B2B marketers are often pushed and pulled between opposing forces, leading to murky data strategies and unclear marketing goals.
With regard to data, B2B marketers often are under pressure to expand their audience in a quest for scale while balancing the need to focus on highly targeted personas who are the most relevant to maximize efficiency and results.
And you can throw in another conundrum: Marketers must now adhere to strict privacy regulations, but they are driven to amass ever increasing customer data to reach customers more effectively.
As for goals, B2B marketers are supposed to be "customer obsessed," but they must also push out messaging based on internal product priorities, which may not always align with a customer's wish list.
Everyone is looking for a quick win, despite longer buying cycles and buyers' availing themselves of the wealth of research material that is at their fingertips today. Consider one study that found 96% of B2B marketers expect an advertising campaign to yield results within two weeks, despite the reality that most B2B marketing buying journeys can take months or even years.
With so many opposing forces at work, many B2B marketers end up with a hodgepodge of goals, data, and strategies meant to appease both sides of these push-pull battles.
As Forrester observes, "poor data quality, poor data accessibility, and a lack of clarity and/or alignment pertaining to business goals and objectives stand in the way of progress."
To build a better data strategy, marketers need a "north star" to focus on that can help them prioritize and move forward rather than constantly swing back and forth.
One approach that can help clarify a B2B marketing strategy is the concept of ethical marketing, which respects consumer rights and privacy while using data responsibly for marketing purposes.
Solving the Personalization/Privacy Marketing Conundrum
Of course, marketers strive to be ethical in that they follow privacy best-practices, but true ethical marketing goes a step further, at all times considering the question, "What is in the customer's best interest?"
Gartner addressed the "push-pull" tension in B2B marketing when it uncovered that 86% of B2B customers expect the business that markets to them to be well informed about their personal information while still wanting that data to be private and secure.
B2B customers want personalization and privacy, and ethical marketing can guide marketers in the right direction.
Ethical marketing is not characterized by being customer-obsessed or even customer-centric. It is focused not on delighting a customer, but on respecting and understanding them.
That approach can be more relevant in a business setting, especially during the prospecting phase, when buyers don't have a lot of patience or time and have a very high bar for trust that a marketer must strive to reach. Time pressure forces many decision-makers to make snap judgements as they scroll through inboxes, delete emails, scan content, and ignore messages—often making decisions in milliseconds.
In that reality, relevance and respect are critical.
In addition to data privacy, ethical marketing includes the following:
- Transparency and trust. When companies are transparent about how they collect, store, and use data—including customer behavior, campaign analytics, or intent signals—they create a foundation of honesty. Clients are more likely to engage when they know their data won't be misused or exploite d, and understand why they have been contacted—because the subject matter is relevant.
- Thoughtful interactions. No one wants to be pestered or spammed. Following ethical marketing best-practices ensures that customer communication preferences are prioritized. That could include reducing the frequency of outreach, eliminating people from a marketing list who are on the fringe or unresponsive for a long time, asking people for their communication preferences, and, even more important, respecting those preferences.
- Values-driven marketing. Ethical marketing also encompasses the concept of values, which includes everything from honesty and integrity to sustainability and diversity. A company committed to honest interactions will not oversell its capabilities; it will live up to its promises; and it will attract customers that align with its values.
Ethical Marketing at Work
Consider a typical scenario. A senior marketer is feeling pressure from executives to drive pipeline to help the sales team reach quarterly goals. That pressure can often create an "all hands on deck" situation during which marketers push out more messaging to more leads than they normally would, making outsized promises. That approach might lead to a few new leads of questionable quality in the short term, but it might turn off a host of potential leads that would have turned into great customers in the long term.
If marketers can get stakeholder support, they can build a more durable model for the long term.
Step One is to build a high-quality data program of transparent and reliable data, which adds a layer of confidence for marketers. But they can't squander it. Respecting customers and prospects means deeply understanding their needs and preferences to personalize messaging and cadence.
A marketer with a strong ethical marketing program in place wouldn't open the floodgates to reach as many people as possible or make big claims. They'd think about ways they might put together a targeted campaign that could entice a qualified audience. That campaign might not yield near-term leads as quickly as the other approach, but it will establish credibility that will build on itself over time. No more muddled marketing.
When customers and prospects feel protected and respected, they also become better references and more loyal customers, delivering another layer of value to the marketer who focuses on the ethical approach.
Although ethical marketing can take time to establish, it will set a company apart in a crowded and noisy market, building trust and engagement, which are proven to deliver better results.
Implementing ethical marketing strategies make sense, and they help your brand and ultimately yield better results. Now that's a value system we can all get behind.
