Have you noticed a drop in your engagement metrics? Experiencing a prolonged sales slump?

Then you may suffer from a common B2B go to market strategy problem:  Failure to resonate with your target audience.

What’s causing this? A likely culprit is your competitors. They’ve cut into your market share by:

• Launching a new product

• Unveiling a flashy new brand

• Pursuing aggressive paid media campaigns

• Executing an effective organic content marketing strategy

Or your buyers may be to blame. Customers’ behaviors change. Their needs evolve. If you’re not evolving with them, they will seek other companies that will meet them where they are.

Regardless of the root cause, the situation is frustrating because if you already have a go-to-market strategy then you’ve likely spent time and money:

• Gaining a deep understanding of your customers

• Creating engaging messaging

• Properly positioning your brand in the marketplace

In theory, your strategy should work. But in reality? Well, that’s just not always the case.

Here’s some good news: You have the power to fix engagement and revenue woes. But you must be bold and confront this challenge directly by intentionally disrupting your go-to-market strategy.

Unsure where to start? Let's look at three proven strategic pivots designed to break your status quo and restore relevancy to your business.

Here are three ways to improve your B2B go-to-market strategy.

1)    Rethink your brand strategy

This may be right for you if you’re:

• Launching a new company or brand

• Planning a brand refresh or update

• Navigating a merger or acquisition

When it comes to your brand strategy, clearly communicating your value will always be a top priority. Your brand strategy should be informed by research that examines your market niche within your industry, competition, ideal target customers, and differentiators.

From this research, you need to develop consistent brand guidelines, spanning both design and messaging. Ideally, you’ll also have strong value proposition statements that differentiate your company from the rest of the pack.

START Responsible Aluminium, a new Rio Tinto initiative, recently experienced these brand strategy challenges. START launched in response to marketplace demand for better transparency and traceability across aluminium mining.

While there’s no doubt the blockchain solution carries valuable potential, the START team knew they needed to articulate their value in a concise, simplified way to resonate with their target audience.

Additionally, creating an intuitive website that provides a great experience for both internal users and target audiences became a key part of establishing their brand.

A strong website is crucial to building a solid brand identity as it’s the focal touchpoint between your brand and target audience. For START, the new website had to relay their modern and innovative solution through elegant design and bold copywriting.

Where should you start?

Regardless of whether you’re an established or new brand, start by building a solid value-based foundation. Exercises like persona development and brand messaging will give you a clear understanding of the unique value you provide and help you effectively communicate that to customers in an engaging, consistent way.

2)    Rethink your B2B buying journey

 This may be right if you’re:

• A SaaS company

• Looking to move to a product-led sales model

• Wanting to modernize and streamline your sales approach

Digital transformation changed the buyer’s journey forever. Now, people want more control of their buying experience, including how and when they interact with sales teams to complete a purchase.

The shift toward greater buyer control comes with an expectation: You need to showcase your product’s value faster. This concept is widely known as “time-to-value.”

A proven method for getting your customers to experience value faster is by disrupting your traditional sales and marketing structure, and replacing it with a product-led growth model.

What, exactly, does that mean? It means creating a self-serve approach for customers where they can immediately experience your product and discover its value for themselves. Often, this involves a free trial of the software or other product.

Where should you start?

Because a product-led model requires substantial process realignment, partnering with a trusted, experienced outside strategist is a good idea. A partner can critically examine your company and supply unbiased feedback to inform and structure your new product-led approach.

3)    Rethink your storytelling

This may be right for you if:

• Your business story is complex, and you need a simpler way to tell it

• You serve multiple audiences with unique needs

• Customers want more content from you

Unlike the B2C space, B2B can quickly become complex and overwhelming for buyers searching for specific information. For companies that target multiple industries and serve numerous types of buyers—all with unique needs—telling your brand story is difficult. And ensuring that story differentiates you from competitors? Even harder.

So how can you improve your storytelling to ensure it resonates with your buyers?

For one of our clients—U.S. Borax, a Rio Tinto company—telling a better story meant helping customers understand how the company’s products play an essential role in modern life. We helped them pair this new storytelling approach with a full site redesign, which provided a better structure for communicating their message.

Developing a better story and building a better site included:

• Customer research

• Interviews with subject matter experts

• Detailed wireframes

• Copywriting

• Technical development

Now U.S. Borax has a brand story that resonates with all their buyers across the different industries they serve.

This is not an easy feat. It’s difficult to create a story that accentuates your value and then take it one step further by tailoring it to distinct audiences. (Member-based organizations are especially prone to this challenge.)

Where should you start?
Developing a story that’s worth telling requires research and deep self-examination. You must understand your:

• Customers

• Competition

• Users’ digital experience

This foundation gives you clear and comprehensive insight into how you can differentiate your brand in the marketplace by telling a better story and sharing information where your customers like to consume it, like blogs, infographics, whitepapers, podcasts, and more. 

You’re ready. Reclaim your market share today.

You’ve seen the warning signs—now it’s time to do something before it’s too late. Whether that means rethinking your brand strategy, buyer’s journey, or storytelling, remember to be bold and stay true to your customers.

If any of the points we covered in the blog resonated with you, reach out for more information. We’d be happy to share more client examples that may help you drive essential momentum toward your marketing goals.