What B2B marketing techniques haven't worked for you?

I'll probably get heat for this, but cold email/outbound prospecting. I've had so many more leads coming from "organic" sources, like forums and social media. I think it highly highly depends on which market you're in.

I've tried cold email outreach a few times. In my case, it has only worked when targeting partners. One of my biggest mistakes then was to not segment the database/audience correctly.

The more contextualized the message is for the prospect, the more chances to convert. Now I think that done right, depending on the industry/product/target, it works. It requires more time, investigating, segmenting the messages by buyer persona and so on, but it works. So this starts with a buyer persona analysis.

Also, one of my biggest mistakes back then was to buy databases that wouldn't be updated or too generic, even when being specific about things like position or industry. So manual, old-school prospecting/research delivers better results.

Another mistake I did was not following up accordingly. So I would think that it was just about creating automations and that's it. Mistake. Some contacts might need a phone call, or a Linkedin message or even a visit depending on the type of service you are in, the sales cycle and the average ticket per sale.

Hi,

Cold email outreach.

This is an interesting idea in theory but in practice there simply is too much missing information to make it practical.

Someone says, "Email marketing didn't work for me."

OK, and it may well be a bad leadgen source for that target market.

But...

...how many times did they try?

...what was the message they sent, and was it demonstrated to be a match with the audience?

...what was the Call To Action? and was that the right one?


Most people give up very, very early and after having tried something that was not tested to statistical relevance. In other words, they tried one thing one way and for nowhere near long enough.

I tried SEO once.

Honestly, I've made a sale in any method I've tried long enough, with enough effort. As long as you're not doing the same thing, expecting new results. What I mean is, if you're using a cold approach, pay close attention to the objections, continuously fine tune your approach. I think it's a matter of what works best with your specific skill set.

What's worked best for me is when consumers have reached out to the business and specifically ask for our product. Always nice to have your customer call you.

That being said, one of my biggest customers have came from a cold approach. Did some research to find out about the business, sent a letter, along with a sample, to the business introducing ourselves and showing them what we have to offer. Got a phone call a week later with the biggest order I had yet to receive.

It's not a fail until you give up. Everything in between is opportunities to learn and improve.

I've tried some offline direct mail back in January (which admittedly i'm not the best at), and the campaign was a disaster. But i'm getting better, and have found that mixing business cards and flyers - along with joint venture proposals - significantly help when trying to stimulate business offline in my local area.

My cold email worked, but just not as efficiently as I wanted. But I can not say that everything was bad. I analyzed my approach and will try again.

I have tried SEO, email promotion, FB and google ads. I want to get the traffic and find my wholesale buyers for my website. But all of this needs time to make the sales.

If you're in that same boat, allow me to catch you up: Y2K never happened, Beanie Babies were a bad investment, and B2B buyers now have instant, unlimited access to information via a tiny, internet-connected screen that fits in their pocket.

B2B buying has always been a tricky process. That hasn't changed, even with all the digital tools and resources available. Why? Because most B2B marketers and business owners, while they have adopted some digital tools and created digital content--haven't altered their overall B2B marketing strategy. A new study from marketing research firm Gartner found that despite the proliferation of digital access, 77 percent of B2B buyers still feel that making a purchase is time-consuming and even painful.

Yeah,most of as do not succeed online or take years struggling searching what exactly to do or simply things do not go well!
Here the only thing which can help go where you want to go and get what you want is to know what you want and never give up.......