The Big Mistake in B2B Product Marketing that People Keep Making

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Hii everyone!

I hope we are having a bit of fun as we are learning about different types of marketing. 

Today under Product Marketing, we will be talking about The Big Mistake in B2B Product Marketing that People Keep Making as well as making profits as a company. 

Let's get right into it. 

One of the biggest and most common mistakes in B2B product marketing is failing to ask this critical question: “Am I selling a strategic or non-strategic purchase?”

Without realizing it, most people market their products as strategic purchases because they’re not even aware that the question above needs to be asked. This leads to a number of critical marketing errors:

  • Spending way too much time trying to differentiate your product from competitors when customers just don’t care
  • Failure to generate pipeline because marketing-captured leads aren’t converting into demo requests, free trials, and sales calls
  • Failure to close opportunities because Sales is pushing strategic attributes that are irrelevant
  • Over-emphasis on benefits when customers care more about features. 

To determine if your product is a strategic purchase, ask yourself: “Does my product help customers differentiate their product to their customers?”

Keep in mind that our focus is on B2B. Remember that B2B is Business to Business, so the customer of Business A is Business B.

For example,

JungleScout is a strategic purchase because it helps Amazon sellers make critical strategic decisions about what new products to add to their portfolios. Those product offerings differentiate Amazon sellers from one another. This is strategic purchasing. 

SnapEngage, on the other hand, is a non-strategic purchase. It is a live chat plugin for your website that doesn’t exactly change how you differentiate yourself to customers.


When you are marketing a non-strategic purchase, you shouldn’t waste time on differentiation and making unnecessary price concessions. Instead, focus on elements that will help lubricate the sales process, such as:

  • Risk-free cancellations with a money-back guarantee
  • Free onboarding with custom configurations
  • Access to senior consultants


Finally, if you fail to ask whether your product is a strategic purchase, your positioning, sales enablement, and demand generation will all miss the mark and you may end up making huge mistakes and not attracting the right customers to your platform for the right reasons. 


Now to Profits....

Profit = Revenue - Expenses. 

For a clear breakdown; 

Revenue= average price * quantity

Expenses = average cost * quantity

That means; Profit = (Price - Cost) * Quantity. Easy mathematics, don't you think?

For a clear example, if you make $2,000,000 in revenue and spent $1,200,000 in initial expenses, it means your profit was $800,000. 

As a marketer, you are focused on generating more revenue. To increase revenue, there are two approaches;

  • Sell more or,
  • Raise price.
In a general sense, raising prices is easier than selling more because;

To sell more you need;
  • more customers 
  • more frequency of transactions
  • increased transaction size. 
And these things aren't easy tasks. You have no control over customers. If they purchase from you, it's because they want to. 

A company's main purpose is not to increase profit. Its purpose is to have a high ROI. It should be efficient at generating profit not just generating as much profit as possible if that makes sense. 

As a marketer, you're interested in a couple of things;
  • Generating profit; increasing revenue
  • Maintaining focus where competitive advantages exist.
Finally, advanced marketing doesn't just mean spending money so long as a profit is generated. It is about investing in areas where competitive advantages exist and building these competitive advantages, 

This course might be a lot but it'll get easier as we keep going. So, stick with me here. 

Till the next post. 

Franny.

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