B2B Monday Myth: When Sales Are Down, a Quick Fix Is the Answer
by MGB2B
The Myth: A Quick-Fix Marketing Campaign Is Necessary When Sales Numbers Are Down.
The Truth: A Slow-Burn B2B Marketing Strategy Will Foster ROI in the Long-Term.
Imagine: it’s Q2, and you look at the numbers. And the numbers aren’t looking good. If you end the year like this, it is bad news. Panicked, you call your marketing department, and give them this message: Do whatever you can, right now, to get my sales numbers up.
And Marketing executes a last-ditch, quick approach to try to get your company back on track. It may even yield good results. In the short term.
But the truth is, if you implemented long-term marketing strategy in Q1, you should expect a slow burn instead of an immediate increase in ROI. Especially with marketing plans that rely heavily on content marketing. If you put your time into a quick execution to boost immediate numbers, you’re wasting it. Instead, you should spend that time working toward larger, long-term successes.
There are several elements that take time to develop – many that require testing – in order to be done well. So you have to ask: what are the steps for implementing a successful long-term B2B marketing strategy?
Step 1: Know Your Goals and Objectives
The purpose of your campaign is to increase ROI over the long haul, not just in the immediate future. Converting leads right now will increase your sales in the short term, but long-term thinking will set the wheels in motion for greater successes year after year. Outside of sales, what are you looking for? Know exactly what you want to achieve from your campaign. You cannot expect to implement this strategy in a day and have leads knocking the door down. Brainstorm how you can sustain this campaign in the over one year, two years, three. And remember, a lot of your strategy will hinge on building relationships over time. Continuous engagement with your brand puts you on a steadier path to conversion.
If you are a bigger company, it might benefit you to take a step back and look at the bigger picture for your marketing strategy. Reworking your brand may be the key to sustaining leads for longer.
Step 2: Do Your Research
Your strategy will be useless if you haven’t taken the time to do proper research on your target audience and how your message will be best conveyed. Utilize market research initiatives to find out more abut who you plan to target, what they want, where they are in terms of the sales funnel, what messages resonate with them, and their preferred media and marketing channels. By doing the research, you will be putting the right message in front of the right people at the right time.
Step 3: Implement, Evaluate, and Fine-Tune
Your slow-burn campaign will be a long-term commitment, meaning the creation of a pipeline with organized divisions of labor and clear deadlines is vital to staying on track. When implementing a long-term strategy, you want to make sure it is as effective as possible. That’s why it’s important not to underestimate the value of keyword evaluation, website analytics, and A/B testing. Note that sales are far from the only KPI (key performance indicator). It’s important to align your KPIs with the goals you set in Step 1. If you’re measuring the wrong thing, it may become an obstacle rather than a boon. You may also need to accept that not all measures of success can be supported by hard data.
Taking the time to create a strategy, research your target audience, and detailed evaluation may seem like a lot of work. But it’s worth it in the long run. While you may not see an immediate increase in sales, these steps will ultimately foster long-term success that all company stakeholders will benefit from in the end.
Continue ReadingB2B Monday Myth: My Email Blast Should Be a Product Promo Machine
by MGB2B
The Myth: My Email Blast Should Be a Product Promo Machine
The Truth: Email Should Be Used to Distribute Relevant Content (with Some Product Promo Mixed In)
How many emails do you delete a day? Perhaps you don’t even take a peek before deleting. A barrage of daily promotions often ends up in the trash folder. The fact is, people don’t want to be bombarded with B2B product promotions in their already-crammed inboxes. Audiences will get email fatigue if you send them product promotions every day. So how do B2B companies successfully keep their prospects interested? Answer: Engaging content.
Email blasts can be a powerful tool, especially since the lists of contacts you’ve created are people who have willingly supplied you with their information. You’ve already captured them in your marketing funnel: they know of your company and your products, and have probably expressed some interest or purchased in the past. They’ve subscribed, so you’ve already won half the battle. But how do you create emails people actually want to open? The goal is to regularly send relevant insights via email, to provide information and position yourself as a trusted brand in the minds of your prospects.
Newsletters Are Great, But You Can Do More
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 77% of B2B content marketers are using email newsletters to update their audiences. These scheduled blasts are informative, often contain links to blog posts and other interesting pieces of content, and can be easily sent out to your audiences en masse. But you can go further, especially with tall of the automated email programs out there today.
B2B prospects are especially hungry for informative content that is relevant to their list. And going beyond the newsletter enables you to segment, and target by industry and interest. You are the experts in your field. All you have to do is own it. One of your engineers could write an article on using a product, to help clients who have already purchased. A manager could create a blog post with his take on industry trends. No matter where your client is in the buying cycle, there is information that they want. It’s up to you to create and deliver it.
Segment Your Audiences, Then Tailor
In another B2B Monday Myth, we busted the idea that all audiences are the same. As it turns out, not all audiences are created equal, and content must be personalized for each one. Email is one of the easiest channels to distribute personalized content. Instead of sending out one email blast to everyone on your list, you should segment your contacts. This could be based on vertical/industry, phase of the buying cycle, position in the marketing funnel, or even the subscriber’s job title. A sales representative is interested in different content than a software engineer. Those in the medical industry have different preferences than those working with consumer products. The long-time buyer wants different information than the prospect who expressed interest in your capabilities. Keeping your segments in mind when tailoring different emails will help you target more successfully, and wield better conversion rates.
It’s About Them, Not You
You’ve got your segments and have created emails that they would find insightful. Now, shift your focus off yourself, and turn it to the subscriber. Many companies get caught up in getting their message across and their product sold immediately. But you can’t force people to buy products by sending them dozens of emails all the time. By distributing relevant content, you will show you are trustworthy and establish yourself as an authority in your industry (and theirs). A good mix of relevant content and new product introductions can drive people to your website. Or it might put you at the top of the list the next time a prospect needs a job done. A little promotion tastefully thrown in is okay, but the content should be your primary focus.
While it’s easy for your company to fall into the trap of sending generic, promotional emails out to your entire contact list, start to go about crafting your emails more strategically. Tailoring your engaging content to relevant segments is a great place to start.
Continue ReadingThe Anatomy of a Perfect B2B Persona
by MGB2B
Personas are a key part of any content marketing plan. For the purposes of content creation, a persona is a fictional character who represents a buyer in one of your audience segments. Each piece of content you create should be written for a specific persona. Let’s say you’re a manufacturer with prospects in five different verticals, two of which are defense and medical devices. Each of the five will have a different persona for whom you create content. This is because the content that appeals to your defense prospects is not going to appeal to your medical prospects and vice versa.
The more relevant content you share with the defense guy, the more he’s going to keep coming back for more. Send him something that doesn’t resonate, and you may lose him for good. You might even create different personas for job titles within each vertical (Purchaser, CEO, etc.).
So now you know why you need personas. But do you know exactly how to create a B2B persona?
Here are the Elements that Make Up a Perfect B2B Persona:
The Name. Get creative with it. Give them a personality. No-Nonsense Nancy. Type-A Todd. Decisive Dave.
The Photo. A lot of brands skip this step, but it’s nice to put a face with a name. What does Decisive Dave look like? What does he wear? You’re only using this internally, so feel free to find a picture online and use that. Visualization can help your content team write the appropriate content.
Age, Title, and Type of Company. These are likely demographics you’re already targeting. But no persona should be without them. They are the perfect jumping-off point for the rest of your persona development.
What His/Her Day Is Like At Work. Sitting in front of a computer all day is not what we’re looking for here. You want to have an idea of how they interact with staff, what their short- and long-term goals are, and what they need to help them do their jobs better.
At What Point He or She Is Involved In Decision Making. This is important. Is this a person that introduces ideas to their boss? Or the person that makes the final decision about purchasing? Is it someone who is more concerned with money than quality or vice versa? Are you talking to engineers or IT people? That’s a whole new ball game. All of this can and should influence your content.
Media Consumption. How does this person find new products? What do they read when they need insights to help them thrive in their position? When do they read articles online? How often?
What Home Life Is Like. This may seem irrelevant, but it’s not. Does Nancy have a husband and two kids or is she single? Is Todd married? Does he spend too much time commuting? Any little bit of personality you give to your personas is helpful (as long as it’s not completely off-base).
What He or She Does in His/Her Spare Time. Does Decisive Dave spend a lot of time on the golf course? Is Nancy a world traveler? Again, this stuff is gravy, but it can make a big difference for certain types of content. For instance, let’s say you’re targeting doctors, and you have solid information that the majority of doctors like to golf on the weekends. Amidst all of the insights you send their way, you might mix in a comparison between a golf game and the manufacture of medical devices. This is a unique B2B approach that will draw them in and keep them engaged.
These are the elements you need to look at while creating your brand’s B2B personas. Getting them right is one of the most important things you can do for an effective Content Strategy. Need help getting started? Drop us a line.
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