As a business that sells to other businesses, you are probably already aware of just how critical it is to get the most out of your marketing budget. At the end of the day, you have to be able to justify your spend. This is why B2B demand generation is increasingly being utilized to amplify qualified sales leads. B2B demand gen, for short, is a strategy that looks at aligning customer needs with the product you are offering. For example, if your customers need quick-ship transformers, then you bring awareness to the fact that you not only stock a wide range of transformers but that they can typically be out the door the same day.
The key here is in the messaging. You don’t want to be pushy or salesy. You have to frame it in a story that delivers value to the buyer.
With that in mind, read on for ways to optimize your demand-gen budget.
Create a dynamic demand gen funnel: focus on high-impact content
From introduction to conversion, you should be capturing buyers at multiple stages of the buying process. To maximize impact, you should be generating demand at every step of the funnel. To do that, focus on distributing valuable content that converts prospective buyers into qualified leads.
Content that is insightful, educational, and even disruptive can change the way your prospects think. For example, let’s say that you sell high-frequency components for 6G cellphone infrastructure and beyond. However, the industry is stuck thinking that those components just don’t work well above frequencies around 85 GHz. So, the industry as a whole is busy looking for workarounds at those higher frequencies. This increases the costs and time to build their systems.
Your job is to present them with a disruptor. That would be that your components not only work at 85 GHz, but because you re-engineered the parts you manufacture, you can go all the way up to 400 GHz. Your buyers clearly demonstrated a need, and you delivered a solution.
Shorten your sales cycle: maximize your PR
The key to turning content into a demand funnel rests in your ability to get that story in front of as many potential customers as possible.
This is where trade publications can be the winning formula. Your customers already use trade publications to stay ahead of the coming trends. By getting your story published within these trade publications, you get the word out to hundreds of thousands of prospects.
As an example, we had a client who received a call from a prospect after reading an article about our client’s business. When their prospect set up a meeting, our client was shocked at how far along the prospect was in the sale cycle. The prospect understood the offering, the benefits, and the differentiators, and was ready to buy.
Additionally, articles published in digital trade publications provide high-domain authority backlinks. Of all the SEO tricks used to get your site ranking higher, there are few things more important than backlinks. Links on other websites direct traffic to your site and are the most valuable tool in increasing domain authority and search engine rank. That’s the definition of a bonus!
Tap into social media
Social media is critical to a successful demand gen system. When done right, it builds a connection with potential buyers. Social media helps shape meaningful conversations, increase website traffic, improve lead generation, and drive revenue.
There are more than 930 million professionals on LinkedIn, and more than 137 million people in the US alone visit the platform daily. So, obviously, it is an ideal way to connect with new prospects and grow your following. Not to mention that it cost nothing to be on the site networking with potential leads.
Learn how to turn your LinkedIn profile into a lead-generating page. Read more: Rankin PR’s Best Practices for B2B on Social Media.
Focus your B2B demand gen: take a deep look at performance
As with any marketing campaign, you will want to track your progress. Your first instinct may be to increase the number of leads that you are filling your funnel with.
And while leads are certainly important, they are not necessarily a reliable measure of success.
Let’s say you use an ad as one of your marketing campaigns, and it drives 20 leads. Meanwhile, in a second campaign, you utilize the demand gen system outlined above which drives in 5 leads. At first glance, it may seem the ad was more successful. But don’t be too hasty in determining which method worked best.
Ask yourself: Did those 20 leads convert into sales? How much work did they require? How long was the sales cycle, and how much did that cost you per acquisition? Are all of the leads high-quality? A lead for a prospect that doesn’t match your buyer persona isn’t really a lead, is it?
It is always good to be filling your funnel, but it is much more important to focus on what you are filling it with: people that are wasting your valuable time OR well-educated prospects that are looking to buy now.
B2B demand gen: a sustainable marketing approach
Now, you may be asking yourself, “Is this a sustainable approach or more of a one-off ‘gorilla marketing’ tactic?”
The key to making the most of your demand gen budget and cultivating a sustainable marketing approach (especially in an economic downturn) is consistency. We have had clients that have been building up their B2B demand gen pipelines for more than a decade! Rankin PR writes up to 4 articles per year and makes sure those get published month in and month out to the tune of about 30–50 articles per year.
Once you see how well this approach works, you may begin to pull some of your advertising. You’ll start to spend that money on other places where it can feed your B2B demand generation, or you can simply put that money into other parts of the business.
Now you’ve discovered a better, less expensive way of promoting your business. Want to learn about how Rankin PR can also help improve your bottom line? Get in touch!