Why I now love B2B
Opinion | The Future of Planning, Strategy and Innovation Week in Focus
Spirit Media’s CEO offers planning and strategy tips for getting the best out of B2B.
Having spent over 30 years mainly in larger or group media agencies, I haven’t had much experience dealing with B2B campaigns and the plethora of B2B trade publishers out there.
Generally, I think some larger agencies don’t really like to handle the B2B elements of an advertiser’s budget, maybe doing it begrudgingly as part of a wider contract.
It takes quite a lot of effort for the budgets typically involved; there is usually some learning to do, as it isn’t the standard publisher set for most agencies, and there is quite often a fine line to tread between the publisher being a supplier and being an absolutely vital conduit for PR to the sector.
But since starting my indie agency career a few years back, I have built up a wealth of experience in the area and found it fascinating, and also a huge opportunity, largely because of how little actual media planning and buying seems to go into the campaigns that most advertisers are running.
Of course, for some brands B2B is all there is, and quite often those brands decide to handle it themselves for some of the above reasons. But that often leads publishers to offer cookie-cutter solutions that lack innovation. Plus, some of the costs are, quite frankly, daylight robbery, with publishers charging whatever they fancy, again for some of the reasons mentioned above.
These factors likely lead many brands to default to LinkedIn, which is taking an increasing share of the B2B pie because of its ubiquity and ease of activation. There is nothing wrong with LinkedIn, but any brand that is selling to business and ignoring the relevant trade press is missing an opportunity.
Planning for B2B
So here are a few thoughts for those entering the B2B world, or hoping to up their game….
If you are an agency, the first thing, of course, is to identify the primary titles you need to focus on.
The great thing here is the brand team is probably the best judge of that. Agencies aren’t likely to be in the category day-to-day, unless it is marketing. So use that. It’s a team effort.
Agencies add value elsewhere. It doesn’t show weakness not to be an expert on day one, although reading your client’s trade press is a really good way to understand the sector better in any case.
The brand team will know that typically there are a couple of really strong titles, and a few others who are just printing press releases, and pretty much ‘made for advertising’. This is important. You are buying into the inherent trust that these publishers hold with their audiences. If you can’t identify the most trusted titles, you will at best waste money and at worst devalue your brand.
Of course, your brand may not be sector-specific. You might be a tech product relevant to all sorts of verticals. This adds a layer of identifying the key sectors to focus on, or potentially adding job/role (rather than industry)- specific titles, but the principles are the same.
Beyond that, it’s just good media planning and buying.
Understand how your audience uses the trade press
First, understand how your audience uses the press in their category and what role it fills in their professional life. In some cases, it is virtually part of the day job, for example, reading the media or marketing trade press if you are a media buyer/seller or marketer, or reading the fleet titles if you manage a large fleet of vehicles, perhaps.
That kind of reading is encouraged by your bosses and often done during the day at the desk. In other cases it’s more of a personal choice, probably more down to an individual’s interest in their job, and ambition to climb the ladder, and that might be on the commute (if there is one) or in spare time away from the desk.
You also have to recognise where your brand fits into your audience’s working pattern, and this flows into the role of your comms, which then shapes the plan.
If you are a bank targeting mortgage brokers, for instance, expecting significant click-through is unrealistic; the role is primarily about product awareness and consideration. The action comes later, when the broker is dealing with a customer’s specific needs.
The other observation, as mentioned earlier, is the lack of innovation.
Partner with a trade publisher
Responses to most briefs are pretty standard, and most brands seem to accept that. But many trade publishers are very keen to innovate, and happy to create new formats or opportunities for brands willing to engage with them.
It is important to define innovation in this case. It doesn’t have to be something completely new to the world, just fresh to that publisher or to the sector.
But most brands seem to ignore the need to be interesting and useful, not just interruptive, especially when they’re eating into the reader’s leisure time.
Whatever their specific situation or sector, what ties the readers of trade titles together is their desire to be better at their job. So if you can help them with that, beyond just what your company or product does, you will win. That usually means creating content as part of your campaign, but it can also mean ensuring your ads are placed in the right context and on the right pages.
When looking at content, keep it fresh
Keep working with key publishers to create new formats or use new channels. The good old 800-1000 word advertorial, targeted email and newsletters have their place, but so do more frequent 200-word topical insight pieces, or video/podcast interviews. Go deep with your publisher partners to find the right balance.
Consistency is also key; try to think long-term. But keep it fresh. Frequency can be incredibly high for regular readers.
Lastly, negotiate, gently. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, and amazingly, lots of buyers don’t ask.
