When it comes to B2B marketing techniques, everyone will have their favourite channel. Some swear by online advertising, others by email marketing, some even like to stick to good old fashioned direct mail.
In this blog we share over 20 years’ of B2B lead generation expertise, and tell you the single biggest marketing trick that all FTSE 250 marketing departments know all too well.
So let’s jump straight in.
Which marketing channel works best for B2B lead gen?
In today’s digital world the biggest challenge facing any marketing department is trying to decide where to invest.
‘Get the most bang for your buck’ is a phrase commonly used by board members up and down the Country. This often leads to marketing directors analysing each channel and trying to second guess which one is going to bring in the most enquiries.
The problem is that there are just so many different channels to cover these days. And many of them are changing all the time. SEO, social media, email marketing, internet advertising – such as PPC, Display Advertising, and social media- PR, exhibitions and direct mail, they can all be highly effective in their own right.
But even if you decide to invest online, you’ll need to then decide whether to plough your budget into Google’s paid search platform (PPC), whether to try and rank your website organically (SEO) or whether to try and reach your target audience via social media.
“Ah ok, social media,” you think, “that’ll be the place.”
Now you’ll need to decide which platform. Should you be in Pintrest or Facebook? Twitter or LinkedIn? Instagram or Google+?
It’s no wonder so many marketing departments’ strategy seems to be: do what we’ve always done and hope for the best! Know yourself, know your audience
The key is to know your audience, to have a defined sense of what you want to be famous for, and to know where you need to go, or which channels you need to exploit, to bring these elements together.
The problem with this approach is that most B2B marketing departments are under resourced and over stretched. Training is a luxury most businesses can’t afford, and keeping up with the latest developments is fine, as long as you live alone and don’t have any hobbies – or a social life!
The quick way to win? Copy the experts
If you want a strategy that works then question to ask yourself is ‘what are the biggest companies in my sector doing?’ and we can pretty much guarantee that they will be doing the following:
A bit of everything
A bit of everything – AKA Integrated Marketing is the number one thing that the very best businesses do in order to keep the leads coming in, even in the most testing of circumstances. The Power of Three plays a key role here. See something once and you ignore it, twice and you recognise it, three times and curiosity starts to kick in. We always take a fully integrated approach to marketing. Using a combination of email marketing, blogging, SEO, PR and direct mail (making quite a comeback at the moment due to its retro novelty value), we find that leads start to roll in on a consistent basis.
The important factor is that every channel carries the same consistent voice, addresses the same carefully researched pain points, and offers the same value proposition. Consistency is crucial.
Although this might sound daunting and somewhat time-consuming, whether you are looking for a small volume of high value leads or need hundreds to feed your hungry sales pipeline, the results are always beyond anything you might expect from single-channel marketing tactics.
If it’s ‘bang for your buck’ you’re after stop analysing individual channels and start thinking like a FTSE 250. Your budgets won’t be as big but there’s no reason why your results can’t be.
To find out more about our approach to integrated marketing, contact out team today on 0208 360 8244 or email us directly.
