5 Tips for Digital B2B Marketers to Consider While Planning Their Campaigns To create a sales solution for your business, you first must clearly understand your marketing funnel
By Benedict Hayes •
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Planning marketing and advertising campaigns for 12 months can be quite a task. And for B2B marketers, it is even more crucial that their campaigns align with the clients' integrated marketing plan in order to be effective. So here are some top points that B2B marketers can keep in mind while planning their digital campaigns.
Have a Vision
Have a clear long-term vision, but with defined short-term executable goals. The realisation of these short-term goals will work as proof points to validate the organisation's long term vision. The cultural DNA of the business needs to align with the corporate vision and setting and attaining short-term goals can be used as success stories to get the business to buy into the long-term vision. The vision and the imbibing of the cultural DNA must have buy-in and driven by senior management.
Data is the Key
Corroborate everything with data and insights. Link your data sets, sales, CRM, ERP, media and analytics. Data should reflect the customer's purchase/experience journey, report efficacy, even enable automation and scale.
Map Out Your Marketing Funnel
To create a sales solution for your business, you first must clearly understand your marketing funnel. Who are your consumers? Where are your consumers? How will you reach your consumers? How will you engage them? And ultimately how will you convert them? If you understand this, you may also find that not one solution but in fact, multiple solutions are required to solve your business challenge. You must, therefore, understand not only the funnel but also the tools/platforms to deliver against the funnel. Some platforms may be good for reach and frequency, others better at engaging and some for converting. Understand the interplays of these platforms and give credit where credit is due. Do not put your channels in silos, Video, SEO, Media, Social etc. Instead, understand how they work together to deliver the objective and support and drive your marketing funnel. Looking at reporting them holistically will help you to build cross-platform synergies and efficiencies, and ultimately drive a successful marketing machine for your business.
Experiment, Learn, Iterate, and Repeat
Be smart. "The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result." Learn from the mistakes. There is no right or wrong way, there is only your way, and each business is different and markets are dynamic. Don't be afraid to fail- failure is the first step to success.
The cost of failure in digital is nominal. For example, incremental improvement in the marketing funnel will lead to massive improvements- a CTR moving from 1per cent - 2per cent is a 100per cent increase in traffic, leads and sales.
Being Human
This is not to quote Salman Khan, but...B2B marketing still requires you to be human and emotionally connect to the end user. When crafting the communication, we still need to understand the need drivers for all the people who will use the product. In some larger B2B solution sales we may need to direct our communication at the different levels within the business. The end User, Influencer and ultimately the Buyer, may all have very different drivers that will make them adopt the product. You must, therefore, build the right content to talk to the right person:
Buyer (CEO): Present a case study as to how your product helped a competitor save X million per year or grow 15x a year, etc.
Influencer (Business Head): For example, showcase how your product streamlines workflow, builds efficiencies within their business unit etc.
User (Team member): Focus on the features, actions, benefits of the product, how it will make their work easier.
Key Take Away:
Always have a vision. Have targets/goals that are quantifiable and tangible. Plan to achieve them and execute. Look at the business problem and employ the solutions that will it, don't deploy things in silos and definitely don't deploy things just to tick the box. Ensure you remain hyper-aware, have the correct data to make informed decisions, execute quickly, learn from your failures as well as your successes and don't be afraid to course correct.
