Digital marketing has plenty going for it. It helps you interact and find customers that you’d probably never encounter and understand customer preferences so you can personalize messaging. Better yet, ascertain which channels drive quality leads and sales.
That said, digital marketing strategies are built differently, and the ones you employ will impact your growth and profit. Not every digital tactic out there will match your business or offer noteworthy results.
Some will be uninspiring while others have proven their ability to target a brand’s core customers and boost growth. Let’s check out the latter, below.
1. Data-Driven Marketing
Statistics show that brands that take a data-driven marketing approach are likely to have an edge over their competitors and enjoy higher profits.
Rightly so, since brands that collect and analyze relevant data can understand customers and test marketing campaigns and improve sales processes.
With B2B data-driven marketing, you base your decisions on the data you collect and not your preferences. You can visit Saleshive to know about different strategies and practices that you can adopt for the maximum success of your business.
You compare data from various situations and come up with evidence that supports the content you create and distribution channels. It also aids budgetary allocation and how to deal with prospects once they enter your pipeline.
The top benefits of this strategy include
- Identifying your total addressable market. Firmographic and technographic data are useful in compiling lists of accounts that may potentially become customers. Based on this list, you can discern where optimal growth opportunities lie.
- Improving your targeting. Analyze existing data to assemble ideal customer profiles and pinpoint companies that are great market fits. You can also build buyer personas of the decision-makers within the organizations you’re targeting.
- Crafting compelling content. With the buyer personas you’ve created, use customer data to decode what content would resonate with them and motivate them to purchase. You then dive into content analytics for further insights into the content that works for them.
2. Cold Calling
Cold calling is an effective business practice that involves contacting those potential customers who have not shown any interest in purchasing a particular brand.
Succeeding at cold calling takes practice over and over. It takes confidence, charisma, the ability to pivot product knowledge to meet customers’ pain points, and persistence.
Whether you turn the cold calls into boring interactions with strangers or meaningful, relationship-building, and information-collecting resources will depend on how you handle them.
Consider the following
- Be yourself. Calling scripts are great but people can tell when you’re reading them verbatim. Which can be annoying. Internalize the script, take the business jargon out, and aim for real human conversations and connections.
- Be confident. Build up your knowledge of your solutions and the industries you serve best. Look up the prospect as well before you jump on the call. Preparation translates to confidence and authority, which are key factors in securing the listener’s trust.
- Be valuable. Listen to the prospect. Ask intelligent and relevant questions to figure out their challenges and how your solutions can help change things. Present this information to them and refer to some recent stats (that you can share) to back up your claims.
- Turn “nos” into opportunities. Note down the moments when the no came through. Was it when you introduced yourself, mentioned your solutions, or asked for your goal? Use your knowledge to tweak your approach.
3. Social Media Marketing
So, your customers, acquaintances, and business partners are on social. Even your competitors have a social media presence and you figure it’s time you did the same.
But getting into social shouldn’t be out of obligation but from the realization that these channels offer brands tremendous growth opportunities.
Here are some benefits you can derive from it
- Expanding your reach. Understandably, not every company will become your customer. Using the data-based buyer personas you built, you can identify the right decision-makers on social and connect with them.
- Promoting content cost-effectively. Sharing organic posts on social media is cost-efficient and ideal for businesses on a tight budget. People who love your content will engage and share improving visibility.
- Understanding audiences. Monitoring social conversations around specific topics helps you gain a better understanding of your customers and their needs. Only then can you know the content that interests and can resonate with them.
4. Collaborate With a Lead Generation Firm
When you are caught between “too much work” and “too little time, it’s often lead-generating efforts that get hampered. And without leads coming in, new business slows to a trickle and stunts your growth.
Outsourcing this aspect of your business means you can continue running your business while the lead gen company hunts for credible leads and drives real results.
The partnership provides
- Access to lead generation experts. Their experience means you access a team that has insider knowledge of what works. They are comfortable making cold calls and testing copy, and they understand the best channels for identifying and nurturing leads.
- A results-oriented team. Unlike your internal team that’s inundated with everyday tasks, (in addition to finding leads) an agency’s primary job is to drive new leads.
- The prioritization of follow-ups. Through lead scoring, the agency firm creates workflows that handle leads according to the stage they are in. By utilizing the appropriate follow-up process, leads can be nurtured to get sales-ready.
5. Content Marketing
Offering target customers relevant information is crucial to establishing your brand as a thought leader and people expect you to do it.
According to Havas.com, up to 84 percent of subjects expected brands to create content—the kind that’s entertaining but still offers solutions and experiences.
The same study also states that 60 percent of the content these subjects have encountered is poor or simply irrelevant and fails to deliver. In other words, you can craft blogs and eBooks or make videos and podcasts, but fail to connect with your audience.
A wake-up call for B2B sellers Here are tips to help turn your content into relevant and sought-after material that delivers value.
- Fill gaps around a subject. Most people look at what industry leaders are writing about and regurgitate. We recommend mapping out what hasn’t been tackled (reading the comments section can help) and taking a unique angle that fills the messaging gaps.
- Update existing content. Identify message gaps in your content that may affect the buyer and fill it up. Is there extra information you can add to your popular pieces? Is there content that would fare better if you changed its format i.e. turn blog posts into a podcast series or an eBook?
- Share your wins. Did you recently make a discovery or implement a new strategy that helped a customer achieve their goals? Translate these successes into case studies, templates, or guides that others can use.
