Summary
The trouble with most marketing strategies or ideas is that they’re written and consumed by marketers. A quick search on Google for ‘digital marketing’ will deliver up over half a billion search results, so its unsurprising very little progress is made. It reminds me of the saying “no one ever got fired for buying IBM”.
Every business focuses on demand generation, marketing automation and ABM. But what about the results? Well, Forrester say that less than 1% of browsers actually make it through the so-called ‘marketing funnel and generate revenue.
The hunt for good marketing strategies or good marketers seems endless, and the churn of CMO’s remains on average at eighteen months. There’s too little good and engaging content being produced to make an impact on digital B2B marketing, so, what’s the answer?
If you believe business growth is achievable based upon headcount you will maintain your current level of performance which ‘tops out’ at about £100-150k per person per annum. To exceed this level of turnover, your approach to digital must change and that means ditching most of the automation and the common fall-back position of cold calling to follow up and adopting a non-restrictive, undemanding, and open approach to prospects.
This is the path or journey we want to take you on, shown on the infographic below. There is another a bit further down in this article to show how to fgollow a path for existing customers too.
Contents
2. The Digital Seling Strategy
3. Content Creation Connected with SEO
4. The Repeatable Social Media Distribution Strategy
5. Marketing Automation + Permission Marketing
6. Marketing Automation + Outbound Email
7. Marketing Automation + Pay Per Click Banners
8. Marketing Automation + Freemium Product Sign up
10. Partner & Affiliate Marketing Strategy
11. Direct Engagement Strategy
12. B2C vs B2B Marketing - Don't Confuse the Two!
1. The B2B Marketing Problem
Business marketing produces mediocre results because marketers fail to create relatable, varied format, content, i.e., articles/downloads/videos/podcasts/live, that allows the prospect to choose a format that suits them.
[83% of business research digitally before engaging with a company - Gartner]
This results in a dependency on marketing software to capture customer details for sales to follow up. The 1-2-1 sales end-game stops businesses from scaling.
[Av t/o per person p.a. £90-130k – BIS UK | 91% fail within ten years - Sifted]
Some interesting statistics:
- 80% of all sales will be made via digital channels by 2025, not direct sales - Gartner
- 79% prefer video to phone - Gartner
- 89% believe in sustainable digital GTM - Gartner
- 41% want more video conferencing - McKinsey
- 23% want more online CHAT - McKinsey
- 83% Research Digitally before engaging with a salesman - Gartner
- .5% Less than 1% traverse the 'funnel' and create revenue - Forrester
- 30% of businesses fail in the first year - FT
- 50% of businesses fail by the second year - FT
- 70% of businesses fail by the third year - FT
- 91% of businesses fail by the 10th year - FT
- 40% of Invested Business Fail - Harvard
- 80% of Invested Business Fail to achieve their own targets - Harvard
- 95% of Invested business Fail to achieve an ROI for Investors - Harvard
- 50% of all business’s failure reasons, are marketing related - CB Insights
- 1 in 400 Cold call success rates - University of Life
- B2C marketing strategies do not work for B2B - University of Life
- Stop using automation platforms to replace cold calling - University of Life
- £100k turnover per person per annum is the norm - BIS
- Average tenure of CMO's in UK & USA is 18 months - Recruitment Industry + Press + Seth Godin
2. The Digital Selling Strategy
Create engaging multi-format content to help prospects self-serve at every stage.
Achieve exposure to your chosen market(s) through SEO ‘approved’ content, daily adverts posted on social media (organic and PPC) and vertical market banner advertising.
Draw in new prospects, don’t hunt them down, then scale up based upon demand.
The general resistance to change is due to an inherent desire for someone to come up with an idea that will deliver immediate results. Experience tells us that has never happened.
CEOs, CFOs, and Investment Managers all want the same thing; successful, profitable companies that are scalable and attract investors. The following pages will help you achieve just that.
3. Content Creation with SEO
- Create assorted 1500-word articles in our Google format, to educate/advise/teach
- Create assorted videos/podcasts/live-stream programs to educate/advise/teach
- Create content in non-linear (anti-funnel) structured format for maximum engagement:
- General (Company, Staff, CSR)
- Secondary (Events, PR, News, Industry Related)
- Primary (Thought-Leadership/Downloads)
- Product (Brochures/Explainers/FAQs)
- How-to-Buy (Online – Call for help if required)
- Use Google Search to help clarify good quality content and not as a goal to appear on page one to generate new business
- Monitor content performance via Google Tag Manager and Analytics Grouping to edit, improve, or delete
- Take a look at our own page SEO for Digital Selling to see how we approach this aspect of digital, the logic behind Google Search Console and the results we achieve
4. The Repeatable Social Media Distribution Strategy
- Social 444, 4 ads, 4 x per day, 4 x weeks = 120 Adverts, then repeat
- 120 adverts: Memes, Motion Graphics, Video Clips and Graphics
- Adverts automatically posted to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter Followers
- Adverts to promote General > Secondary > Primary > Product > HTB
- Spark Toro – locate and advertise where your markets congregate
- Focused, Fixed Cost, Low Maintenance & Automated
5. Marketing Automation + Permission Marketing
- Upon receiving permission, i.e. their email address, create unique Sign Up only content
- Create 10 Part Series, How to…, Useful Advice etc.
- Include Call-To-Actions on each email message to relevant website content
- No more than 2 x emails per month
- Monitor/Lead Score via MAP
6. Marketing Automation + Outbound Email
- Purchase desired vertical market email database and/or clean existing
- Select email segmentation choice from database
- Create unique rich content for email recipients
- No more than 2 x emails per month
- Monitor CTA via MAP & Lead Score
7. Marketing Automation + Pay Per Click Banners
- Using purchased database, upload to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter
- And/or select vertical market websites and display multi-size banners
- A/B/C Split Test; Verticals/Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter/Google
- Implement Remarketing via Google/Facebook pixel
- All Banners > Landing Page > No Email Forms > Deliver Content
- PPC is focused but dependent on competitive bidding costs and susceptible to abuse
8. Marketing Automation + Freemium Product Sign-up
- Using purchased database, upload to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter
- And/or select vertical market websites and display multi-size banners
- A/B/C Split Test; Verticals/Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter/Google
- Implement Remarketing via Google/Facebook pixel
- All Banners > Landing Page > to Email Form Sign Up
- Obtain full details upon Sign-Up > Profile Segmentation > Email Marketing track(s)
- Engagement based upon vertical market segmentation
- CRO > Testing > Heat Maps > UX > CX > Analytics
- Monitor CTA via MAP & Lead Score
9. Existing Customer Strategy
- Objective: Obtain Case Studies | Referrals | Cross-Sell/Up-Sell
- Create Video/Photos/Live Stream Opportunities
- Segmentation based upon Title & Industry
- Stay relatable > Constant Improvement > Engaging Email Tracks
- Monitor CTA via MAP & Lead Score
The infographic below illustrates how you can follow a path to keep existing customer engaged and keep committed to your support plans:
10. Partner & Affiliate Marketing Strategy
- Connect to associated non-competing businesses/industries
- Multi-level Commissions/Post Affiliate Pro
- Promote via Click Bank or Other Platforms
- Treat as sales team > Provide great support > elevate effort & winners
- Monitor CTA via MAP & Lead Score
11. Direct Engagement Strategy
Provide platforms and apps to enable/enhance customer engagement
- WhatsApp | FB Messenger | Telegram | Viber | SMS
- Mobile & Web App Messaging | MMS | Push Notifications
- Google Business Messaging | Live Chat | LINE | RCS | Signal
- Video | Email | Voice Calls!
12. B2C vs B2B - Don't confuse the two!
Whilst we don't get involved in B2C, here are some pointers; create bite-size content items applying storytelling and branding strategies using:
- Articles | Videos | Memes | Motion Graphics | Podcasts |Photos
- Maintain: What’s in it for me!
- Tell them: You look good in this!
- Let them know: Your life will change for the better
Utilising Social Platforms:
- Google PPC Ads
- Remarketing Ads
- Banner Ads
- Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / TikTok / Twitter Ads
- Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / TikTok / Twitter Posts
Structure sales and conversion optimization via:
- Influencer Strategies & YouTube
- eCommerce | Shopping Cart
- Affiliate Marketing
SEO + Analytics
Conclusion
Scaling your business can only be achieved through digital engagement, not through 1-to-1 human effort or headcount. The entire ‘evaluation to purchase’ process must be structured and refined through digital platforms without the involvement of salespeople, unless requested by the customer.
Typical marketing strategies that pander to automation software and not the engagement behaviour of businesspeople means most efforts will fail. Big Tech told B2B to buy marketing automation and they did, in spades. It did not move the needle and still the same number of business go bust every year.
Account Based Marketing (ABM) is not required as the above engagement is directed at specific verticals and individuals.
The above components are essential to build a robust and cost-effective long-term strategy aimed at increasing the profitability per person within a company.
You can do this and change. Whether you consider yourself as an innovator or an early adopter, our suggested strategies are to be implemented in parallel to your exsiting marketing plans and, as ours increases, the old will decrease. The best next move is to simply have a chat about your business and we can put together a logical plan.
Additional Content
Take a look at a whitepaper we recently published, the link is here to 'How to Master B2B Growth Using Digital Selling Techniques'. Also take a look at the section labelled 'Digtal Selling' as it will give a good indication how we get things going.
The author and founder of salesXchange, Nigel Maine is a B2B marketing and sales expert with a proven track record in scaling up growth for Technology, SaaS, and Professional Services organisations. With 30 years hands-on experience and unique approach, Nigel has developed an effective strategy that dramatically increases exposure and profitability for B2B organizations.
