Current Challenges Facing B2B Marketers and How Companies Have Adapted Competitively to the New B2B Realities

The uniqueness of B2B businesses as opposed to B2C businesses in many respects means that the challenges facing B2B marketers differ to those experienced by their B2C counterparts. For this reason and the fact that each B2B business has its own unique prospects, B2B marketers are forced to create their own unique strategies which accommodate well for their industry needs, as well as the needs of their prospects, and their individual businesses. The matching of prospect needs, wants and pains with an accommodating marketing strategy, as well as the timeliness, speed and strength of the execution is extremely important in ensuring lead generation and conversion leading to increasing sales. Many of these concepts are in some way or another tied into the current marketing challenges faced by B2B marketers (Proteus Marketing, 2010).

One of the greatest challenges currently facing marketers in B2B businesses has to do with lead generation. Historically lead generation involved presenting a product or service at trade fairs, or having a display set up in order to entice buyers to fill in a quote request form. A more modern lead generation approach involves the use of the internet to promote and advertise a specific product or service using informational sites or directories. An online quote request form is also attached which enables the buyer to request a quote at their leisure and to receive a speedy response. Also there are now agencies set up that specialise in providing leads to businesses through developing websites or having partnerships with several websites on which they will promote the product or service. Buyers then complete online quote request forms on these sites and these requests are matched with specific providers (Lake, 2011).

Two of the problems faced with regards to leads are that of generating high quality and high volume of leads. Generating high quality leads, according to Marketingsherpa’s B2B marketing Benchmark survey in August 2010, is...