B2B Marketing Strategies to increase sales in 2020
The start of a new year is a chance to reset, re-think and implement some new marketing techniques to help your business increase sales. With “Digital ad spend expected to account for 50% of all advertising budgets worldwide by the end of 2020” your businesses campaigns must be of the highest level to fend off the competition. This is also supported by the fact that “91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to reach customers.”
With figures such as these, it is clear that the amount of content and marketing material pumped out to consumers each day is enormous. With such density in the market, how do you make your content stand out? Are your marketing campaigns attracting and engaging the right consumers? Did your campaigns in 2019 struggle to get the results you wanted? Here are some tips to improve your marketing campaigns to increase your businesses sales.
1. Value-based selling
The first step in the process is to understand how you should market and ultimately sell your product to consumers. We now live in an era where the levels of data and information being produced is at an all-time high. This is shown by the fact that “90% of the world’s data has been produced in the last two years.”. With this amount of data, it is only reasonable that a lot of content created will be missed by the consumer because it does not entice them in. This brings us on to our first technique of value-based selling.
Due to the vast amount of content now available, there is currently no need for consumers to spend hours searching for the right product. They hold power in being able to choose from a wide range of options. For marketers, it is, therefore, essential that the content aimed at the specific consumer is tailored to their particular needs.
Your content should focus on the consumer’s problems and how your business can help eliminate those problems. In doing so, your content must also be evident in explaining what costs the consumer will face and how your product is providing an ‘opportunity’ to help. A recent study found that “77% of B2B buyers still feel that making a purchase is time-consuming and even painful.”. Being transparent and honest as well as tailoring to the consumer’s direct needs will immediately reduce the time buyers will have to use hence creating a better customer experience.
2. Create your buyer personas
The second step involves creating your ideal buyer persona. A buyer persona helps build content that would interest your target audience. The persona will have the same interests, problems and challenges that your ideal customer would have – a twin of your ideal customer.
This means the content created can be specific and personalised as you can be confident that you are targeting the correct consumer. In many ways, it gives you a direction and path to work towards as your marketing content adapts to the environment that your ideal persona works in. To begin creating your buyer persona, you must first do some market research. This is to really grasp what your personas want, and by doing some industry-relevant surveys, you will quickly receive relevant data to mould your first persona.
To get more in-depth knowledge about the struggles people may be facing in the industry, it is worth having a long conversation/call with someone in your target audience or a friendly existing customer. This doesn’t necessarily have to be the CEO, but someone knowledgeable in the industry can provide vital information that the surveys may have missed. Once you have gathered the information, try and narrow down the common details, e.g. demographics, skill level, interest etc.
All of this is adding in creating your path to your ideal buyer persona. With your ideal persona now nailed down, you can now tailor your content towards them with personalised messaging. Yes, having your ideal buyer is the aim, but realistically you have to watch where your business is most likely to make sales. So always create multiple personas so you can change up your approach to address the needs of each persona.
3. Create your web/search strategy
With your buyer personas and marketing direction sorted, the next step is to create your web/search strategy. In marketing, there are many ways to generate leads, including, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Pay per click (PPC) or via social media. Now there is nothing to say that you shouldn’t try all of these methods at the same time, but if you do, you will have to make sure there is a structured approach otherwise you may end up wasting some of your marketing budgets.
A study in late 2019 found that “64% of B2B organisations have a formal marketing plan” and there is a good reason for this. Without a plan, much of your marketing resource can be wasted, and your strategy will lose its sense of direction. For example, if you are looking to do a Google Ads campaign, you must allocate time each day to check the progress and success. Thousands of pounds of businesses marketing budget have been wasted on poorly managed Ad campaigns because the ads were not optimised correctly, leading to clicks that cost money without providing appropriate leads. Also, if your SEO strategy does not align with your ads strategy you might be doubling your effort and diminishing returns.
By picking one or two strategies, you and your team can consistently put out content that can be monitored and improved depending on the results you are seeing. If you were looking to do a LinkedIn lead generation campaign but see no results within the first couple of weeks, you can change your message. The point is, being on top of whichever strategy you choose is essential and is the critical component to getting a good return on marketing investment.
4. Publish quality content for different stages of the buyer journey (Awareness, Consideration, Buying)
With your strategy now in place, you can begin to publish the content you have prepared. As mentioned previously, with the vast amount of information that is posted each day, it can be challenging to make your business stand out. However, publishing content for different stages of the buyer journey is one way of keeping your consumer hooked to your content. Beginning by addressing their interests and problems, you can attract an initial number of clicks/impressions early on that can set up your next piece of content.
This technique only works if the content you produce is relevant to the time it’s posted and that there is consistency in the way it is published. For example, you could begin a blog series that is industry relevant to your ideal buyer persona and each week post a new blog. By creating a series or something similar, you are giving the consumers regular content while also leaving them asking what will be posted next week.
With potential leads now following your new ‘series’, the content can then progress onto how you will resolve these problems and how it has worked for others. By progressively painting a picture to your consumer, they are more likely to get in contact as they understand the product and can see how it works.
If your approach was to click-bait consumers with an eye-catching headline which then led to mountains of text, your consumers are more likely to close the page and switch off from your business’s potential offerings. With this drip-feeding method of explaining your product and how it can help them, a level of trust is already formed before any direct contact has been made between you and your consumers.
5. For B2B marketing, we suggest focusing on one key persona and messaging per quarter.
When looking to combine these strategies for a trial for your new marketing outlook in 2020, we advise focussing on just one of the key personas that you have generated.
Once selected, begin a LinkedIn campaign working on sales navigator to engage with your target audience. LinkedIn is so far the best social platform to drive b2b engagement. In addition, it builds up traffic to your website too. By driving traffic to your website, you can begin a blog campaign that has a weekly topic relating to the interests and problems your target persona may face. Try and have a focus for each quarter of the year. You don’t want your message to be distorted, so keeping a clear message throughout each block is essential. Depending on the industry you are targeting, make sure your content is relevant to any current affairs or changes that may affect the industry. If the content you have planned is now irrelevant because of legislation changes etc. don’t post it, it will only lead to your consumers losing trust in your business’s knowledge.
Using these steps to create a detailed and structured marketing plan will go a long way in seeing an increase in leads and ultimately, sales. With the amount of content and data being produced now at an all-time high, it is essential that the content your business creates stands out from the crowd. Define your direction and execute your plan and you will soon see brilliant results.
If you would like to know more about how Predictable Marketing has helped B2B companies develop and implement marketing campaigns for increasing sales, please follow us on LinkedIn or drop us an email.
The Most Effective SEO Strategies For B2B Marketing –Things To Keep In Mind
The Most Effective SEO Strategies For B2B Marketing –Things To Keep In Mind
Just as the marketing field is getting changed over the time span of each year, the strategies of SEO, SMO and other marketing practices are also being evolved and more advanced. There are various factors behind this name change in user behaviour, industry findings, updated algorithms and so on. That is why the SEO marketing implemented for the last year might not prove to be the same useful this year and the following. You need a yearly revision of the SEO strategies especially for a B2B Lead Generation so that your business is never out of the league in the competitive market. The search engine optimization strategies are to be upgraded accordingly –you might limit some, add some or even minus some.
SEO Strategies To Consider For B2B Marketing
The business to business lead generation plays a pivotal role in determining how your business will perform in the market and for this you need the most effective SEO practices. In this context, you should also make sure that you have maintained a supportive relation with the target audience; have strong online presence for ease of communication and excellent brand exposure to the market. So here are the best SEO practices for B2B Marketing –
Strategic Landing Pages
Although in theory, more landing pages mean greater opportunity to leverage organic search but the evident fact is that a large number of landing pages without any proper content would not earn customers. If you find that audience is clicking on the share button or linking the page on their social media account, you can be assured that your landing page is performing well. At the same time, check out competitive pages to see how their pages are ranking on search results. While most search results direct to the Home Page, the audience shows interest in the business through landing pages.
Personalized Content With Proper Keyword
Unique, easily understandable and interactive contents aid in B2B Lead generation especially when proper keywords are used by the SEO Team according to what potential buyers require or would search on the internet. Unless you are well aware of the needs of the target audience, data collection and content marketing would not be fruitful. The idea is to attract more visitors and this can be done with various contents like news articles, blogs, testimonials, product videos etc.
As for keyword search is concerned, make sure you do not only emphasize on conventional keywords but address the secondary keywords or related keywords as well, which is perfectly addressed by Google. With the introduction of voice search options on search engines or e-commerce websites, using simple natural language is mandatory so that tagging and content optimization is easier.
Keep Abreast With Google Search Changes But Don’t Limit Focus
The SEO team relentlessly optimizes the contents to earn a better ranking on search engines like Google and also make sure the contents are easily available on the initial few pages on Google. The Google marketing is subject to change regularly and unless you are well aware of such changes such as tagging display page differently, putting the brand name first and so on, the outcome will not be satisfactory. Google can automatically detect the importance of the keywords and often change the tags accordingly. You need to make sure that this does not hamper the page visibility.
At the same time, relying only on Google SEO is not enough because with the growing popularity of social media pages, YouTube and other platforms, the SEO strategy should be devised accordingly along with changed content template for different platforms.
Optimization For Mobile Devices Is Mandatory
In this mobile-dependent age, you should always keep different SEO strategies for websites and apps or mobile version of the website. When you are implementing SEO for B2B for your business website, make sure you consider the multimedia, font size, navigation, links, translation, loading times for content and other features which might be different for mobile devices. Google search on mobile is the most common nowadays as people are more dependent to Smartphone rather than personal computers. By all means, your Google search ranking will get higher only if you have created a responsive mobile-friendly website with strategically optimized user experience.
Q&A Feature Will Be Helpful
In terms of content developing through SEO, integrating a questionnaire and answer pattern can make your website rank higher in search engines as most people generally search with a question. If your website has such most searched questions listed in content along with proper answers, they will automatically rank higher than those with general content. You can take help from Google Keyword Planner but also consider whether your website needs more transparency with the audience. With such an interactive pattern, your content will be easy to locate on search engines.
At the same time, it is important to optimize resource sections and content hubs for search engines and users so that the organic traffic can increase yearly up to 75 percent.
Securing Websites Will Aid In Better SEO Ranking
Audience would always go for the website starting with address as Https rather than Http because the Https websites offer secure search. Various search engines including Google consider Https as the ranking signal and also stated that those websites using Http would be called out. So obviously, with a secure search option, your website will perform better in SEO ranking than the rest.
Use Chatbox For Better Communication And Higher Ranking
In B2B Lead generation, ¸ Chatboxes are often incorporated within a website to enhance the user experience and boost communication with potential customers. While providing important data for SEO, the chatboxes not only let the visitor interact with you but also let you address his/her queries regarding your service or products. In this context, personalized messages can prove to be handy for smooth and fast conversation.
At Predictable Marketing, you will learn about linking domains on social media or emails and adding interactive infographics, videos etc. You will be offered flexible strategies complying with new changes and we make sure you experiment with various strategies to come up with what is best and compatible for your business.
Could Robotics be the key to UK prosperity?
Disruptive technologies generate new opportunities. RPA is one such emerging technology that is changing the way we work today and how we will work tomorrow. RPA is the use of software robots to automate repetitive tasks, common in middle and back-office jobs. A few examples of such tasks are:
- Invoice matching with two different systems
- Reviewing a sales order in one system and creating a production work order in another system.
- Follow-ups with debtors, ‘purchase to pay’ payments
- Conducting competitive research on the web
- Updating various third-party systems with order delivery information
- Cross-checking and validating customer information across various internal and external systems
This is just the tip of the iceberg. RPA has a phenomenal number of use cases across sectors.
Benefits of Using RPA
- Faster processes so they can meet SLA’s and deadlines quicker
- Improved accuracy of information shared across processes
- Provide better insights from consolidated data
- Faster time to market
- Lower costs of operations
And again, this is only the beginning of the list.
Let’s not forget the question we were trying to answer in the blog – Can RPA help the UK prosper?
It certainly can, by improving productivity in businesses by automating tasks that no one intends to do. Employees are more productive in high value-adding tasks which increases employee satisfaction as well. Especially, the UK’s big services sector can perform really good with automating back-office jobs.
Is the tech sector geared up to support the UK’s growing demand for RPA?
The answer is both, yes and no. Tech companies who are specialists in the technology have burgeoned over the last few years. Common names bounced off in any RPA discussion include – Blue Prism, UI Path, Automation Anywhere, Kofax, Nice, Kryon (not in any order). Along with these product companies we have seen the emergence of smaller value-added resellers or partners who have developed niche solutions for specific use cases.
Then where is the challenge?
There is still an evident gap between demand and supply here. RPA sellers haven’t been able to reach their target markets and so, there are businesses that are looking for RPA suppliers who understand their processes and will not sell them a robot and walk out. They are looking for partners who will consult, implement and help them scale RPA implementations so that benefits are seen at an enterprise level.
The role of marketing in bridging this gap is valuable. Predictable Marketing is actively helping RPA vendors define their marketing message based on their strengths and more importantly based on the niche problem they are solving with their RPA capabilities.
Conclusion
A “we can implement this cool new technology pitch” can only take an RPA vendor so far. If you are really looking to add value to businesses and help them realize the full potential of RPA – a value-based marketing approach “this what RPA can resolve for you and deliver these results” is needed.
It sounds like “the obvious way to market” but most RPA vendors we have worked with struggled with this piece of marketing message and strategy. Hence, their campaigns failed to provide a return on investment. We have helped define marketing messaging based on the value customers derive from an RPA implementation. If you are struggling with taking your RPA products to market, get in touch.
All You Need To Know About Lead Generation and the Best Ways of Executing it
Gone are the days when an over-enthusiastic salesperson would knock at your door during hours with their business proposal. With the advancement of internet, social media and inexpensive telephone charges, marketing has changed into promotional messages on phone or mails in inbox or just those clingy calls right when you did not want to take it. Of course, promoting your brand or company and getting new customers is always a major objective but why not do it more strategically in a professional way?
Yes, we are talking about Lead generation which lets you attract strangers who would show interest in your company services through job applications, online content, blog posts, events or mere coupons.
Lead Generation –What It Is
In order to develop the sales pipeline, Lead generation acts as a marketing process to stimulate and gain interest in any service or product of a company. Digital media is mostly used in this process, thanks to the rapid advancement and evolution of digital world. In recent times, with substantial changes in online marketing and availability of extensive information online had resulted in emergence of self-directed buyers and also increased need of qualifying potential leads. Now the question arises, who is the lead?
In general terms, a business lead is the customer showing interest in the company service or product some way or the other. The lead would only be communicated by the organization if he/she has opened the communication through any medium and hence, in this process there is no fraudulent or irritating commercial call out of the blue. The mode of communication from the lead can be variegated –mail, online survey, participation in any event, ordering something and so on. In Lead generating process, there is always room for integrating unique ways to attract customers automatically so that they opt for being communicated with the company and ultimately end up being a valued customer.
Importance of Lead Generation
The generation of Leads is part of inbound marketing method in converting the stranger audience to potential customer. Once the stranger is interested to the company image, they become visitors of the online site, thanks to the unique blogs with proper usage of keywords and strategic social publishing. Visitors are then converted to business leads through landing pages, user forms, call-to-action pages etc and thus they become close customers connected through CRM, emails etc. The customers become promoters of the business only when they find smart contents, social monitoring and take part in surveys.
Generation of Leads
Lead generation marketing depends primarily on marketing channels like blog, social media, website etc from where the visitor finds the message, image or button that work as CTA or call-to-action. Now, the more interesting and informative the landing page (offers, templates, services and some product description should be included) is, more convinced the visitor is to share personal information through filling up forms for gaining full access. There are various practices for Lead Generation –
1. B2B Generation Of Lead
Although the effectiveness of B2B Lead Generation varies from channel to channel, there are particular approaches for generating leads. While Email marketing helps in marketing automation through CRM connection, Search Marketing with proper SEO usage will help you gain higher rank on search engines like Google. B2B also relies on Content Marketing through e-Newsletters, website articles, illustrations, videos, infographics, webcasts and mor
2. Through LinkedIn, Facebook And Twitter
LinkedIn has the Lead Gen Forms for auto-populating with user profile data while clicking any CTA. Apart from outbound links shared by a profile, Facebook’s Ad feature paved way for Lead Ads for paid advertising. With Twitter’s Lead Gen Card, you can directly generate Leads within any tweet and let the visitor “Submit” name, Twitter username and email ID.
3. Pay-Per-Click Lead Generation
On various SERPs or Search Engine (Google, Bing etc) Result Pages, ad campaigns are very common as a medium of generating PPC although the effectiveness is dependent on user traffic, target keywords, budget etc.
In order to create a successful Lead generation strategy, at Predictable Marketing, the team chooses the proper generation tools including software, CTA templates Form-scraping tool etc. The team makes sure that the customers are interested by exciting offers with CTA options that lead to responsive landing page.
The trends of generation of leads are subject to change with the introduction of new strategies, different layouts and advertisements. While being active on social media and mailing system, Predictable Marketing keeps abreast of users’ needs to evolve accordingly.
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80% of B2B buying process is over before first sales touch
Inbound marketing is more important in this post GDPR world than it was ever before. The time where marketing meant letting the world know how great you/your product or your service is, is over. Just think of yourself as a customer and think how many cold calls/emails or flyers do you respond to?
Our buying habits are the best place to start analysing our customer’s buying behaviour (after all our customers are as human as us). Anything we want to buy we search via our phones, computers or ask Alexa. We convince ourselves that the proposition is right for us by reading reviews, asking our friends who would have commented or liked a product on social media and then as a last step, when we are really sure of what we want to buy we contact sales.
Sales is now the last step of the buying process.
What does this mean for marketing departments?
It means that the responsibility of sales and the goal of generating revenue has shifted quite heavily onto the marketing function. Only how we wish the fat bonuses and commissions shifted to us too! After all, we are bringing the customer to the point of sales.
I would love to hear about your customer’s buying journeys, please leave a comment or InMail me.