The best that most B2B companies achieve with their online marketing programs is "average performance through a favorite tactic and/or advertising partner," states Ben Hanna in a post at the B2B Online Marketing blog. But why are their results so blah when there's an abundance of phenomenal success stories at sites like MarketingProfs describing the exact opposite, he asks? Because, he explains, there are four main traps that keep B2B marketers from "truly optimizing online marketing performance." Avoid these at all cost, he warns:

1. Viewing business buying as an event, not a process. A full 94% of B2B marketers "have no insight into how their online marketing programs impact anything other than the last event before a conversion or purchase," Hanna writes, because Web analytics simply don't provide the whole picture.
2. Believing that business buyers seek optimal solutions. What they really seek is the easiest one. B2B companies lose sales to vendors that buyers already do business with, Hanna notes, because "business buyers seek to reduce the time and risks inherent in building a new vendor relationship."
3. Misunderstanding how business buyers use the Internet. Two sub-traps are at work here, Hanna says: Focusing B2B marketing programs on a few major traffic sources; and misapplying strategy, tactics and metrics that work on one campaign or traffic source to another.
4. When you have a hammer, thinking everything looks like a nail. "If you spend 95% of your time on Google AdWords campaigns and are asked to improve overall online ROI, how [will] you respond?" Hanna asks. Don't stay stuck in one rut, he warns.

The Po!nt: Ruts turn into traps. Online marketing is evolving too rapidly for B2B teams to keep up with everything, Hanna points out. The key to survival? Keep an open mind and maintain flexibility, he advises.

Source: B2B Online Marketing. Read the full post.

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