as a channel. They often don’t even set up direct attribution to track results. The solution is to commit to at least 20-30 podcasts to properly test the channel.
Lack of industry focus
If you do 20 podcasts across 10 different industries, you don’t get the “density effect” of folks hearing about you multiple times on the shows they listen to in your target market. It’s rare to see a brand do 30+ podcasts hyper-focused on one industry like SaaS or ecommerce without seeing a revenue impact.
If you do, then you can benefit from the compounding effect and eventually the content will grow.
Email Marketing
Lack of objectivity
The newsletter is an amalgamation of ten different objectives. B2B companies send out product updates, promos, company news, use cases, and best resources of the week and on and on. There is no clear expectation that when someone hears from them, it will be about topic X.
The email marketing campaigns should be structured with specific themes aligning with the business objectives.
The goals are mismatched to the type of content they send
If you want to drive more conversions, leverage bottom-of-funnel content. A promo, a comparison article, a relevant use case, a link to a good third party artice that positions you well.
If you want to build pipeline, have content that builds trust and has topical relevance. With segmented audience and relevant content type, you will see your email as a performance channel and not as a branding channel.
Not following timelines
Due to marketing approval processes within B2B companies, marketing teams cannot follow correct timelines. If you want the audience hooked to your marketing materials, then there is no point in putting in effort.
To do this correctly, tell the audience exactly when you will contact them and about what on intake “Each Friday at 8AM PST I will send you a use case about a Problem in your industry and How we can help you” is a good example.
Partner Co-promotions
Doing a one-time partnership and forgetting about it
Teams try a one-and-done. This almost never works. Brands that effectively co-promote show up consistently in front of each other’s audiences with a combination of email, blogs, social, and owned assets. It’s the consistent attachment that builds trust and drives action from each side’s base.
Neil Patel and Eric Sui have done this quite nicely. They create a bunch of reels, audio podcasts, and webinars on specific marketing topics. They have scaled their audio podcast to 200M downloads and highly relevant traffic to the Neil Patel website or Ubersuggest.
Aiming for unnecessary perfection
Teams get tied up in unnecessary detailing and move slowly. The best partners take the initiative and get some wins on the board fast. For example, you could spend 30 min on Reddit and answer a dozen industry-relevant questions by inserting a partner brand or dropping a social post highlighting your favorite tech. This urgency or execution efforts not only captures attention but also demonstrates a dynamic partnership
Lack of storytelling
They lack creativity/storytelling. Your audience doesn’t like to be “sold to” and if you have a segment of your newsletter that just says “Check out our friends at [Company x], they do great stuff” it will almost assuredly drive zero trials.
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is the hot thing in 2024 and yet most folks do a dismal job here.
No tracking data
Companies need a way You need a way to track it. If you just pay for impressions, have no direct attribution and try a few one-off influencer campaigns, you almost always will burn five figures and walk away with a shrug when asked if it worked.
Instead, use direct attribution, try and get folks to use affiliate links were possible, or do a bunch of your influencer work in a focused industry, and have the posts go up during a specific time window, then you can check any aggregate changes for say “Product form fills during this week” or “Page visitors” when 10 influencers posted about us.
Non trustworthy Influencers
Work with influencers that actually use the product. The difference in advocacy from folks who use and understand the product vs those who are just paid to promote is quite significant.
Invest in Long-Term Relationships
Rather than one-off campaigns, consider building long-term partnerships with influencers who align with your brand values and target audience for sustained engagement and credibility.
B2B companies in the manufacturing industry might have only explored Email marketing and Partner promotions. Podcasts and Influencer based marketing are still new to traditional B2B industries. B2B companies must reevaluate their conventional growth channels by focusing on strategic commitments rather than superficial efforts. Whether through podcasts, email marketing, co-promotions, or influencer partnerships, a more thoughtful approach can lead to enhanced engagement and ultimately drive business growth. Use these tips as a strating point on executing the above marketing channels to perfection.
