There is absolutely no excuse for B2B marketing to be boring! Over the last number of years, B2B marketing has evolved and marketers have realized that clients and prospects are consumers themselves.
B2B buyers are individual people, not businesses. It is important to think about these targets as full-spectrum individuals – and get to know them the best you can. Who are they? What media do they enjoy? What social media do they frequent? What would they be interested in? What will catch their eye? What will make them chuckle? What will make their lives easier?
According to Google, nearly half of B2B researchers are millennials. It’s hard to grab and keep anyone’s attention in today’s content overloaded environment, but B2B marketers have to be uniquely creative since their audience spans from the millennial researcher to the senior executives. That’s why, for MNI Targeted Media’s latest Mean Tweets campaign, we turned to late-night comedy for inspiration — Jimmy Kimmel Live’s Mean Tweets series. The goal was to use the universal power of pop culture recognition to make all potential targets perk up.
Attention marketers! You should be using everything available at your fingertips to reinforce the power of what you sell — by using what you sell in the way it was intended. For us, that meant using our own print and digital media to reach our prospects. It was also important for us to use both print and digital because, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the delivery of a consistent message across a variety of channels can improve consumers’ purchase intent by 90 percent and brand perception by 68 percent.
Here’s what marketers should think about when creating a winning B2B campaign:
1. Get Your Sales Team Engaged
You need them to take the leads and convert them!
2. Focus on the Actions You Want Your Prospects to Take
Think about this at every step as you build the campaign. Think about it in micro-actions. Do you want them to flip a page? Read, click, etc.? Don’t over-engineer for the moment.
3. Simplicity
Draw your audience in. Do it clearly and without overcomplicating the content or visuals.
4. Stand Out. Be Catchy. Be Bold
Don’t be afraid to be creative, B2B marketers! It’s not just the B2C folks who can have some fun. We’re all fighting for share of eyeballs, share of mind, share of milliseconds of attention. Make it count.
5. Be Relevant
What issue are you solving for your prospect? Tell them, succinctly. Don’t give them so much information that they have no reason to call. Leave the paragraphs of info at home.
6. Be On-Brand
Is it your voice? Don’t stray too far.
7. Report Back on ROI
It’s not just sales and marketing that care about results. Bring the entire company into the mix. Everyone contributes and is interested in knowing what drives business.
8. Drop the Ego and Open Yourself Up to Learning
It’s how you make your next campaign better. Incorporate insights from one campaign to the next.
Article From: www.talkingnewmedia.com
