The perfect B2B marketing campaign is always a work in progress. It’s something that needs to be constantly adapted, tweaked and improved according to changing market conditions and new customer preferences. So here are 5 ways to boost the success of your B2B marketing campaigns:
Tip 1: Re-think lead generation
Arguably, lead generation is the single most important component of any B2B marketing strategy. Lead generation is the starting point for every message that you craft, for every campaign that you develop, and for every element of your online presence that you create. Leads are the raw materials that go into the final product (the sale!), so pay attention to how you are generating the highest-quality leads.
Start by figuring out where your leads are coming from now – take a good look at your website and your overall online presence. Are people finding you via search? Are you hitting all the social channels you should be hitting? That’s just the online component of lead generation. What about all of your offline destinations – trade shows, exhibitions, or other events where customers might hear about you?
Tip 2: Create storylines that bind together all of your marketing assets
It’s one thing to crank out a lot of content, but it’s quite another to make all that content make sense. The way to do that is by storytelling. You need a good narrative that will pull together all of your content – blogs, videos, infographics, whitepapers, webinars – into one cohesive package. Sometimes this might mean creating entirely new content, other times it might mean upcycling or recycling previous content you’ve already created.
Tip 3: Listen to what people are saying online
It’s too easy just to focus on the competition. Instead, you should be focusing just as much on your own audience. What are key clients and customers saying on social media? As a rule of thumb, you need to be listening to influencers and key players, to hear their insights. You need to engage with thought leaders to see how your industry might be changing or evolving. And you need to keep tabs on industry blogs, to see which ideas and concepts are starting to resonate.
Tip 4: Measure, measure and measure again
Analytics matter. They can help to tell you what’s working, and why. If you’re simply producing a lot of marketing content, and not actually tracking where it’s going or who’s reading it, you’re potentially giving up a lot of ROI on your marketing spend.
Tip 5: Surprise and delight your prospects
While prospects need information, education and insights to help make the most informed decision possible, they also don’t need someone calling them every week. Instead, surprise and delight your prospects. Contact them when they don’t expect it. Send them content they don’t expect. And do it in a way that will make them think they are special. Maybe it’s a personalized email, or maybe it’s a quick video clip that perfectly addresses one of their pain points, it’s that kind of step that will really boost your marketing success.
Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.