In today’s market, differentiating yourself is tougher than ever before. Companies must find smart, unique, and powerful ways to connect with their audiences. Old school strategies like cold calling are now one of the least effective ways to demonstrate value to your target buyers. Understanding and implementing relevant growth marketing tactics can help convert a lead into a customer, which is ultimately every organization’s end goal. Here are three B2B marketing tactics that can help accelerate your growth today.
Sell Your Story Before The Product
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “every business needs a story.” Well, it’s true. A study from the Digital Marketing Institute found that companies who tell a compelling story increase the value of their products and services by more than 20 times! In a competitive market, providing quality content and services isn’t always enough. You need to be able to talk about your service or product in a way that makes you stand out from the crowd. This is where a good story can be most useful. With so many companies competing for market share, each must find a way to tell a unique story that bolsters their brand. In essence, this addresses the “why” behind a company’s actions. Let’s take a look at the Golden Circle model to illustrate the importance of the “why”. The Golden Circle is an innovative model created by British-American author, Simon Sinek. Most organizations start with “what” they’re going to do and then try to figure out “how” they’re going to do it. Sinek believes this is an ineffective way to craft a business. If you truly want to connect to your audience, you must understand “why” your product or service would resonate with your target customer. Find ways to craft a story that speaks to the “why,” as opposed to the “what” or “how.” While having case studies and testimonials is useful, they tend to primarily address the “how” and “what.” You first need to focus on making your brand personable and memorable, which can be accomplished through the power of storytelling.
Competitive Intelligence
Competitive intelligence is the act of gathering and analyzing data about products, services, and competitors to help support strategic planning within an organization. When done right, competitive intelligence allows you to track competitors’ digital footprints for opportunities and inspiration. When crafting a B2B marketing strategy, it’s vital that you keep up to date with what competitors are doing. This includes what they’re posting on social media, ad usage, website trends, campaigns, and even their customer reviews. If you are considering running a campaign for the first time, use competitive intelligence to analyze the success or failures of similar campaigns to optimize your own strategy. This type of relationship is not dissimilar to a family dynamic. In a family with multiple children, the youngest has the opportunity to examine the choices their older siblings make. In theory, this should provide them enough “competitive intelligence” to repeat the successes and avoid the pitfalls that they observed. Just like in the business world, this type of access gives the younger sibling an advantage that the older sibling wasn’t afforded. As we all know, access to that information does not always mean a guaranteed path to success. You must find ways to incorporate that information into your strategy and be prepared to pivot as you continue to gather intelligence.
Webinars
Your content needs to be easily digestible and accessible, and webinars help accomplish that. Webinars are a great way to showcase and demonstrate your firm’s value. Most buyers conduct the majority of research on their own (81% of buyers; AdWeek). By providing a way for your customers to learn more about your business in a non-threatening way, you allow your buyers to conduct their research while positioning yourself as a thought leader. The most successful webinars are the ones that target a single market or address a specific need. This opens the door for more leads and higher conversion rates. Now that you have learned a few of the best growth marketing tactics, go ahead and give them a try! For more tips and strategies like these, check out our new Smark Toolbox 2.0 below or get in touch today!
One of the biggest bottlenecks in launching a marketing campaign is the review and approval process. Late approvals can keep content from going out on time, affecting the entire timeline of a campaign. This issue is something many marketers face, with one in five Content Marketing World attendees revealing that tangled review and approval processes regularly delayed their projects by over a week. To help solve this, we put together a guide to help you review and approve content more efficiently. With these strategies, you’ll be prepared to submit constructive feedback and feel confident in your ability to determine whether a piece of content will perform well.
1. Set expectations
To ensure you’re satisfied with an article, it’s important to set expectations with the writer or marketing team you’re working with at the start. Always be sure to clarify who you want to target, what message you want to communicate, and what you’re hoping to achieve through the article. It’s also important to communicate specifics, such as the word count you want to reach and the number of images you want in the article.
2. Focus on the big picture
Rather than getting hung up on spelling and grammar mistakes, you should focus on the overall message of the article. Spelling and grammar are easy to fix, but changing the main message or theme of an article will require an entire rewrite. It’s unlikely that your audience is analyzing the article and reading it from start to finish, so keep that in mind when you’re editing and providing feedback.
3. Ask yourself questions
When reviewing an article, it helps to ask yourself questions. Here’s a list of some important ones to guide your review process: Does this article address my audience’s pain point? Or, more importantly, does it address the pain point that your product/service provides a solution to? The best way to grab your audience’s attention is by addressing a common struggle they face. Does it offer a solution or actionable advice? This question is to make sure that you’re providing your reader with value. If you begin with a problem, you should follow up with a solution that helps your audience, whether it’s expert advice or a product/service. Does it connect back to my company’s value and mission? Every piece of content posted on your site should support the promotion of your product/service. Because of this, each article should always reiterate your company’s value offer and mission. Does the information provide match my audience’s depth of knowledge on this topic? If your audience is well-versed in a topic, your article should demonstrate a similar knowledge. You want to be sure the article isn’t too high- or low-level that it doesn’t feel relevant to your audience. Does it contain a keyword I want to rank for? Keywords are important because they help attract views to your site. Each piece of content created for your site should be focused around a specific keyword. If the keyword isn’t obvious, you likely aren’t following the best practices for SEO.
4. Look for flow & coherence
Every article should flow, moving smoothly from one topic to the next. This is accomplished by including transition words and using connecting ideas. It also helps to include subheads that organize the sections of your article and signal a change in topic. In addition, taking complex ideas and making them easier to understand is the mark of a good article. You’ll want to determine whether an article possesses this type of coherence by reading it aloud and listening to ensure everything makes sense and sounds consistent.
5. Check sources
Every article needs sources in order to be factual and credible. Any claim made in an article should be backed by data or statistics. This is what sets you apart as a trusted source. The article should include information from leading publications in your industry. In addition, it’s a good idea to conduct regular interviews with subject matter experts so you can ensure you’re up-to-date on the latest trends and innovations in your industry. In addition to outside sources, your article should include relevant internal links to your site.
6. Pay attention to CTAs
At the end of the article, you want to inspire your reader to take action. For this reason, it’s important to include a call to action. However, this doesn’t mean you should just drop in a random CTA that doesn’t make sense. For example, if your article is titled “10 Ways to Make the Most of Your HubSpot Investment,” your CTA could be something like “contact us today for a free HubSpot audit.” Another important thing to note is that you can include multiple CTAs throughout your article to drive traffic to other resources or articles on your site. To learn more about reviewing and approving content, reach out to us! We’re here to help!
Have you ever set aside money for a task or project and completed it for less than originally anticipated? How did it make you feel? What did you do with that leftover money? Rather than feeling satisfied with the site you now have, learn a few quick tricks and ideas on where that money can go to help turn your website from great to exceptional. As a marketing professional, focus on increasing website traffic and potential leads — a foolproof strategy for success. Here are a few savvy options your firm should explore to ensure your website stands above the rest.
1. Incorporate Explainer Videos
According to VideoBrewery, 85% of people are more likely to buy a product or service once they view an explainer video. This is no coincidence. Here’s an example of a simple, clean explainer video that effectively highlights a businesses service offerings (Spoiler – It’s ours!):
Research shows that viewers are more likely to stay engaged with a page that includes videos rather than paragraphs of text. Two major benefits to explainer videos include offering better clarification of your product/service and increased conversion rates. The key is ensuring the videos are quick and concise. A study from AdAge claims that marketers lose 33% of all viewers in the first 30 seconds of a video. What does this mean? People are busy. Think about all the times you scroll through your newsfeed on social media and see a video. You’ll watch the first few seconds and if you’re not intrigued, you scroll right past. Right? Grabbing the viewers’ attention in the first 3-5 seconds is vital because it addresses the first decision the viewer makes: to stay or go. If it isn’t captivating from the start, you’ve already lost.
2. Advertise
Source: Banners Nack Advertising is imperative if you want people to know who you are. The most commonly used platform is GoogleAds. According to WordStream and their Pay-Per-Click (PPC) statistics, firms make an average of $2 for every $1 spent on GoogleAds. Talk about good ROI! Before running your ads, it’s imperative to develop a well-thought-out strategy. Marketri found that 32% of companies wing their marketing efforts and have no strategic plan. Start with a goal, define your audience, and determine the services offered before introducing any advertising. Incorporating these three components will make your site more attractive, which gives your business a competitive edge.
3. Invest in Blog Writing
Investing in blog writing is a great way to not only boost search engine optimization but develop stronger relationships with current and potential clients. Just like subscribing to your favorite magazine or newsletter, blogs help keep your audience in the loop about industry news/trends and help position your company as an expert in the field. An Inbound Marketing Report from HubSpot found that 57% of companies who publish blogs consistently have gained at least one customer as a result of their efforts. Another benefit includes the option for readers to share this content on their own social media platforms for their peers to see. This can open up endless opportunities and positive exposure for your brand, and help work towards increasing visitors to your website.
Closing
There is no universal “right answer” on what to do with your leftover website budget. However, incorporating explainer videos, advertising, and blogging are a few tactics that have been proven to help optimize your new website and grow your business. Investing in these components is a great way to ensure your website is up to par, ultimately getting you one step closer to that next big deal.
To learn more about how to improve your website, check out our Launchpad Site below or get in touch!
First, let me introduce a key term that can help with navigating your relationship with a current buyer. Buyer enablement. Sound familiar? No? GREAT. That’s why you’re here. Buyer enablement is achieved when your company provides accurate and efficient information to facilitate a prospective buyer’s decision making. We understand what our client’s needs are, however, implementing a buyer enablement strategy can enhance the purchasing experience and lead to higher conversion rates. Let me break it down in 3 steps…
1. Identifying your buyer
You may understand the company you’re trying to sell to, but you need to evaluate and understand the person behind the decision making. According to a yearly study performed by TrustRadius, almost 45% of buyers are millennials. As much as it might pain the Boomers and Gen-Xers, try to get in the mindset of your fastest-growing target audience. Defining who your buyer is and understanding their values allows you to accelerate the buying process and convert otherwise lost clients.
2. Adapting your content
Once you establish who your buyer is, you can better understand their values. Awesome! You’re about halfway there! A study from Think Google shows that 89% of B2B researchers leverage the internet to inform their purchasing decisions. This means you need to provide buyers with precise data on the web. In order to create the most effective content, Gartner lists four principles of buyer enablement: Relevant: What are some obstacles your buyers face when it comes to making a decision on a Supplier? Eliminating menial barriers can give you an advantage over competitors Easy: Is the information about your company accessible for an online buyer? B2B buyers spend only 17% of their time meeting with sales representatives Useful: Is the information provided to the buyer effective? Distribute resources to buyers that can help them make a decision Credible: Have you established trust with the information provided? Make sure your content is up-to-date with reliable sources These are key questions to ask yourself to better understand buyer enablement.
3. “Grease the Buying Process”
How do you make the buying process simple? Easy—make the buying process simple. It’s very easy as a leader in marketing or sales to want control within the sales cycle. Research from Forrester shows that “60% of buyers would rather not communicate with sales reps as their primary information source.” Now before you think I’m under-appreciating the value of a sales rep, hear me out… Sales are the backbone of every company. This statistic mentioned above is a breath of fresh air. You can spend less time trying to oversell and more time figuring out how to close the deal! For content creators, create content with compelling calls to action through multiple media channels. You can also save your sales team time by providing relevant information that answers your buyer’s questions. The goal is to constantly adapt your content and allow the process to flow with the least amount of friction possible. Now that you have the tools to enable buyers, go figure out your own unique approach and break the ceiling for your next quarter goals! Have more questions? Reach out to us! We love helping companies set and reach their goals!
If you had to entice a customer to buy your product using one sentence or less, what would you say? This is the question you should ask yourself when developing a value proposition. It can be difficult to narrow down your product’s value to 20-30 words. Luckily, there are numerous tools available that will take you through a step-by-step process of developing a value proposition. These tools can help you prioritize important information, organize your thoughts, and even bring you to a new perspective or idea that will enhance the way you communicate your product or service’s value to customers.
Here are a few tools to help you develop a strong B2B value proposition:
Bain & Company created a model that organizes valuable elements that B2B organizations can offer customers. The model’s roots can be traced back to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs from 1943, which argues humans are motivated by both basic and complex needs. However, this model focuses on people’s motivation for buying products or services. The elements at the bottom are easy to measure, such as acceptable price, while the elements at the top are more objective and difficult to quantify, such as reputational assurance.
According to leaders at Bain & Company, if companies use “modern survey techniques and statistical analysis to quantify all the elements on a consistent basis, they can learn what customers truly value and which aspects of an offering merit investment.” By surveying customers and asking them to rate the elements they value most, you can modify and improve your value proposition. Source: Harvard Business Review
Strategyzer, known for their business model platform, offers a canvas tool for companies to create value propositions. It’s composed of two sections, a customer profile and value map. The customer profile describes the jobs your customers try to get done (these can be functional, social, or emotional). In addition, this section highlights the pains customers experience when trying to get the job done and the gains they hope to achieve.
The value map lists the products and services your value proposition builds on. In this section, you should ask yourself, how does your product minimize or reduce pain points? How does it maximize outcomes/benefits? The best value propositions come from connecting your customer profile and value map. The customer profile may contain countless jobs, pains, and gains but the value map helps you highlight which ones to focus on. Source: Strategyzer
This trademarked tool is a product of Futurecurve’s research into human behavior. The six elements are part of an iterative process that leads to a customer-centric value proposition. The process is centered around identifying your target market and how your product or service provides value for that audience. However, this value is strengthened by determining which benefits are most important, how they offer differentiation, and proof to support your claims. Futurecurve outlines a number of positive outcomes of undergoing this process to create a value proposition. To name a few, companies gain a clear profile of buyer personas, an understanding of what offerings to take to market, and evidence on how they deliver value. For more insights on creating a value proposition, you can check out Futurecurve’s book “Selling Your Value Proposition: how to transform your business into a selling organization.” Source: Futurecurve
With these tools, you can ensure that you’re creating a strong value proposition that speaks to your customers and their needs. For examples of B2B value propositions, check out our blog The Top 10 B2B Value Proposition Examples (And How to Create Your Own).
Looking for a team to help with your company’s B2B marketing messaging? Contact us.
If you’re up to date on what’s happening in the marketing industry, you know that consultancies have increasingly become a threat to traditional agencies. With the popularity surrounding digital technology, there has been a shift away from the creative approach of selling “big ideas” and a move towards data-driven marketing. To dig a little deeper into this, let’s take a look at the differences between an agency and a consultancy.
Definition
A marketing agency has the ability of handle all aspects of the advertising process. This includes strategic planning, creative, and production. Some agencies are full-service, meaning they offer a complete approach to marketing and advertising initiatives. Other agencies may specialize in a particular creative service, such as graphic design, video, or social media.
On the other hand, a marketing consultancy has expertise in strategies to engage customers and improve business opportunities, both through retaining existing clients and attracting new customers. Their focus is to help companies achieve defined and measurable goals. A consultancy typically helps businesses develop inbound strategies, implement marketing tools, drive traffic, generate and nurture leads, produce content, and improve SEO.
Process
A marketing agency is going to be more focused on executing creative. They are expected to know the best way to shoot a video or create a beautifully-designed website. When it comes to working with an agency, clients typically already have a marketing strategy in mind. For example, they may want to launch a new product or rebrand. Either way, there’s a clear objective and it’s the agency’s job to find the best way to execute it creatively. Because of the conceptualization involved in designing creative assets, the turnaround time for an agency is longer than a consultancy. However, the main thing that separates an agency from a consultancy is their role in the marketing process. A consultancy will develop a plan to help your company grow, while an agency expects you to already have that figured out. They are the ones who provide the creative assets to support the project plan. If you’re using a consultancy, it’s typically because you have a problem that you’re not sure how to solve. This could be anything from “why am I not getting traffic to my website?” to “how do I start generating more leads?” It’s a consultant’s job to identify a business-oriented solution to problems like these. The consulting process begins with researching a client’s company and familiarizing oneself with their services, buyers, and competitors. Consultants immerse themselves in their client’s industry so they can better understand their goals and pain points. They take a data-centered approach to marketing, relying on analytics to inform their strategies. You can expect a fast turnaround from a consultancy as they are skilled in driving performance and producing quick, measurable results.
Which is right for you?
Now, you may be sitting there asking yourself, which option is right for me? It depends on your company’s needs. If you’re looking for quick results that drive revenue and growth, you should go the consultancy route. But if you’re looking for support in executing creative initiatives, an agency is the right pick. Looking for a little of both? There’s a third option- a hybrid agency/consultancy. SmarkLabs is a prime example of this. We are a full-service marketing operation that create and execute marketing plans. We have a team of marketers who are skilled in growth strategy and a team of creatives who are experienced in graphic design and videography. Because of this, we’re able to handle every aspect of the marketing process and create consistent campaigns that produce reliable results. To learn more about our services, drop us a line.
Looking ahead
The line between agency and consultancy is becoming more and more blurred. Consultancies are beginning to offer branding and advertising services while agencies are moving into digital technology. In terms of the future of marketing, many have argued that consultancies will dominate because the way people interact with brands is changing. It’s no longer about releasing big, flashy ad campaigns, but finding small and truthful ways to engage with customers and create personalized experiences.
