We’ve been doing some digital marketing work recently and the more and more time I spend on digital work the more beasts I feel need to be slain.

NB: I’m talking specifically about B2B marketing here – which is important. It’s important because many of the problems that B2B marketers face come from taking a “copy and paste” approach from B2C in to B2B. But I think these two jobs are completely different.

Myth 1 – A/B testing is valid when writing copy

i’m not a fan of A/B testing generally, mostly for statistical reasons – these tests are almost never done on a large enough volume to be valid. But even if you did have an enormous data set, would it still be useful?

I don’t think so. When potential customers are looking for a product that fulfils their needs, the language that you use, particularly on a digital advert, has to be as good as perfect as it can be. Not just the words, the insight, the phrasing, the context and so on. We’ve all seen ads where the copy is just “not quite right”. Are you presenting your product In the most appropriate way? Should you be describing a feature or the advantages and benefits? Should you be targeting someone more senior or more junior? Should the wording be laser focused on a specific use case, or more generic?

The answers to these questions won’t come from an A/B test. They will come from sitting in front of a customer talking to them about their business and drivers, then finding a way to formulate that into something appealing and simple. And that’s why marketing is such an interesting discipline to work in!

Myth 2 – More is better

Surely if you have 10 different messages going out to customers about 10 different value propositions, that’s better than one or two? Surely?

I don’t think so. I love the phrase “You will get bored of your marketing before your customers do”. If we are lucky, very lucky then our customers will be able to remember one thing about us, about what we do. It might be something like “Do you do security software or something?”. Or “Are you a Microsoft add-on?”. To try and get this message inside the heads of potential customers, it has to be repeated over and over and over. Then, if you are lucky, when they have a problem that you can solve they will have an aha moment when they remember “oh yes Syskit, they do something for that don’t they?”. They will then Google search your company name, find you read your website and make a decision about whether to go further.

This is a massive win – It’s your brand advertising dollars at work. That you undermine this advertising if you keep chopping and changing what you are saying. If one day you’re selling on price, the next day on functionality, the next day on something else then they won’t know what you do and they won’t think of you when they have a problem you could solve.

So choose the single killer feature, figure out why customers should care and then repeat, repeat, repeat.

Myth 3 – If I can’t show the ROI of a campaign, I shouldn’t run it

Perhaps one of the most dangerous in marketing. There are ways of showing the ROI of certain sorts of activities, for example I think it is possible to show the return on exhibiting at a conference (add up the spend, add up the opportunity value from the people who attended over the subsequent few months, and so on).

But for 95% of what you do, this isn’t possible. And this is where the big difference between B2B and B2C marketing is apparent. I believe it is impossible to measure “the experience” of the customer interacting with your advertising or not. For most messages that a customer sees, that isn’t measured anywhere, particularly not by Google. Of course they say they do, but if you spend time with the numbers you realise how much is missed.

Given this, I feel there’s an enormous amount of value that comes from certain sorts of marketing work, weather content, advertising or whatever. But it would be very dangerous to switch that off just because you couldn’t “quote “prove” its value. You wouldn’t understand the mistake that you had made until it was too late, when you have cut the advert and moved on to something else. So have faith that it is working and keep your eye on the messaging, to make sure you’ve got it laser focused.

Myth 4 – Exhibiting at events is a waste of time

Events are expensive to attend. The exhibition fees, travel, hotels, meals and much more. So the question is, are they worth it?

I think they are but not necessarily in the most obvious direct way. For me, meeting potential customers in any way is the most important activity you can do. It is very difficult to just bump into customers so you need to find somewhere where they congregate (NB: going to visit them one to one is also a great use of time).

The reason I think it’s so important is because you can have proper in depth honest conversations with attendees. What do they really value? What do they really think of your company? Who else do they like and why? I have often spent 20 minutes with a customer on a stand going through the details of their problems, and a lot of that content went straight into adverts or blog posts the next week. It makes the copy very easy – Just parrot back what’s your visitors said, with a little anonymity and hey Presto! It almost feels like cheating.

There is of course a question of ROI which often comes up. And that should definitely be considered – You shouldn’t be flying around the world for an expensive event while there will only be 15 attendees. But assuming you’re making smart decisions about budget and the types of people who attend then, it’s very possible you will generate some interest which will cover your costs and you will get the incredible insights about the market for free.

There are many more myths to be slain, and I’ll add them in as I remember them! At Syskit, we are clearly a 100% B2B company. All the marketing we do is in that model. This makes working here much easier as you know which advice to take on and which to ignore. It also focuses your time more on understanding customers, and a bit less on the latest tricks and trips from Google.