Direct advertising is not as effective as useful product content

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 Find out who your client is

The corona crisis has intensified competition. Now companies have to create and promote more and more fresh solutions. As a result, leads become more expensive, and it becomes even more difficult to attract new customers.

Vyacheslav Averin, Head of LeadGen Marketing and Sales Enablement at the international IT company Terrasoft, writes about this in his eBook “Effective Lead Generation in B2B”. Vyacheslav has 14 years of experience in lead generation and sales management.

Here are some tips from the book that will help you build successful lead generation.

В2В Customer Profile consists of two parts: “customer company” and “customer key persons”. To get a complete “avatar”, study both components.

To analyze a company , define its segment, industry and region. This way you can prepare a relevant offer for her and choose the appropriate communication channels.

 Find out who your client is

Key persons are company employees who influence the decision to conclude a deal. It is with them that you have to work closely.

There are always several key persons, and they have completely different roles, tasks, needs. Let’s say you offer a tool for marketing optimization in a company. Then the CMO, the IT director and the head of the company can make a decision about whether the business needs it.

All of these key persons have their own interests, so your reasoning should satisfy everyone.

# 2. Assemble the Inbound Marketing Team

Depending on the type of business and product features, you can assemble this team in-house or outsourced. The main thing is to have such roles in it:

Product marketer – responsible for communicating value to the target audience, shaping product positioning and looking for channels for promotion.

Inbound Marketing Manager – Manages the creation and distribution of content. Conducts customer interviews, interacts with sales, and is responsible for ensuring that potential buyers become active.

Affiliate Marketing Specialist – is responsible for interacting with partners to prepare joint content (webinars, podcasts, texts).

Copywriter – creates advertising materials. Such a specialist should not only be able to put words into sentences, but also have a good understanding of the product and know the pains of customers.

Targetologist – is responsible for ensuring that your content is seen by the most relevant audience on social networks. He selects ad platforms, launches campaigns, manages budgets and, if necessary, optimizes ad campaigns.

Email Marketer – segments the customer base, prepares and launches mailings for different groups of target audience. This is one of the most important people on the team because email marketing in B2B tends to generate a lot of leads.

Business Development Representatives – Negotiate with potential clients to close a deal.

# 3. Make friends with the sales team

Work closely with other departments in the company that also work with clients. First of all, this is the sales department. Initially, talk to them about the key metrics by which you plan to qualify leads.

For example, SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) is a lead with a proven need and high willingness to buy. It is important that this concept is interpreted in the same way by representatives of both marketing and sales.

Agree on what the lead should be for the OP to take it into work. For example, to have a certain position, status, budget – or just be interested in cooperation. When such points are agreed upon, the likelihood of a trade being closed increases.

Also, listen to colleagues from other departments who communicate closely with clients. This can be a support service or project teams. They probably have a lot of valuable information about the “pains” and needs of your target audience.

# 4. Create different content for lead generation

Direct advertising is not as effective as useful product content. Every year it becomes more difficult to get leads from it: the cost of attracting them increases along with the growth of competition in paid and organic channels.

That’s why content marketing comes to the rescue. It is based on building deep connections with a potential client. If you share the necessary and useful information with him for free – most likely, he will become more loyal to your company. And will order a service or product when the need arises.

What types of content can be generated:

eBook – voluminous materials that reveal certain issues or help to understand a certain issue. They can also be used as lead magnets.

Customer Cases is a classic way to show the benefits of your product by example of its use by other companies.

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Webinars – online meetings with direction leaders. This is where you can show your expertise and engage an interested audience.

Users themselves choose in which format it is more comfortable for them to consume content. Some people find it convenient to read an article, some listen to podcasts on their way to work, while others prefer to watch videos on YouTube.

Therefore, transform your content into different formats – for example, a webinar can be converted into a podcast or text on a website.

What types of content can be generated

# 5. Take care of content distribution

The effectiveness of lead generation depends on the competent distribution of content. Even at the stage of preparing a new content unit, ask yourself through what channels and with what message it will be broadcast.

Typically, a marketing campaign begins with the launch of useful content for your target audience, and at the next stages, information is connected to get acquainted with the product. It can start with one channel (for example, advertising on social networks), and continue in others – emails and remarketing, taking into account how the person reacted to previous communications.

# 6. Evaluate Key Metrics

What data to track depends on the specifics of your business. But the key point is the number of high willingness to buy (SQL) leads. This indicator definitely needs to be taken into account in any company.

Also, each role in the lead generation department has its own performance metrics. For example, an email marketer is responsible for the growth of new contacts, the reach of a relevant audience, and the open rate of emails.

A PPC specialist reports on CTR (click-through rate) and the cost of attracting a lead through paid channels, while an SEO specialist reports on the growth of organic traffic, the expansion of the semantic core and its positions in search engines.

All these indicators, ideally, should always be in front of your eyes – so you can quickly respond to changes and make decisions based on data.

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