Before starting on any new marketing initiative or trying a new tactic, B2B marketers need to answer and essential question: Why?
While most B2B marketers won’t admit it, many still practice some “spaghetti/wall marketing” wherein each year they throw new digital tactics “against the wall” to see what sticks without really knowing why a tactic would work for their audience over another.
This is not to say that you should slow down on innovating and trying new things. But it’s important for success to be strategic and test. I challenge marketers to do more research around customer insights and preferences so that any changes they make are driven by data and informed hypothesis—rather than simply trying new things just to see if they will work.
Focusing Your Data Lens
For content, we focus on three types of customer data:
Discovery: Where, when, and how buyers find information that helps them identify a solution.
Consumption: Preferences for channels, content types, topics, formats, devices, and experience.
Action: What triggers will motivate the desired action.
With buyer discovery, consumption, and action metrics, you’ll know how to create awareness, great customer engagement, and compelling offers that matter to your customers. And you’ll always know which approach to use to improve your marketing because it will be customer driven.
A New View of Content
What does that customer driven content look like in today’s landscape? It’s data-informed. It’s interactive. It’s influential.
For example, client Prophix provides Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software in an industry not known for exciting marketing. With an understanding that B2B buyers are also consumers, they decided to launch campaigns that would go beyond educating buyers to “info-taining” them.
To create a standout content experience for their annual report for the financial planning and accounting industry, they brought together financial industry influencers with an interactive online game. The quiz-themed game asked questions using data from the report as well as from the influencers who were represented as avatars within the game.
The creative element to the content plus the collaboration with trusted industry experts drove performance of this program above and beyond expectations, beating the benchmark for asset views by 600%.
With a taste for what interactive content and working with industry influencers for content and promotion can do, Prophix followed up with another campaign featuring a simulated voice assistant named Penny.
An interactive microsite highlighted the intersection of finance and artificial intelligence with Penny as the guide. By interacting with Penny, users were able to access a group of influencers that provided their expertise via audio and text. The microsite had 189% more views than the benchmark and 642% more engagement.
By taking what is often called “boring-to-boring” content and packaging it as an interactive experience with trusted experts providing useful information, Prophix was able to realize their “new lens” of marketing as something that was beyond a shiny object. It was effective marketing.
An Eye to the Future of B2B Marketing
B2B brands are increasingly investing in interactive influencer marketing to engage with industry influencers and co-create content that is packaged with brand content in an experience that is engaging for influencers and buyers alike.
The sheer volume of information and media that confronts people in the business world is overwhelming and often pretty boring. Creating compelling experiences with interactive content is one way to stand out, differentiate, and optimize for effectiveness. At the same time, buyers don’t trust advertising or brand marketing messages. Co-creating content with trusted experts brings credibility and interest to the brand message.
My upcoming presentation at the 2019 Clever Content Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark will help B2B marketers understand how to “break free of boring marketing” by exploring the top interactive formats, best practices for influencer engagement and case studies featuring mid-market and large enterprise B2B brands doing interactive influencer marketing right. Learn more about my Break Free of Boring Marketing presentation here.
By Lee Odden
@LeeOdden is the CEO of TopRank Marketing and editor of Online Marketing Blog. Cited for his expertise by The Economist, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, he’s the author of the book Optimize and presents internationally on B2B marketing topics including content, search, social media and influencer marketing. When not at conferences, consulting, or working with his talented team, he’s likely running, traveling or cooking up something new.
B2B brands’ marketing departments are constantly evolving. Over the past 10 years, marketing teams have undergone a seismic shift to accommodate changing technology, millennial consumers and employees, and to breakdown silos between marketing and the rest of the business.
To keep pace with the changing marketplace, many B2B brands are working to find the perfect balance between growing out their in-house digital marketing team and partnering with an external digital marketing agency. Most brands are seeking agency partners to provide a spectrum of services, from tactical support to creative strategy and content innovation. And they need a partner that can adapt and evolve along with their marketing needs and opportunities.
So, the question is: To find that partner that can grow and adapt to your needs, what should you be looking for?
In our humble opinion, the best brand/agency partnerships help brands stay ahead of their competitors with integrated strategies, an eye on the latest and greatest, and the ability to measure and iterate on the success of campaigns. Here are some key characteristics that you should be on the lookout for.
What to Look for in a B2B Marketing Agency Partner
#1 – They have an eye (and hand) on emerging trends.
Interactive content. Influencer marketing. Podcasting. Virtual Reality. As the B2B landscape and B2B buyers evolve, brands and marketers need to adapt their digital and content marketing strategies to not only stand out from their competition and reach their target audience audience, but connect and resonate with buyers. And that means carefully investing in new types of content and strategies.
Of course, dipping your toe into new waters can be scary, and you’ll need to set aside time, resources, and budget for testing new mediums and following trends. And at the end of the day, you need the expertise to get it done. That’s where an experienced agency partner can help you gain traction.
For example, if you’re interested in going bold with interactive content; look for an external agency with experience here to help you:
Planning: An experienced marketing agency likely already has a planning checklist developed and has worked through the kinks you haven’t even considered yet; like where to host, how to optimize multi-media files, and how to create a UX experience in an non-static asset.
Tools and Equipment: New trends often require new technology. Tap into a marketing agency’s existing tool set and expertise using the tools.
Optimization: Another benefit of agency specialization is that they’ve already optimized the process, the promotion mix and experience, so your brand gets the benefit of all that experience; instead of having to start from scratch.
Measurement: A great agency partner will be able to help you set up tracking and provide reporting to tell you if and how emerging trends are really working for you.
#2 – They possess undeniable strategic acumen.
External agencies are great at providing support and creative ideas as needed for projects. However, the development of agency talent, expertise and context, provides agencies with strategic expertise to help you develop the marketing approach that informs their tactical support.
Tapping into an outside perspective to deep dive into owned, competitive, or prospect data to develop a comprehensive strategy and recommendation can be a really impactful set up in planning. External agencies can offer brand support in:
Owned and competitive audits.
Strategic roadmaps.
Customer or prospect research and profiles.
Overcoming marketing pain points like a lack of qualified leads or a sudden drop in traffic.
#3 – They challenge the status quo.
In-house marketing teams offer the benefit of people that are deeply immersed within the brand and the team. Frequently they sit in the same building, same floor as the rest of the team, making them easily accessible for questions, brainstorming, and strategy development.
This can be a great benefit when it comes to the free flow of information and integration across team. However, familiarity can be stifle innovation. But the good news is that it can empower an outsider to think differently.
By offering a third-party, neutral perspective, an agency can drive tough conversations that push you out of your comfort zone to create next-level strategies, and help:
Persuade: Agencies’ specialization and work across many clients can drive knowledge and credibility which may be able to convince a marketing team to take the next step.
Bring new ideas: Agency marketers, who live and breathe new marketing, and often focus on creative hires, can supply brands with new tactical or creative approaches which can push the envelope and grab attention within the marketplace.
#4 – They prioritize client relationships.
The relationship an external agency creates with your brand and in-house team is so critical. The best agency/brand relationships are based on trust and genuine alignment of goals.
Strong relationships are a key factor in creating innovative and successful marketing tactics. As you are considering agency partners, look for:
Alignment of values, purpose and mission: Agencies and brands that fit and work best together tend to have alignment around key culture items. Teams which exemplify the brand/agency core values are able to connect and enjoy working collaboratively toward the same goals.
Engaged Listening: Agency partners need to advise, but they should also be adept listeners. During the prospecting phase, a potentially great agency partner should be able to really listen to your business’ needs and present a solution that syncs with your brands’ objectives.
Thoughtfulness: Yes, great agency partners are responsive to your needs and queries. Perhaps more important than a quick response; is thoughtfulness and quality of response. A really great partner will offer you well thought out and creative solutions to challenges and questions, to really drive results.
A referral from someone you trust: When it doubt, ask your colleagues and associates for a referral to an agency they love. If they love them, that agency is already more likely to align with your values, be familiar with your brand voice and requirements, and think of you as a highly valuable partner.
#5 – They’re committed to transparency of contracts, tactics, and data.
Along with prioritizing the relationship, the right agency partner will build trust with your brand by offering transparency, which comes to everything from contract deliverables to the results of your core KPIs.
If you are partnering with an agency to help you test emerging trends; it’s especially critical that a great partner share what is and is not working, so your teams can together optimize and iterate.
Whether it’s a change in timeline, a tweak to a tactical mix or an honest assessment of how you’re tracking against benchmarks, a good partner will drive straight forward conversations that help you move forward in the best way.
#6 – They know your niche.
In B2B it can be especially tough to get up to speed on a new vertical or product. Tapping into an agency that has a similar client base to you; speeds the learning curve as much as possible.
Industry trends (like IOT for example) often span verticals; so look for a partner that understands the lingo, but also has an existing network of influencer and contacts.
Better Together: Find a Partner You Can Grow With
The agency place within your marketing department will continue to evolve as your team does. And partnering with right agency can provide you with a partner who will help you innovate tactically and strategically, while providing your in house team with the support they need to reach their goals in 2019 and beyond.
80% of all B2B leads generated via social media come from LinkedIn, according to this Oktopost infographic. Being recognizes as a thought leader or influencer through mastery of LinkedIn B2B marketing can deepen engagement with high-value audiences and provide significant visibility for your company and brand. Of the network’s 500 million members, 61 million hold senior leadership positions and 40 million are B2B decision-makers.
The LinkedIn marketing tactics that were effective in 2016 are unlikely to work today. The LinkedIn algorithm now rewards high-quality content creators with visibility, while significantly limiting the exposure of lower-quality LinkedIn users.
Although you can certainly find tips and tricks on how to “beat the algorithm” with optimized posts, you can’t really hack your way to hard-earned status as an B2B marketing influencer with genuine engagement by posting sub-par content.
If you really want to be perceived as an industry thought leader and build a LinkedIn following, there are some top B2B influencers who provide some valuable cues to help you network your way to the top.
With over 216,000 followers, Trish Bertuzzi’s LinkedIn presence is among the most prominent in B2B marketing. Her posts emphasize the value of human relationships and trust in marketing through compelling anecdotes and stories. Followers can anticipate a mixture of insights through podcast links, videos and other highly relevant content.
Trish has mastered the art of creating compelling, multimedia content which is easily consumable for LinkedIn users – including stories, anecdotes and short-form video. She’s also an engaged member of conversations around B2B sales, marketing and entrepreneurship who actively comments and shares content from within her network.
2. Sangram Vajre | Chief Evangelist and Co-Founder at Terminus
Aside from his role at Terminus, Sangram Vajre is well-known for his daily “#FlipMyFunnel” podcast on B2B marketing, sales and customer success. While his LinkedIn presence and social media strategy for sharing content reflect a broad mixture of B2B insights, his podcast’s promotion on his LinkedIn profile is particularly inspiring.
Aspiring influencers may want take a cue from Sangram’s mastery of LinkedIn. His podcast is well-optimized for search with a well-written description and visually appealing links to recent content.
3. Aaron Ross | Co-CEO at Predictable Revenue, Inc.
With over 30,000 followers, B2B marketing influencer and author Aaron Ross is an excellent LinkedIn source for webinars, videos and articles on sales conversion optimization.
Aaron takes full advantage of LinkedIn Pulse to share his thought leadership efforts, frequently publishing insightful interviews with B2B sales leaders who get to the heart of issues such as customer experience, revenue forecasting and prospecting best practices.
4. Matt Heinz | President at Heinz Marketing, Inc.
In addition to his role at Heinz Marketing, Matt Heinz is well-known throughout the demand generation and ABM verticals for his work as a keynote speaker, author and host of Sales Pipeline Radio.
With over 34,000 LinkedIn followers, Matt focuses on sharing stories and insights through long-form posts which are optimized for visibility on the network. His thoughts spark engagement and conversation among his followers, not only increasing his own visibility but encouraging more connection between marketers and sales pros.
As one of the original co-founders of Marketo (which as we all know recently landed a massive acquisition by Adobe) Jon is a highly sought-after keynote speaker and recognized influencer in topics such as marketing automation, predictive analytics, ABM and demand generation for B2B marketing.
Jon regularly shares high-value content with his LinkedIn followers to help them up-level their strategies and rethink their current marketing tactics.
6. Peter Isaacson | Chief Marketing Officer at Demandbase
With over 25 years of experience in B2B marketing and account-based marketing (ABM), Peter Isaacson is widely recognized as a key expert in topics such as demand generation, multi-channel marketing, lead management and more. His LinkedIn updates include valuable insight into the future of ABM, best practices for account-based marketing success, industry news and emerging research. Peter regularly contributes to LinkedIn Pulse to further share his expertise in account-based strategy.
7. Scott Vaughan | Chief Marketing Officer at Integrate
Near and dear to our hearts at Integrate, Scott Vaughan is recognized B2B marketing influencer. His areas of focus include integrated marketing at the intersection of art and science, sales enablement, thought leadership marketing and strategic positioning.
Scott’s actively shares an array of industry news, trends and research, while always including his own thoughtful analysis on each piece of content.
8. Ann Handley | Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs
And last but far from least, with over 338,000 LinkedIn followers, Ann Handley is among the most influential thought leaders on LinkedIn. Ann’s posts garner hundreds to thousands of interactions on LinkedIn. She shares content that teaches, enlightens and inspires us to all be better marketers, writers, professionals and people.
If you’re looking to add someone to your feed whose posts will often make you think or smile, and who can help you step up your game, Ann is definitely a LinkedIn influencer worth following.
Although there are several social media analytics platforms for business, they aren’t really built to measure the success of your personal LinkedIn strategy.
Brian Honigman, Forbes Contributor and NYU Professor, recommends individuals adopt the following metrics to measure individual effectiveness on LinkedIn:
Followers
Followers Acquired
Impressions
Interactions: Likes, Shares, Comments
LinkedIn Referral Traffic
Engagement Rate
Engagement by Post Type
Creating a Winning LinkedIn Presence for B2B
For demand generation professionals who aspire to be thought leaders, LinkedIn is the ideal platform to create an optimized profile, develop a content strategy, engage with others and build an audience. Not only does LinkedIn offer strong B2B lead generation potential for businesses, but it’s also among the ideal channels for people to develop their reputations as subject matter experts. And after all, it’s our presence as leaders in the industry that truly amplifies the presence of our brands.
While LinkedIn algorithms are in a state of rapid flux and the role of social marketing is evolving quickly, influencer status is worth striving for. At the end of the day, what’s really important is to be authentic, find your voice, share helpful content with your unique point of view and engage with others who are adding value to the community.
61% of marketers say that generating quality business leads is their biggest challenge. This shows that all businesses need to spend a lot of energy to attract prospects. To make things a bit easier, it’s important to be clear about some simple but proven marketing tactics — these 12 techniques are essential if you want to know how to attract customers more effectively.
This blog looks at ways to attract a group of prospects or customers potentially interested in your product or service. It is important to properly qualify your business leads good correspondence to your business, the potential for transformation into prospects or, in other words, the serious leads that are worthwhile to provide sales efforts.
Let’s dive into the techniques that will turn your business into a lead generation machine:
Direct Marketing: personally, contact your potential client
The Direct Marketing is a technique used to communicate directly with prospects, e.g. IM, during a call or e-mail, or in person. A direct marketing message almost always involves a specific call to action, intended to trigger a direct response from your target. These responses can range from clicking a link to subscribe to calling a phone number or visiting a website. A strong call for action might even prompt the target to buy a product directly. A direct marketing message can be the first point of contact that prospects have with your brand
A) Know that some people feel this form of marketing as intrusive and painful. As you often contact your prospects without having an appointment, adapt your communication and highlight what are the benefits for them.
A well-targeted direct marketing campaign always has great benefits, as it allows you to:
B) Ability to contact targets that are difficult to reach otherwise
Example: Older generations are not very engaged in digital, but they might be interested in your offer if you call them.
C) Test the attractiveness of your product or service because potential customers must respond immediately
Example: You have designed a new product, but you are not sure how people will react. Why not call a test audience and see how they react, before going ahead and throwing it out?
D) Achieve clear and measurable results
Example: You can very easily evaluate the impact of your direct marketing campaign. If you sent a direct email to 100 prospects inviting them to download your catalog for free, and 20 of them did, it gives you a 20% positive response rate. You can then qualify them and feed them to sign the deal later … knowing exactly how many leads have become customers. Very handy for easily measuring success and calculating the cost of acquiring new customers that results from this campaign.
1. Cold Solicitation: to convince your prospects in real-time conversations
Skip unsolicited calls to potential customers, or “ cold calling”, was one of the favorite techniques before, but its popularity declined. This is understandable because calling people can be tiring and tedious if they have never heard of your company before — and they might not be super interested.
This does not mean that this form of telemarketing is always a bad idea. Having real-time conversations with potential customers can play an important role in convincing them. And if you target your efforts on decision makers, you greatly increase your chances of convincing them.
Focus on clear, targeted audiences with a well-prepared script, and compare statistics about your business (number and duration of your calls), quality (how many decision makers did you reach, how many leads do you have) qualified?) and the conversion rate (how many demos or purchases have followed the call?) to find out if this is a technique in which you should invest. You can buy call lists for this, or build them yourself, for example via events or online searches.
2. Direct Mailing: Make sure your target audience sees your messages
Direct mailing, whether sent by e-mail or mail, can also be a valuable technique if you want to target a specific audience effectively. Make people aware of your brand or catch their attention with creative and interesting messages. For example, top executives may be important prospects for your business, but they do not have much time to browse the web for information. Make sure they do not miss out on your content and send them a direct email with information that you have compiled specifically for them.
Direct marketing: advantages and disadvantages
The reasons why direct marketing is a popular marketing tactic are clear: it allows for personal contact, helps you reach an audience that might be hard to reach otherwise, and provides you with exact figures about who you’ve called or contacted via your mailing.
However, calling or sending a mailing to all these prospects in a personalized way takes a lot of time. And sometimes your efforts are not even appreciated, because not everybody likes to be contacted unexpectedly, or finds that your messages are a little too urgent.
Do not worry: direct marketing is always a valuable tactic, especially when combined with other marketing techniques. And best of all, you can easily do it yourself without any outside help.
Inbound Marketing: distribute interesting content to attract the attention of your customers
We have already indicated that if you contact prospects through direct marketing, you should share valuable content with them … But the content is what, exactly?
The content is presenting information to an audience that can be shared in different formats. There are many possibilities: in addition to e-mails you can write blogs, ebooks or product catalogs, create videos and more.
Content plays a key role in inbound marketing. By broadcasting informative, educational or entertaining content, you create a real relationship with your audience. Providing content to your potential customers helps them find what they need and shows that your business is trustworthy. Without speaking to them directly, you help your prospects assess their situation, find a solution and make a decision.
With inbound marketing, you give potential customers the exact information they are looking for. Perfect for buyers who like to find out carefully before (or even without) a face-to-face conversation.
3. Content: the basic component of all your marketing actions
According to Forrester, for each content sent by a marketer or a salesperson, buyers read three others elsewhere. The buyers’ self-information is real, and our environment exposes us to a lot of content. It’s your job to be heard despite the noise, to find new ways for prospects to find you and to provide them with the information they are looking for.
Keep in mind that content is the core component of all your marketing campaigns, from e-mail to social networks. High-quality content can help you break into information overload on the Internet, and help you earn the trust of your prospects.
You already know that you can create content in a wide variety of formats … But where to post it once you’ve created it? Well, your website is one of the most important places to publish exclusive content. This might seem a bit controversial, but you should even do it for free.
Your content is the first step to attract visitors. Now it’s time to think about turning them into prospects. Your content may be free, but that does not mean you should not get something out of it: what if you asked them for their contact information?
Using web forms to upload your content offering is a great way to gather information about prospects. Why not offer them to subscribe to your blog? A blog can bring a lot of value to your website because it keeps your readers interested and, hopefully, will make them come back for more. Moreover, quality written content also plays an important role in improving your natural search engine ranking …
4. SEO: Attract prospects by sleeping
SEO (“SEO” for Search Engine Optimization) is the set of actions that improve your ranking on search engines. Suppose you sell office supplies — it would be great if people found your website by typing “buy office supplies” as search.
People use search engines all the time, especially Google. With SEO, you make sure that the content you create matches what people are looking for.
The more your website is optimized, the higher it will be ranked high on the search engine results page or “SERPs” (Search Engine Page Ranks). And that’s what you want because it will greatly increase the chances of finding you and clicking on a link pointing to your site.
If you’re looking to optimize your website, try to increase its relevance and authority, because Google values informative content and benefits web pages that use the same vocabulary as your target customers and answer any questions they may have.
->To put it simply, relevance refers to the ability to answer your audience’s question. For example, the associated search terms at the bottom of a page might give you an indication of what your customers are looking for. Google will give your website a higher score if you can provide clear answers to searches.
->Authority is measured by the number and quality of links from other web pages — what you can do first by creating relevant content, or secondly by having guest experts contribute to your blog (“guest blogging “).
Imagine that you sell a wide range of pools. When people are considering this type of purchase, they may be looking for different alternatives. A blog about the differences between concrete, vinyl-clad and fiberglass pools could answer some of their questions and therefore increase your relevance.
Some of your suppliers also find your blog very useful, so they put a link to your website. When a landscaper notices it, he suggests that you work together. You write content that they will post on their website, which will put their visitors in touch with your business. These links to your website will increase your authority and help you reach a new audience.
Choose to invest in SEO if you want:
->Obtain consistent results. It takes a while to appear on the first page of the search engine, but once you are there, you will enjoy a significant increase in traffic.
->Create an authoritative website. This is a well-established resource or website to which one turns for a particular niche. An authoritative website will drive traffic to your page in a sustainable way, and help your business build its reputation until you’re popular enough to dominate the market — which is only possible with smart content and good SEO planning.
Increase the value of your website and get more search traffic because you appear higher in the search engine.
Inbound Marketing: Pros and Cons
The SEO efforts you provide have a long-term impact and they cost you almost nothing — as long as you do not account for the resources you spend to optimize and create your content. All of this might sound a little awesome at first, so it’s a good idea to contact an expert to guide you through the basic steps. Many external agencies and freelancers can optimize your website or create effective SEO content.
You cannot ignore the fact that everyone is online, so you have to be too. People are also actively looking for information, so you should provide it to them. Through inbound marketing and SEO, your business becomes a respected thought leader and source of information. It also makes your website easier to find. If your prospects are aware of your existence, they are no longer surprised when you contact them, so it’s a great idea to attract prospects online and then follow-up by contacting them personally.
Paid online advertising: to reach a more targeted audience faster
Online ads are a great way to reach more of your target audience and find leads. Let’s take a look at some of the most common techniques.
5. Online Advertising & Retargeting: Focus on Your Target Market
Online advertisements are ads on websites. They look like classic magazine ads, but with one important difference: you are fully aware of the results. It is possible to follow the ads online: who clicked on it? What were the demographic characteristics of those interested? The more you know about your target, the better you can customize your ads.
Online advertising is useful for targeting audiences with different demographics or behavioral characteristics. For example, if your business is active in different cities across the country, it might be interesting to target only people who live in these locations. You can also choose where you want to make your ads visible: choose an online publishing space where your prospects spend time. Imagine selling cars: you would like your banner to appear on a website that compares the price of cars.
If you do not know which websites visit the prospects you are targeting, or if you want to distribute your paid shares, taking advantage of retargeting ads can be a good idea. These ads follow visitors to your website via a cookie and then reappear on other sites they visit. These reminders about your business help bring prospects to your website once they are ready to make a decision.
6. Search Engine Advertising (“SEA”): pay per click to get high quality leads right away
You may have already noticed that when you have something, the first hits on Google are ads. Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC) is a form of Search Engine Advertising (SEA) that shows ads in the search engine. Advertisers bid on keyword their keyword list. For example, if you were a plumber, you’d try to use keywords like ‘plumbing’, ‘boiler repair’ or ‘repining’. The advertiser only country when someone clicks on the displayed ad.
Paid Online Advertising: Pros and Cons
Use the PPC technique to attract prospects if you want to:
->Get immediate results and speed up traffic in a short period of time, such as product launches or seasonal promotions.
->Generate highly targeted traffic. The PPC also allows you to reduce the number of your prospects based on their demographic characteristics. This means that you define which prospects have an interest in seeing your ads, which leads to high-quality leads.
->Try new things. Spend the field with new products or new offers and learn more about how people respond by spending a reduced budget. If you notice that your idea works, go further and create a campaign on your different marketing channels.
When we talk about search engine advertising, everything revolves around Google. Use their video tutorials to set up a campaign yourself, or consult an expert. If paid advertising is one of the main marketing tactics you use, it can cost you a lot. Instead, it’s best to use it for small-scale testing, or as a complement to your other marketing tactics.
Social Networks: combine community animation and lead generation
66% of marketers notice a positive evolution of their lead generation by spending only 6 hours a week on social networks. It’s time to create an account, be visible and active by regularly posting content, and respond to questions and expressions of interest. Even putting a “like” on someone’s post or commenting on their photos helps users remember your brand.
7. LinkedIn: Do you make new relationships to sell more
Finding a prospect through LinkedIn can be very simple, but also take time. Examine the connection suggestions made to you and evaluate whether they match your offer. LinkedIn also offers a large number of groups. Join a group of professionals who might be interested in your business and send them a login request.
Talk to them once they have accepted the connection and use the right sales techniques to close a deal. It’s easy — if you take the time to follow up and keep track of your connection requests and messages.
If you are willing to pay to get some new prospects, you could also use LinkedIn ads. The optional Lead Collection feature redirects members who click on your ads to your landing page, where they can fill out a contact request. It’s very easy for the user, and it helps you build a list of prospects very quickly.
8. Facebook: reach people close to your target audience
Facebook also helps you to generate more leads on social networks. For example, use the ability to get a direct link to your website. The platform also allows you to subscribe to a newsletter directly on the network, so you can quickly get contact details of visitors interested in your newsletter.
When it comes to advertising, Facebook offers simple ways to reach your target audiences.
->Custom Audiences: The first method is to download a list of emails and match the emails to users. You have now created a custom audience for your ads. Custom audiences are made up of people who have taken an action that you have specified, such as going to your website or downloading your app. They are often used to track current users
->Similar audiences: You can also create a similar audience from a list of customer emails, which creates an audience of people similar to your current customer database. There are many ways you can build your database, like hiring someone for B2B data service, having opt-in forms, collect data from sales department. In other words, you use the demographics of your customers to reach a wider group of people who might be interested in your services. A similar audience is useful if you want to size your ads and find a lot of new leads.
Social networks: advantages and disadvantages
The wider your reach on social media, the more prospects you will attract without spending anything. Rome was not built in a day, nor your LinkedIn and Facebook account. Be active and post attractive content to collect more likes and comments. This will increase your chances that new audiences will see your content in their newsfeed.
When it comes to attracting a large number of potential customers, paid options such as “LinkedIn Lead Collection” or “Facebook Ads” will generate more leads. It is wise to use them as a tactic that complements your other marketing actions. Of course, you should be present on social networks, because they are not only valuable to attract or convince a prospect, but also to please your customers and keep them informed.
Email Marketing: so, your potential customers keep your brand in mind
E-mail should be one of your main forms of communication because it helps you stay in touch with your audience. Create targeted messages to send relevant content to your potential customers and keep them in mind. And why not segment your different types of audiences and send them custom content?
An automated and generic e-mail is another easy way to find out who’s interested in your business or who does not, simply by asking your prospects. Give them the opportunity to respond easily to your message (for example by clicking on a call-to-action button or subscription form) and use this opportunity to compile a list of prospects you should call a day. To know more see this article– how to build a targeted email list
Want to know more about email marketing? We have listed a whole set of techniques to turn your prospects into customers — check them out here.
Marketing by e-mail: advantages and disadvantages
Email marketing is inexpensive. You do not need expensive software or hardware and you do not have to waste time sending emails to all your customers separately. Instead, you can standardize your communication for segmented groups of prospects.
It is also very easy to follow the results. With minimal tracking, you know which emails have been received, which people have unsubscribed, the open rate (people who opened your email) and the clickthrough rate (people who opened your email and click on the link that is included).
Remember that people see a lot of content every day. If your prospects receive a lot of emails, how are you going to stand out? Think about what you want to send and who you will send it to. Using original object titles could already help increase your open rate. Adapt each campaign to a specific target audience and send people content that interests them if you want e-mail marketing to work for you.
Affiliate Marketing: Let Other Businesses Help You Sell
In affiliate marketing, someone recommends your product. Whenever a purchase is made on the basis of this recommendation, the ambassador receives a reward. In its most traditional forms, affiliate marketing is established through partnerships. Every time your partner sends you a new client, he receives a commission. The most modern affiliate marketing is placing banners and URLs on partner sites.
By using a tracking URL, you can keep a perfect overview of all the traffic and sales you generate through different promotional techniques. Affiliate marketing is similar to Google’s online advertising (Display Network), but the difference is that you build the partnerships yourself, instead of having to choose from Google’s criteria.
Affiliate Marketing: Pros and Cons
It takes time and energy to establish reliable affiliate partnerships with third parties, especially if you take into account the discussions to agree on the commission amounts and set-up fees. In addition, the commissions come naturally nibble a piece of your profit margin.
But if you do it right, affiliate marketing increases the visibility of your products and services and is a good way to get additional sources of income.
11. Referral Programs: Use Word of Mouth to Acquire New Clients
Testimonials and shared experiences from satisfied customers are a great way to attract potential customers in a cost-effective way. People like to have social proof and concrete results. Word of mouth is also inexpensive: satisfied customers are often more than willing to promote your business for free.
Consider who you are targeting and what similar customers you have. Approach these clients and ask them directly for a recommendation or think of incentives that would encourage them to do so. Ask them for a recommendation when they have just had a really positive experience with your customer support or give a high score to your business … or simply approach your most loyal customers. Make it easy for them to give you a recommendation: do not make them write long letters but a short and pleasant message that they can share.
Referral marketing is a bit similar to affiliate marketing, where partner sites and magazines look after your ads and promote your business. The important difference is that a referral program invests in ambassadors who can recommend your brand to friends and family — Word of mouth may be the oldest marketing channel in the world, but it is still valuable.
Recommendation programs: advantages and disadvantages
Recommendation marketing helps you reduce the length of your sales cycle. People you contact through a referral program will rarely be interested, as cold prospects might be, and calling hot leads helps you save money.
But do not be too urgent. Let people decide if they want to recommend your business. Even a satisfied customer might not want to, because recommending a brand is a big problem for some people because it affects their reputation.
Just set up a referral program, and let people come to you. Do not try to make as many transactions as possible, but appreciate the recommendations you receive.
12. Event Marketing: to convince your potential customers face to face
Since there is no better form of advertising than sharing the experience of a satisfied customer, why not try to please them at an event? This is the perfect opportunity to promote what your brand represents, to show some of the solutions you provide and to build personal relationships with participants. With personal contact, it’s easier to turn potential customers into serious prospects, while conveying the key ideas of your business and increasing brand awareness.
Event marketing: advantages and disadvantages
Events require a lot of time and energy. They are hard work and often come back to sacrifice evenings and weekends. You need to make a lot of effort, but it can pay: have the opportunity to have serious conversations, to meet people who otherwise might never have heard of your company … The good one’s Events are worth it as you invest time — to get out!
Are you ready to attract your potential customers?
None of these techniques represent a guaranteed entry card to an infinite flow of prospects but, if you combine them, they can significantly improve the number of your prospects. Try to find a balance between online and offline actions, personal contact and digital messaging, optimization and creation. Test different things, integrate and apply marketing techniques that will help you attract many quality prospects.
When I started out (around the time Duran Duran roamed the planet), business-to-business (B2B) marketing was confined to the domain of the literal. The customer was deemed rational and analytical, so the messaging was bland and unimaginative. B2B meant “boring-to-boring.” All the communications felt like PowerPoint presentations. We spoke in the native language of sales collateral and trade show jargon. And a bulk of the work seemed dependent on sales teams’ connections and cold calling target clients.
Yet, over the past decade, we’ve seen B2B marketing evolve into “business-to-beautiful”marketing — marketing that illuminates the beautiful stories behind businesses today, expressing their visions and values in society. Suddenly, some of the best work is aimed at procurement executives through thought leadership, branded content, social media and content marketing strategies that drive a wonderful overhead appeal to shareholders and lovers of great narratives.
The shift was inevitable, in my opinion, given the rise of the internet and social media. What we’ve realized through social is that businesses are inherently emotional beings, they are creations of our imaginations, rivers of human growth and determiners of where we build our future communities. B2B marketing is no longer isolated in the ivory tower, creating empires unknown by the general public. Instead, “B2Beautiful” marketing has made the connection between B2B storytelling and our human growth potential. These B2Beautiful stories captivate our imaginations and trigger emotional resonance — key ingredients in building that residual stickiness factor in an attention-deficit world.
My company, The Harris Poll, recently released the Reputation Quotient study (registration required), which reports that contemporary drivers are found in today’s consumer desires, and many of the storytelling strategies employed by B2C marketers are becoming increasingly applicable to B2B marketing.
We see brilliant examples of brands implementing B2Beautiful campaigns today and engaging communities even in functional, low-interest categories. Maersk, for instance, is humanizing logistics services by personifying its giant cargo ships and documenting their travels through stunning visual images on Instagram. Cisco’s award-winning documentary, The Network Effect, highlights telecom development stories, while companies such as Salesforce and The Mosaic Company have created engaging podcasts. The Mosaic Company’s podcast, “The Great Yield Mystery,” featured a dramatic audio play about two farmers trying to understand why their harvest came short — it even offered listeners clues to solve the mystery and win prizes.
These companies understand that brands are stories in and of themselves and every aspect of who they are — from their work culture, logistics, products and services, to how they think and operate behind the scenes — is essential to creating an effective B2Beautiful marketing strategy. Their strategies provide five crucial takeaways that marketers should keep in mind while creating B2Beautiful marketing, regardless of if you’re a startup or a large corporation.
1. Pinpoint Your Story
Use your mission and objectives to frame your values and use those components to create your story. Interestingly, The Harris Poll’s RQ survey also shows that there is a new market opportunity for B2B companies to take action on social issues. A new class of what we call “humanity brands” — companies that stand up for what they believe in and walk their talk. These brands are solving social ills, despite their political affiliation.
Successful B2Beautiful marketing, especially in the age of consumer activism, involves being able to identify issues that resonate with your brand and weave them into your story.
2. Weaponize Your Culture
A 2015 FORTUNE Knowledge Group report showed that corporate culture is incredibly important to building B2B relationships. Furthermore, 59% of executives surveyed rated knowing what a company stands for as more important when choosing a partner to work with, ranking higher than market dominance and innovation.
Depending on its mission, each company’s culture is unique. Once you know who you are and what you stand for as a company, you can then find engaging ways to share those convictions through the right media platforms. WeWork, for instance, uses its Instagram account to showcase their offices around the world, with photos of workers doing yoga or wearing stormtrooper helmets. They are motivating people around their motto to “make a life, not just a living.”
3. Don’t Be Constrained By Your Category
At its core, B2Beautiful marketing involves building emotional equity. Every story you set out to tell about your company should be crafted to evoke empathy. This is how you inspire B2B buyers, (who, by the way, are consumers just like you and me) to be emotionally invested in your brand.
Some of the most emotionally engaging and brilliant work is coming from a few of the lowest-interest categories. In fact, it’s there where the biggest white space is found.
4. Diversify Your Channels And Forms Of Content
As a 21st-century business, there are key owned-media platforms that are imperative for B2Beautiful marketing — a blog for brand storytelling, social media platforms (LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and a newsletter. However, in addition to those channels, there are other platforms such as podcasts, videos, infographics and even gifs.
Work with creative partners to determine the right channels to use, depending on the stories you want to tell about the company, its products and services and core truths.
5. Ensure Your Strategy Is Buyer-Focused
We still are selling, after all, so be mindful of your target audience (B2B buyers) when you create your B2Beautiful marketing. What are their needs? Not just the tangible ones in terms of products or services, but also their values, triggers and unmet needs. What are their goals and how can you help them meet those goals?
Think about how your services amplify their missions, visions and values. Through your strategy, you can even educate buyers on ways to better connect with the end consumer and build substantial relationships that grow over time.
In the coming years, B2B marketing will, inevitably, continue to evolve in this direction. Therefore, it is important for marketers to adapt to these rules in order to differentiate their brands and remain attractive and relevant in the eyes of buyers.
The world of B2B marketing is ever evolving, and today’s marketing team needs to be able to adopt new strategies and leverage a mix of technologies that educate, engage and increase conversions. Having a well-defined strategy is the key to improving the effectiveness of your B2B marketing efforts. There is no scope for any mistakes in B2B marketing. Because if you fail to impress one company about your services, then your potential target audience shrinks immediately.
Today we are going to cover the top five B2B marketing strategies that you can use to increase leads, return on investment (ROI) and, most importantly, sales.
Content Marketing
Most companies do a great job of explaining what they do but fail when it comes to using more dynamic content (blogs, videos, infographics) to show how they can help. You may have heard this repeatedly, but content marketing continues to rule strong for B2B marketers. In the past, a sales representative, dealer, or channel partner was the key point of contact for gathering information.
Content continues to cover the web and for performance-oriented marketing professionals, finding new and creative ways to show content can be a real challenge. According to a recent study by Regalix, 80% of senior marketers said creating marketing collateral is a top priority. In another study by TopRank, the most effective content marketing tactics according to B2B marketers are:
In-person events (70%)
Case studies (65%)
Videos (63%)
Webinars (63%)
Blogs (62%)
Newsletters (60%)
White papers and research reports (59%)
Interactive B2B content possibilities are only as limited as your imagination, and budget. Your writers should prepare a content-based experience for the target audience so that they fall in love with your services quickly.
Build Relationships
All marketing activities should be directed to establishing, developing and maintaining successful relationships with customers. Customer satisfaction is imperative to the success of any B2B company. Without happy customers, a business will struggle to achieve the rest of its goals. Your customer support team can help maintain positive relationships and improve customer retention rates.
Here are 5 ways to improve your B2B relationships:
Know yourself.
Re-imagine your B2B relationships.
Consider “scalability” in all that you do.
Find B2B partners with complementary technology.
Improve trust to enhance further partnering.
Large or small, improving your relationship with each and every prospect will undoubtedly have a positive effect on your ability to generate more, high quality leads now and in the future.
Make a Relevant Call To Action
Do you want to boost email engagement and conversion rates for your brand? No matter your business, CTAs can help you engage subscribers and encourage them to take action. Good CTAs build brand awareness, increase web traffic, and ultimately result in more conversions and sales.
Why Are Calls-to-Action So Important?
For those of you new to Inbound, strong CTAs are an essential part of a conversion path and the lead generation process. Check out the Act-On Center of Excellence to find resources that help you create more effective emails and landing pages in order to optimize the results of your next campaign.
The use of effective calls to action by email can help you generate conversions, but they are not all you need to consider for an effective email strategy. All of your website’s power comes to a fine point in the CTA. The user’s action is what it’s all about. Once you understand the basic of what a CTA is, its function, purpose, and appropriate content and use, you can create CTAs that improve conversion.
Digital Marketing Channels
What are the top digital marketing channels for your company? Is it Email Marketing, PPC, SEO, partnership program? Before starting to plan an effective digital marketing strategy, you must understand the different channels of digital marketing. The digital marketing has introduced several digital marketing channels that help advertisers target the right audience and attract them to the product or service that is marketed.
Popular Digital Marketing Channels
Social Media Marketing
Search Engine Optimization
Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
Email Marketing
Content Marketing
Affiliate Marketing
Display Advertising
Online PR
By setting up a digital marketing campaign for your company, you cannot rely on just one resource to generate all the results you want. The right digital marketing channel for your brand or business also depends on your brand’s business goals. Each marketing channel has to be evaluated for its relevance in your overall marketing strategy and needs to be aligned in keeping with your business objectives. With so many companies turning towards digital marketing, it’s important that you pull your socks up and make optimal use of what you can.
Marketing Automation
However, for B2B marketing specialists, evolving technology is not always a bad thing. The evolution of marketing automation is creating new opportunities for marketers to deliver better quality leads to their sales teams, bridge the gap between marketing and sales, and measure their direct impact on their business.
As companies that provide B2B services look to implement more effective marketing strategies, marketing automation has become one of the most useful tactics being implemented. In fact, the use of marketing automation by B2B companies increased by 1100% between 2011 and 2015.
Faced with these challenging market dynamics and increasing ROI pressure, B2B marketers at companies of all sizes can gain these benefits from a marketing automation:
Perfecting the Client Experience
Lead Nurturing
Increase in Revenue
Decreases Lead Conversion Time.
Reduce Marketing Costs
Customer Retention
Receive Multi-Channel Efficiency
As it stands today, business competition has reached cutthroat levels, and the marketing landscape is no exception. Now is the time to re-examine your essentials, take an inventory of current capabilities and talk with your marketing automation section and other marketing and sales technology providers.
Note: The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views held by Inc42, its creators or employees. Inc42 is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by guest bloggers.
