B2B marketers continue to face pressures to prove return on their marketing investment. In the ever-changing landscape of marketing, determining how to distribute your budget to the most impactful methods can be challenging. The four strategies below have been proven to improve results for B2B marketers.
1. Social Selling
Ninety percent of executives never return cold calls, resulting in very poor return on investment. Stop cold calling and start using social media to demonstrate your value and receive warm introductions. LinkedIn research found that 78% of salespeople using social media perform better than their peers. If your sales team isn’t using social media to sell, help them go social by providing training.
2. Account-Based Marketing
Developed in 2004 by ITSMA (the Information Technology Services Marketing Association), Account-Based Marketing (ABM) turns the traditional inbound marketing funnel upside down for B2B marketing. Traditional marketing consists of attracting as many people to your site to fill out forms, nurture them with emails, and then identify which of those leads are potential companies to target.
ABM is a strategic approach where sales and marketing identifies the characteristics of their targeted companies, then finds those companies and determines who the decision makers and influencers are. The relationships are nurtured with personalized content and campaigns to drive interest and engagement. As a result, ABM delivers the highest return on investment of any strategic B2B marketing approach.
3. In-Person Events
With the explosion in digital marketing, marketers may feel like they don’t need any face time with prospects and customers. However, for products and services that require significant investment or adoption of staff (software, for example), it is likely that you will benefit from relationship marketing.
Consider integrating opportunities for face-to-face interactions into your mix, including user groups, social and informational events at conferences targeted to your top prospects, and experiential marketing.
4. Customer Advocacy Marketing
Satisfied customers can generate a gold mine in leads and revenue. Seventy-three percent of executives prefer to work with sales professionals referred by someone they know. Referral leads convert 30% better than leads generated from other marketing channels.
If you don’t currently have a customer experience program in place to ensure happy customers who will give referrals, start one now. Make sure you have an action plan in place to address any concerns that arise. Expand your marketing efforts with testimonials, a formal referral program, and an online customer community to increase lead generation.
Are you overwhelmed with your current marketing program and don't have the bandwidth to add any of these strategies? Contact us and we can help plan and implement for you.