Webinar.,Headphones,,Laptop,And,Coffee,On,Grey,Table,,Top,View

Planning a Webinar- Part 2

by with No Comment B2B Marketing

Webinars have today become a critical part of marketing communications, especially for B2B outreach. Here are some detailed strategies for planning, promoting, and executing successful webinars and virtual events.

Read Part 1 here: How to Plan a Webinar for Maximum Marketing Impact

 Part 2

Identify The Most Suitable Platform

There are several options in the market for a robust webinar platform with multiple features. What you need to watch out for is the audience numbers it supports and its robustness in terms of connectivity.

Of course, your budget has to be the first consideration while identifying a platform. There are top-of-the-line solutions in the market, but there are also free platforms that are good for single-time usage. Whatever you choose, the biggest requirements need to be ease of use and a friendly UX. The goal has to be that attendees and webinar creators should have a smooth, hassle-free experience during the event and during its planning.

All platforms have various features that can be very useful for different purposes. Elements like recording options, in-webinar polls, screen sharing, and the feature to mute all except the presenter could be very useful.

While features are important, software and after-use support are more critical. Choose a platform with a highly responsive live chat. The service team should have no downtime at all, especially during the webinar. Software can have many glitches that can be disastrous for the webinar.

The platform needs software options that can help in delivering seamless and easy experiences. You will need a variety of engagement tools and customizable landing pages. The registration process for the webinar needs to be super simple, and no one should face any issues logging in for it.

At the end of the day, the quality of experience that the webinar provides, will determine its success for the attendees. So don’t scrimp on that.1

Choose Experts with Care

Unpopular opinion- all experts are great speakers!

Look for experts who have a proven track record of good communication on public or industry platforms.

Identify leaders who know the business as well as their subject. These speakers will determine the content quality of the webinar, so choose wisely. Often, if it’s a sponsored webinar, the client decides the experts.

But in an independent webinar, ensure the lead speaker has the knowledge to speak about the industry and the issue or solution. This insight can help build a relationship with the audience. A good speaker can engage the audience in a lively manner, all the while delivering the message effectively.

Once the speaker is decided, give adequate time for the discussion on how the content has to flow. The moderator and expert (or experts) need to connect before the webinar for this discussion. They need to decide the queries that will be placed.

Pre-decide the flow of the discussion to avoid any embarrassment or conflicts while on the virtual podium.

Creating a concept and agenda for the webinar

There is a debate about whether the decision on a subject or concept should be made before deciding on the experts or after.

The practical way to go about it is to get in place a board of experts and have a discussion with them for the most relevant topic for discussion. This could relate to peer conversations, or a topic related to the solution being marketed. Even if it’s a thought leadership discussion, the subject can ultimately lead as a marketing pitch for it.

So, in most cases, it is a smart move to identify experts in the relevant feel, invite them to advice about the best topic. A conference discussion a few weeks before the planned date will help to determine the exact topic, and the order of questions or the line-up of presentations.

If there are presentations, establish a deadline to submit their presentations, to avoid last minute glitches.

With this knowledge, create a concept note that will be useful for getting delegates.

You need to explain clearly the industry scenario, the issue at hand, and why it needs to be addressed. Then talk about how this chosen topic is relevant. And how your webinar intends to take it apart. List out who should attend and why.

Also list out the experts that are invited to speak or present.

After the concept, create a structured agenda for the program. The agenda should clearly articulate the time, topic, duration of the presentation (or panel/ discussion), and speakers. Add a short note about the topic, too.

Also Read: Choosing the Best Tools for Campaign Management

Webinar dates Decision

Choosing the most suitable webinar date involves several factors.

Choose a dry period when no competing events are planned. If several events are planned, your audience will suffer.

Also, avoid holidays, vacation weeks, and public holidays. Look for a time that gives ample time for basic planning. Doing a webinar in a rush is a recipe for disaster.

Typically, the best days for holding a webinar are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and the best times are business hours. These are the times for highest audience participation.

Creating webinar content

This is perhaps the most critical yardstick for judging the quality of the webinar. Create content that resonates, informs, and educates while staying interesting and engaging. Prepare a PowerPoint presentation with relevant details, the subjects of discussion, and a short overview of the experts.

Plan the content to engage with the audiences from the get-go, and ensure no subject has a slack, allowing a slowdown.

Adding polls, Q&As, and interactive elements like games to the webinar is a smart way to keep engagement high.

This way the content goes down easier, and the audience feels they are a part of it.

Market your webinar

Promote the webinar well to ensure it reaches its business goals. Social media is, of course, the go-to strategy. But promote it through various channels, send out newsletters, and issue press releases to attract the highest possible audiences. Be sure to include a string call to action in all digital communications.

Showcase the expert speakers to generate more interest in the event. Highlight the value additions the discussion will provide, especially for business participants. Plan a strong promotional strategy to ensure the event reaches its target audience.

For more outreach, paid advertising is an option—through Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads.

Decide if it will be a paid webinar or a free one. Based on that, decide on how registrations will be done.

Share Payment links, registration forms (maybe in Google Forms), etc., with the audiences before the webinar. this will help avoid last-minute hassles.

Decide on the freebies you are offering to start a long-term engagement with the new prospects.

Do a Trial Run

A trial run before the webinar will be very useful to identify glitches and also time the webinar. Learn from the challenges of the trial run to ensure the final version is trouble-free and enables your brand to reach its goals.

With this basic structure, plan a webinar that delivers to its promise.

Follow us on LinkedIn: OnDotMedia

Webinar.,Woman,Using,Laptop,At,Table,,Closeup

How to Plan a Webinar for Maximum Marketing Impact

by with No Comment Video Marketing

Today, webinars have become a critical part of marketing communications, especially for B2B outreach. Here are some detailed strategies for planning, promoting, and executing successful webinars and virtual events. These will help marketers engage and educate B2B audiences.

Digital spaces are fast becoming the platform of choice for most B2B enterprise activity. It is no surprise that marketing is also rapidly going offline.

Five years ago, onsite events were all the rage, but they have given way to virtual discussions, seminars, and events, generously referred to as webinars.

The pandemic era was a driver for this business model. Online is where experts can discuss products, solutions, and business strategies from remote locations. This has quickly become a sterling marketing strategy.

Today, webinars are a critical part of a marketing outreach strategy. They have become a powerful tool for seamless global interaction. They are also an extremely efficient way to showcase solutions and discuss them threadbare for industry exposure.

A well-planned and smartly executed webinar is worth many standalone outreach strategies. Here are some ways to plan and deliver an impactful webinar for the most effective marketing.

Planning for a Successful B2B Webinar

  1. Define the purpose of the webinar. 

Establish clear goals for the virtual event you are planning.

  • What is the objective?
  • Are you looking to educate your customers or market?
  • Are you holding this event to generate more leads for your brand or a client?
  • Or are you holding this event to showcase a new product or solution?

With this clarity, it is easier to plan the structure of the webinar.

If it aims to generate leads, plan it around a presentation that encourages customer or prospect interactions. To create a virtual event or webinar that intends to showcase a product or solution, start with a workshop format, where a story can be built.

Identify the industry pain point and showcase how the new solution helps eliminate it! This interactive webinar gets all the right responses and creates an interest in a new product. It creates a hype that no other marketing communication can.

  1. Define the target audience.

Effective communication is possible only if the target audience is identified.

Chart out the audience by demographics, interests, and level of expertise. This will make deciding on the communication style easier.

One smart way to do this is to create several personas that can be the guide for your communication structure;

  • What would they enjoy?
  • How much attention can you expect from them?
  • What is their depth of knowledge?
  • Where are they in their career journey?
  • Are they targeted customers? If so, how much of the issue do they understand?
  • How much value can the webinar add to your communication?

Based on these, creating more effective strategies to run a webinar that the audience can relate to, is easier.

It is also easier to refine the messaging very well.

  1. Identify the Topic for the webinar.

Remember, the webinar topic is the cornerstone of its success.

The next step is to select a relevant topic. The business goal of this webinar and insights into the target audience will help here.

If you are looking to launch or sell a product, it’s a bit easier. This is because the market space gets limited to topics relevant to the solution.

Deep research will get you to the current discussions around the topic.

  • What is it that everybody wants to know?
  • What is the quality of the answers they are getting?
  • Can you provide a better answer that will get more traction?
  • What issues are floating around in that space?
  • Can your discussion help to resolve them?

This way, we can get you customers for your product or solution.

What topic will help grab your targets’ interest and resonate with them? They need to sit through the virtual event and continue to engage with your product.

So, the topic must be extremely relevant to their interest.

  1. Identify the Webinar Format 

You can choose from several formats. Again, this would depend largely on the event’s focus and the target the nature of the target demographic.

If it’s a mature audience, they can thoroughly discuss every facet in a discussion.

To decide the best format, marketers need to study:

  • The levels of interaction required,
  • the topic’s complexity, and
  • the speakers’ expertise level.

If there is expert participation, a Q&A format works, too. They can also share presentations so that the content flows with the audience.

Otherwise, a simple single SME lecture can work as well. It’s great to also invite the audience for interaction after its delivery. This ensures interactivity and will keep the audience interested in listening to it.

It can also be a panel discussion with an expert moderator. This expert can keep the conversation going with observations and queries. At the end, there can be time allotted for an interactive Q&A session,

Some freebies like graphics, process workflows, etc., shared in the presentation will retain interest and motivate discussions even more.

It is critical to analyze the focus, audience, and platform before deciding on the webinar’s format. Once that is done well, the foundation is strong

Personalization at Scale in B2B Marketing @3x (2)

Personalization in B2B Marketing

by with No Comment B2B Marketing

Douglas Warner III, former CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase and Co., was pretty serious when he was quoted to have said, “It’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away.”

Digital marketing is a boon that never seems to fade. But it’s all fine, till just ONE thing is not done well, and then, there’s that one click!

How do marketers ensure that the customer never feel the need to go there, never want to do that one click that is the difference between a customer and a prospect?

One of the critical points that differentiates a good marketing from a bad one, is the level of personalization that offers.

Creating personalizing strategies gets even better with a larger data set. So, the bigger the datasets used, the more accurate the personalization can be delivered. The best example of this activity is OTT platforms. Streaming platforms like Spotify use huge amounts of data from millions of customers to craft the most personalized music experiences for each of their customers.

B2B Personalization at scale is all about analyzing large data sets about users to determine their preferences and demands. Catering to these demands accurately enables brands to create more effective marketing strategies. These could include personalizing digital marketing strategies or creating personalized digital experiences for specific clients.

Benefits of Personalization in B2B Marketing

McKinsey’s Next in Personalization 2021 Report revealed that brands that deliver greater intimacy with customers often show a much higher growth rate than their competitors. Some data it revealed is:

Personalization at Scale
Source: McKinsey Report

The report also stated that ‘by 2022, by generational cohort, personalized services were the third-most sought-after e-commerce feature among all cohorts.’

So, while data doesn’t lie, what are the main benefits that personalization at scale delivers to marketing plans?

Customers Expect It

As McKinsey’s data above clearly shows, customers expect a very high degree of personal touch and are actually offended if they don’t get it from marketers.

Disconnected, irrelevant messages that appear completely out of sync with the customers’ preferences are a source of negativity and irritation.

All it takes is a simple salute, a first name reference, and getting straight to the preferences and needs. Personalization can make a mark on your marketing outreach. A personalized experience makes a prospective customer feel valued. The natural outcome of this positivity is increased engagement and, thus, business growth.

Improved Customer Retention and Loyalty

Every marketer knows that it is much more cost-effective to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones. Data says the cost of acquiring a new customer is five times that of retaining an existing one.

Clearly, it is in the company’s best interests to ensure they deliver everything that keeps the customer happy.

The added advantage is the word of mouth that a satisfied customer does- which ensure extensive loyalty-by connections. The report referred above also highlights that 78% of the customers would do repurchases if they found adequately personalized connect with the brand.

Extensions of Personalization at Scale

As technology disrupts customer outreach and marketing, newer tools are coming in to leverage personalization at scale.

Hyper-personalization is now possible with AI and ML tools. The data collected is more accurate and validates customer preferences than ever before. These tools ensure that. This allows marketers to deliver personalization down to the last T. Customer interaction excellence is driven up by many notches here. The icing on the cake is the ability to deliver these extremely personalized experiences to different customers on the same channel.

If we take it a step further, holistic personalization enables marketers to deliver this extremely specific experience across various touch points- often 5. This completes the entire loop of keeping a customer happy, delivering their exact needs and preferences, from whoever touchpoint you connect with them.

Adds Value to the Bottom-line

Clearly, a happy customer is a loyal customer. Conversion rates go up with personalized marketing strategies, adding to revenue and growth.

When the market receives a product or service or even messaging that perfectly fits their specific needs, there is a much higher level of positivity about settling with the particular brand.

The feel-good factor drives the highest conversions, even more than the cost factor.

McKinsey research also studied the strategies of companies that grow faster than competition. Interestingly, they found that ‘they drive 40% more of their revenue from personalization than slower-growing counterparts’.

That is human nature! When companies nurture their prospects in their purchase journey, these leads become sales closures much faster.

The Ultimate Guide to Content Repurposing- Part 2 @3x

The Ultimate Guide to Content Repurposing- Part 2

by with No Comment Content Marketing

In the first part of this blog, we saw that repurposing existing content is one way of using available thought leadership content to get its maximum value.

Here are more ways to repurpose and reuse existing content for marketing purposes.

  1.  Social Media Posts
  • Repurpose Content from Other Profiles

It may sound a bit suspicious, but often, using social media posts from one profile in another profile also helps to provide added exposure. How does it work? Try using a thumbnail from Facebook in your LinkedIn posts or a tweet image for Facebook.

Another way to repurpose meaningful content is to use data from one post to create an infographic that can be used on another platform. Images are a much better form of social media content, and studies have shown that they extract much better responses than static content.

Sometimes, video clips or corporate film clips that highlight a product or solution can be reused from older videos. This social media will garner much more attention than static content pieces.

  • Quotes from Older Posts or Content

 It’s easy for marketers to identify content that has been performing well on social media or search engines.

Taking parts of this content, especially as thought leadership quotes, is another smart repurposing strategy. What has already worked on impactful channels like X could be partially reused by another channel. Its efficacy is already proven, so this reuse is very useful.

  •    Repurposing Webinars and Podcasts

Videos and webinar discussions are the best content for B2B marketing. You have a pure form of thought leadership ideas shared in this format. Selecting small clips from these webinars and using them on social media can get a lot of traction. Since the webinar already focuses on content, these clips will be thought leadership bytes on their own self. So, from video interactions, films, webinars, and digital events, small clips can be extracted to use in social media as posts. These are valuable for repurposing if designed well and integrated with relevant content.

In fact, there are many ways that webinars, podcasts, and other video content can be repurposed. This is very useful for invite-only webinars or subscription-based podcasts or videos. Since this content is not available for general consumption, it is smart to extract smaller clips and quotes from these to use as marketing content in social media.

This serves the purpose of marketing the brand and showcasing capabilities to deliver webinars, podcasts, and all kinds of video interactions.

Transcripts of videos and webinars can also be repurposed as handouts and quotes and used on social media.

In fact, webinar transcripts can be used to create PDF files that can also be used as whitepapers or case studies for websites. Parts of these can be used as quotes in social media.

Data discussed in the webinar can be converted into an infographic and used as a social media byte—actually, both in content and infographic form.

  1. Repurpose Older Content by Data Updates

Many laws and truisms say that the enterprise world has never experienced as much constant change as it is now. Things are changing faster than ever before.

Clearly, content made even a few weeks ago is already redundant in terms of data and facts. Technologies evolve, tools are overhauled, patches are added, and everything changes.

In this situation, there is a very simple and effective way to repurpose existing content: update the data and facts.

So, while blogs, podcasts, whitepapers- and all other artifacts are invaluable for thought leadership, their value increases even more if they are updated.

A typical example is security threats landscape. A blog that talks about a certain tool, and elaborates of its efficacy by sharing statistics of the threat scenario- perhaps the losses due to the incidence.

We can call it the largest attack in known history. But what if there has been a bigger attack after that? The blog is essentially not accurate.

Updating that data is the need of the hour.

This updated data can be used as a whole new piece of content- and this is a very effective repurposing of existing content.

Of course, not every piece of content needs to be updated. Focus on the top performing pieces and ensure they are updated and more value is added to it. Then reuse it in the site or in social media. With the new look, the Call-to-Action can also be rewritten for more impact.

These are a few useful and easy to do ideas for repurposing existing content. Having said that, it cannot replace intelligent and more relevant new content.

But there can never be too much content for marketing, and repurposing plays a huge role in making that happen.

content repurposing

The Ultimate Guide to Content Repurposing: Part 1

by with No Comment Content Marketing

When content is king, marketers must use a number of strategies to ensure its utility and significance. Repurposing existing content is perhaps the smartest and most cost-effective way to leverage an organization’s intelligence.

Repurposing or recycling is one way of using available content in various ways to get its maximum value.

Firstly, what constitutes content that can be fruitfully repurposed?

We could list some content products here. Typically, these are pieces of content that can be repurposed for reuse, recycling, or for social media:

Content repurposing

 

This is not an exhaustive list by any means. However, it indicates the kind of content pieces that can be recycled for huge benefit over various new formats and a long period of time.

With a smart social media deliverables structure, almost any existing content can be leveraged for better, far-reaching use.

What is Actually Repurposing Existing Content – and Why Should I Do it?

Repurposing existing content is about adding updated value to old content so its relevance is increased. For instance, using an older blog but updating statistics to make it more relevant to context. Perhaps adding some new thought leader opinions in the form of quotes will also add value to the blog.

So, reusing old content and reposting it as it is not repurposing. The whole focus is to make older content more relevant to current usage. Sometimes, this is also about creating several shorter bytes from older but larger content – like a whitepaper. Using some sections, portions, or infographics from it to create newer usable content pieces is the strategy of repurposing.

Moreover, using someone else’s content for your posting is not repurposing either. It’s stealing or plagiarism. And no, making cosmetic changes to the content and posting it for your marketing purposes is not repurposing either.

And lastly, using the same piece across different channels is not content repurposing.

Next is the question: Why should I repurpose content?

The first answer is to derive value from existing content. That content may have been good in its original form, but with a little updating, it might be priceless now! This will save time and money when writing saleable content from scratch. It also helps to increase the number of content bytes that can be used, especially in social media. A small idea – an eBook of 25 pages can potentially be the parent of 50 potential repurposed pieces, including infographics for social media and bytes for social platforms.

Another non-creative reason is that using similar content or on the same subject, centering around a pillar topic and similar targeted keywords, may give you a better SEO boost. New content is always good, but getting more out of what’s already created is better! Google identifies the writer as an expert, and this helps in better positioning your content for search engines.

How to Repurpose Content

Blogs:

  • Creating a blog post requires a good amount of research. When the blog is finally ready, the writer ensures that the best nuggets of information are drawn from the research and used in the blog. This means it is an in-depth piece of work.
  • Regular blog with relevant keywords
  • Convert into infographics to bring out the context and impact. This is useful for blogs that are statistical in nature and contain a number of relevant data points.
  • Convert into a short video, using content quotes from the blog and creating a flow. This is especially useful for blogs with a good amount of data and quotes.
  • Along with a longer version of an eBook or video, a slide share of the same material is very useful for better media dissemination of content. It becomes much easier to insert relevant and popular keywords in context here! Slide Shares are easy to share with your audiences. They offer an interesting way to peek into your expertise and content. However, the biggest advantage of Slide shares is that you can introduce design elements that cannot be done in a plain vanilla blog.
  • Create an eBook using a series of Blogs on similar topics. This will establish thought leadership in both the minds of your audiences and Google!

Repurposing Content for social media:

  • Repurpose for social media– specifically for social media, thought leadership quotes can be used from existing blogs.
  • Snippets from blogs, alongside these quotes and possibly very accurate and relevant data points, can be used for social media and outreach products like newsletters.
  • Infographics derived from blogs can also be used for social media posting. It’s been established that visual data appeals far more to social media users than written information.
  • Use older images as background for social media posts. These could be high-quality visuals that you paid a bomb for and could use only once.
  • Use existing or podcast videos, and make snippets of less than a minute to post an impactful message on social media. Experts say video posts have the highest engagement rates.
  • Every product, solution, or piece of content posted digitally can be used to invite user reviews or comments. Use these comments on social media to increase further engagement. This is content that you did not have to create, but it carries far more credit and trust for the market since it comes from the user base!

These are only a few ideas for repurposing existing content for better utilization.

We shall see some more in the next blog in the series.

B2B Sales Pipeline

Time-tested Techniques in B2B Sales Pipeline Acceleration

by with No Comment B2B Marketing

B2B sales pipeline acceleration offers several benefits to enterprises.

Here we see some of the techniques that ensure a strong pipeline acceleration:

  1. Create a clear roadmap of your customer’s buying journey using all the insights available. Focus on qualified leads to optimize the process’s spending. The lead generation and lead qualification processes need to be very agile.
  • Every touchpoint and interaction should be analyzed, from the first contact channel to the sale closure.
  • Study the contact points like ads, referrals, and outbound- to identify the most active outreach points.
  • Also, study how the prospective consumer consumes content and the content that performs best—blogs, audio, or video content.
  • Notice and analyze how they engage with a digital presence, like websites, what pages they prefer to visit, and at what frequency.
  • Ascertain the pipeline velocity and customer acquisition costs (CAC), which will help optimize the deal.

What finally drives the conversion? Study the most effective communication pattern here—physical demos, meetings, or calls. Plot the time the prospective client spends on each stage of the pipeline. This will help identify spots where inefficiencies cause delays and fix them.

  1. Use marketing automation to speed up your prospecting journey.

The second contact schedule can be crunched to move things faster. Automation tools will enable fast responses and facilitate faster callbacks. Most CRM platforms enable this automation.

When marketing is automated, the response to leads can be scheduled to be sent within minutes before the momentum dies down. It is more than just a response- automation can make very specific and personalized responses, even fixing the most opportune time for connecting or delivering a message.

Automated messaging can even be sent out as a drip campaign over a few days, ensuring the prospects see the value of your solution without pitching it directly. Automating the leads update from the website backend to the CRM also shortens the process of data gathering and structuring.

AI chatbots make sales services much faster, more helpful, and more intelligent. These chatbots can keep customers engaged until the human team delivers the information or services. This helps to retain customers and prevent logo losses due to delayed responses.

  1. Ensure your website or digital presence is easy to use and uses the right content marketing techniques.

For most prospects, your website will be one of the first touchpoints when evaluating solutions. So ensure they don’t leave without committing to it.

Starting with the UI/ UX, ensure the site is self-explanatory and easy to navigate. Then, you won’t need to waste time explaining everything and waiting for the client to decide.

Various marketing collaterals published on the digital platform can do the job wonderfully.

  1. ‍For complex B2B sales, a group of stakeholders often approve the purchase. So, the sales funnel will need the full buying committee. Address every person in the IT buying decision-makers hierarchy and ensure every person gets equal importance.

Approvals are critical, and any delays in approvals are the onus of this committee. Identify the members of this group early on in the sales journey. The messaging should be tailored to each one to prompt a fast response. Ascertain their interests, likes, dislikes, strengths, and weaknesses. The sales team should give equal emphasis to each member’s queries.

The sales pipeline can be crunched if all the members of the approval group are aligned with your product. So work for that, directly or indirectly. This strategy also works when decision-makers resign, get promoted, or move on. This is called sales multi-threading and ensures a proper positive response to a deal. This process can also be automated.

  1. Rigorous data analysis will be critical. Measuring every conversion cycle, length, win-loss by-product, and many other metrics can deliver predictive analytics of successful closure.

The key metrics that would work here would be –

  • the average sales cycle length per stage,
  • stage-wise conversion rates and
  • the overall pipeline velocity and trends.
  • rates of win or loss rates by product, campaign, and
  • the times were taken by the closure cycle, leads, representatives, sector, or geography.

These are just a few factors that can be measured and analyzed for faster closures.  At this point, studying the lost accounts will also add value. Learnings from these—and identifying the reason and what could have been done better—may be just what’s needed to work on a faster cycle this time. Automated dashboards can do the job better than manual calculations.

  1. Special Offers and Incentives: a whole number of gifts, offers, freebies, and discounts can accelerate the sales cycle closing. These special offers could gently nudge the decision in your favor faster than a straight route. But here, these advantages provided mustn’t be shared with everyone. Making them easily and publicly available will erode the value of exclusivity. Let this remain a strategic offering but useful for accelerating the sales pipeline.
  2. Use AI and ML to create look-alike modeling, which enables the sales team to identify customers with traits similar to those of their existing customers.

These will help target potential customers and hot (or warm) leads. AI and ML tools can enable this, and sales pipelines can be made much shorter with this modeling. The look-alike modeling will ensure more hits than misses. These tools will help recognize patterns and trends in new leads that can be easily identifiable with the existing customer base. It will help to build a target account list (TAL) for campaigns that will have a much higher rate of response.

  1. For Velocity and penetration, ABM (Account-Based Marketing) is a very effective strategy for sales pipeline acceleration in B2B. As it enables businesses to target only relevant high-value accounts, ABM is a huge strategy for sales pipeline crunching. It will deliver much higher velocity and market penetration because the clarity on targeted accounts gives companies the power to create precise, customized messaging.

The use of ABM adds huge value to the speed of a sales pipeline. It increases accuracy, creates stronger customer connections, and provides better metrics and influence. A smart marketing leader will track critical metrics like account engagement rate, opportunity rate, win rate, target account pipeline, and revenue.

  1. Business Development Representatives (BDR) and sales development representatives (SDR) play a massive role here; they can do personalized and one-on-one outreach for marketing and sales. This will help close the loop much faster.

As per Review42, ‘Businesses with aligned marketing and sales teams are up to 67% more efficient at closing deals than businesses where they don’t.’ When sales and marketing teams align, the sales pipeline can be accelerated since it becomes easier to customize the customer experience. This is the best context for sales and marketing teams to collaborate for pipeline acceleration—a common goal.

Closely aligning marketing and sales processes and teams enables a much more agile and faster exchange of information and data. This will drive a faster lead generation to the qualification loop and ensure sales in a very agile environment. Dropping data silos will drive this sales enablement.

The benefits of B2B sales pipeline acceleration far outweigh any effort that goes into doing it well. One of the easiest strategies to do it is to target only pre-qualified leads. This enables them to close the deal fast. No time is wasted, and they can start work on others if the deal doesn’t close.

Given above are several other, smarter strategies to accelerate the sales pipeline.

B2B Sales Pipeline Acceleration

B2B Sales Pipeline Acceleration

by with No Comment B2B Marketing

In the highly competitive market environment, marketers will do anything to stay ahead of the competition. The smartest and most effective strategy here is B2B sales pipeline acceleration. How does it work?

What is B2B Sales Pipeline Acceleration?

A sales pipeline is a list that provides a view of all potential deals in various stages of their sales process – from lead generated to first contact, finally to a closed sale.

Shortening this sales lifecycle to cover more prospects faster and with higher conversions is B2B sales pipeline acceleration. An accelerated sales pipeline leads to much faster growth and meeting revenue objectives. There are various ways to do this, and cutting-edge tools are preferred today.

Marketers use a pipeline acceleration campaign to increase sales velocity. This campaign is a series of activities and processes that have to be managed optimally. It combines marketing activities with sales insights and leads to accelerate deal closure.

This decreased sales cycle will enable fast revenues and increased engagement. The accelerated process is what earlier used to be lead nurturing, which took time to follow the lead and gently coax it into closing the deal. Here is how it can be accomplished:

  • Identify your ideal lead profile and target them.
  • Identify what’s holding them back from conversion. What more information or activity will finally reel them in? Communicate with the clients or their reps to check what can be done to break this stuck deal.
  • Measure the acceleration campaign and select the one with the shortest lead time. This could be done by checking how each marketing content works, which is the most effective, and which should be dropped. Using only the most effective ones could crunch the entire process drastically. So, constant monitoring of the effectiveness of communications and engagement could be the best strategy to push on the successful points and drop ineffective ones.

Benefits of Pipeline Acceleration

While there are direct benefits of sales pipeline acceleration, the real advantages are those that sustain it. The first and most obvious benefit is increasing the velocity of deal closures, which adds to revenue.

Studies say that Accelerating your pipeline means more deals close each month, boosting sales velocity and revenue. For example, a study by Revlitix says reducing closure times from 50 to 30 days increases daily revenue from USD 2,000 to USD3,000+.

Here are some more benefits that a smart B2B sales pipeline acceleration can achieve:

  1. Stacking up the top of the funnel allows the teams to launch straight into the offensive. The sales team then has the time to add to it. In this manner, while the rest of the leads are generated, the sale steam will already be out in the market, closing accounts. This shortens the sales loop and generates revenues without a long wait for closure.
  2. A typical sales pipeline, where teams engage with clients for prolonged periods, tends to peter out over time. Very often, there is a loss of focus, and clients tend to drop off. An accelerated sales pipeline can prevent that by continually keeping clients engaged with content and activities to keep their interest alive. They can learn what were the limiting factors and then redesign content to eliminate those points.
  3. The final push may be just what the lead needed to graduate to become a client. In several cases, this final push happens not with long-drawn engagement but with focused, powerful last-mile deals. Sales teams can work with a lead over a period of time, but in the end, they need to identify a deal pusher and deliver to the lead’s last-mile expectations to convert them.
  4. Increased velocity of the sales pipeline adds to team motivation and, hence, productivity. A fast-moving list of deals won is the best thing for an enthusiastic team that sells, especially so if it’s a new or small company. The sales resources are hugely motivated by success, which they achieve in a shortened or accelerated pipeline for their sales deals.
  5. With a clear b2B sales pipeline, revenue forecasting becomes much clearer and easier to chase. Once the pipeline velocity is established and it shows adequate acceleration, it is obvious where the final lead conversions will land. The marketing and sales teams can work together to achieve this transparency and clarity, helping leaders plan their projections better.
  6. An accelerated sales pipeline results in happier and more satisfied customers. Customers also appreciate the speed of closure, the efficiency of the sales team or the CRM, and the agility of the process.
  7. An accelerated sales pipeline enables a cost-optimized cost for the sales resources. A long, drawn-out deal increases the cost of closing a deal, while a faster one crunches the time, ensuring fewer resources and investments. Margins and profitability, thus, are positively impacted. Successfully closing a deal that’s already taken some resources and a lot of time saves the cost of continual engagement, convincing, and perhaps even investing in converting a prospect. With an accelerated sales pipeline, these issues are resolved- and investments can be curtailed to only the most critical needs.

Sales Pipeline acceleration is not a new or novel concept. It makes business sense that if the sales loop is shortened, a company can cut back on costs, resources, and time while making better profits. What’s changed is the availability of tools that can make this happen really efficiently. Enterprises are adopting them to derive huge benefits from this strategy.

Emotional Marketing

The Power of Emotional Marketing and Impactful Storytelling

by with No Comment B2B MarketingContent Marketing

In the fast-paced world of marketing, where brands constantly vie for consumer attention, emotional marketing has emerged as a powerful tool to engage and connect with audiences on a deeper level.

At the heart of this strategy lies the art of impactful storytelling. Emotional marketing uses stories that touch people’s emotions, dreams, and experiences to make a long-lasting impression that goes beyond just selling a product or service.

In this blog post, we will explore the importance of emotional marketing and how storytelling can greatly impact this strategy.

Understanding Emotional Marketing

Emotional marketing is not a new concept, but it has gained prominence in recent years due to its effectiveness in forging lasting relationships between brands and consumers.

Instead of just highlighting product features, emotional marketing aims to connect with customers on an emotional level, making them feel understood, valued, and connected to the brand.

This form of marketing acknowledges that purchasing decisions are often driven by emotions, whether it’s a desire for happiness, safety, comfort, or even a sense of belonging.

By appealing to these emotions, brands can create a sense of trust and loyalty, which can lead to long-term customer relationships.

The Power of Storytelling

At the core of emotional marketing is storytelling. For centuries, storytelling has been an essential means of human communication.

Sharing experiences, passing down knowledge, and connecting with others is the essence of human interactions.

When applied to marketing, storytelling allows brands to convey their messages in a way that is relatable and memorable.

The Neuroscience Behind Emotional Marketing

Paul Zak and his team at Claremont Graduate University conducted research that provides some of the most compelling evidence to date on the power of storytelling.

According to their study, people who listened to stories driven by emotions had higher levels of oxytocin than those who listened to non-emotional stories.

Oxytocin, also known as the “love hormone” or “moral molecule,” is released when we feel connected to others. It promotes empathy, trust, and cooperation.

Our brains release oxytocin when we hear a compelling story. This is because stories have the power to connect us with the characters and evoke strong emotions.

When we feel empathy for the characters, our brains release oxytocin, which increases our willingness to help them.

This is why emotional marketing is a powerful strategy for influencing people. By connecting with people on an emotional level, we can motivate them to take action.

Here’s why storytelling is such a potent tool in emotional marketing:

Relatability: Stories can make the brand’s message relatable by depicting real-life situations and challenges. Consumers are more likely to connect with a brand that understands their struggles and aspirations.

Memorability: Telling a good story is more effective than simply listing a product’s features or benefits. People tend to forget statistics, but they remember stories.

Engagement: Stories captivate audiences. They draw people in, evoke emotions, and keep them engaged, ensuring that the brand’s message isn’t easily overlooked.

Differentiation: In a crowded market, storytelling can set a brand apart. It allows a company to showcase its unique identity, values, and mission in a way that stands out from the competition.

Elements of Impactful Storytelling

Creating impactful stories for emotional marketing isn’t just about narrating any tale. There are key elements that make a story more effective:

Emotion: The heart of emotional marketing. Stories should elicit genuine emotions in the audience, whether it’s joy, empathy, inspiration, or nostalgia.

Relevance: The story should be relevant to the brand’s message and the target audience. It must align with the brand’s values and the consumer’s needs.

Authenticity: Authenticity is paramount. The story should reflect the brand’s true identity and values.

Character Development: Strong characters make for compelling stories. For the audience to enjoy and engage with a story, it is important that they can connect with the characters and understand their journey.

Resolution: A good story should have a resolution. It can be a happy ending, a lesson learned, or a problem solved. This implies that the audience experiences a feeling of completeness and contentment.

Success Stories in Emotional Marketing

Several brands have successfully harnessed emotional marketing through impactful storytelling:

Nike: Known for its “Just Do It” campaign, Nike uses stories of athletes overcoming challenges to inspire and motivate its audience.

Nike has expertly crafted powerful storytelling that highlights the triumphs and struggles of athletes across various disciplines. These stories serve as a medium through which the brand inspires and motivates people.

By showcasing athletes overcoming immense challenges, pushing their limits, and achieving the seemingly impossible, Nike portrays their journeys of resilience, determination, and unwavering belief in themselves.

Nike inspires and motivates the audience by highlighting athletes’ personal struggles. The impact of Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign extends beyond marketing, inspiring countless individuals as a cultural phenomenon and personal mantra.

The slogan has been widely adopted in various contexts, such as sports, education, and business, as a unifying message to inspire success.

Coca-Cola: The brand’s campaigns often revolve around unity, happiness, and togetherness, making consumers feel a part of something bigger.

Over the years, companies such as Coca-Cola have utilized various tactics, including the use of cartoons, characters, and other attractive elements, targeting children in particular.

However, in recent times, the company has employed similar concepts in broader campaigns like “Share A Coke – Share a feeling” and “Hug me,” which appeal not only to children but also to a wider set of audience.

The “Share a Coke – Share a Feeling” campaign puts emoticons on cans and bottles so that people can express their emotions to their friends easily.

Meanwhile, the “Hug me” campaign requires customers to squeeze the sides of the soda dispenser in a particular way to receive a complimentary Coca-Cola from the machine.

Both campaigns have successfully boosted Coca-Cola’s revenue and have demonstrated the effectiveness of emotional branding when it comes to Coca-Cola’s beverages.

For instance, when a consumer shares a name-branded Coke bottle with their father, they feel as though they are paying tribute to their father rather than simply promoting the Coca-Cola brand.

Moreover, sharing photos with the #shareacoke hashtag on social media, generates more personalized online media content, leading to many shares across.

Dove: Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign tells stories of real women and their struggles with body image, emphasizing the importance of self-acceptance.

Dove launched the Real Beauty Sketches campaign in 2013, which was a social experiment to challenge women’s perception of their own beauty.

The campaign featured an FBI-trained forensic artist who created sketches of women based on their self-descriptions and compared them with sketches based on how others described them.

The campaign had a big impact on women. They realized that the negative way they saw themselves was not how others saw them.

Conclusion

To sum it up, using emotional marketing with powerful storytelling is a great way for brands to build strong and lasting connections with their audience.

By appealing to emotions, making stories relatable, and staying authentic, companies can create a brand identity that goes beyond mere products and services, becoming a meaningful part of their customers’ lives.

We are bombarded with information every day, but it’s the stories that touch our hearts and minds that stick with us.

Best B2B Marketing Automation

Top 6 B2B Marketing Automation Platforms for 2024

by with No Comment B2B Marketing

Welcome, fellow B2B marketers, to the future! In this world, robots take care of mundane tasks while we humans focus on important things like creating witty marketing campaigns and debating the merits of pineapple on pizza.

In this article, we will be discussing the leading six B2B marketing automation platforms that are projected to dominate the market by 2024. So, put on your virtual reality headsets and join me on this exciting journey into the future!

These platforms are designed to simplify marketing efforts, improve customer engagement, and drive business growth.

By utilizing the right marketing automation platform, businesses can effectively optimize lead generation, cultivate customer relationships, and enhance overall marketing efficiency.

Join us as we delve into the exciting possibilities of B2B marketing automation platforms and explore the key features and benefits they offer in the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing.

Growth of B2B Marketing Automation

Statista

Statista

 

Why Marketers Use Automation?

A survey conducted in 2023 among marketing decision-makers worldwide revealed that almost 60% of them intended to increase their spending on marketing automation in the coming year. About 30% preferred to maintain their current expenditure levels.

Marketing automation is used by marketers for a variety of purposes, but one of the most common uses is managing leads – potential clients a brand can contact once it has some of its data.

By automating the relationship with potential clients, companies can offer them more relevant offers and messages without relying on manual processes.

According to the 2023 study, email, social media marketing, and paid ads are the marketing channels that use automation the most.

However, what are the benefits of marketing automation?

According to a global survey conducted in 2022, marketers see five main advantages in this process improving customer experience:

  • Enabling staff to use time more effectively,
  • Higher quality of data and decision-making,
  • Enhanced lead generation and nurturing, and
  • Better use of budget.

This small yet significant list of benefits has convinced many leaders to adopt the technology, although success levels may vary.

B2B Marketing Automation Tools

HubSpot Marketing Hub:

HubSpot offers an all-in-one marketing automation platform known for its user-friendly interface. It provides tools for email marketing, lead nurturing, CRM integration, and analytics. HubSpot is also renowned for its inbound marketing capabilities.

HubSpot reminds me of that high school overachiever school who excelled in each subject and was also the president of three clubs.

It smoothly integrates all aspects of your marketing strategy into a tidy and comprehensive package, making your life easier.

Pardot by Salesforce:

Pardot is a robust B2B marketing automation platform by Salesforce. It’s designed for enterprises and offers a suite of features, including lead management, email marketing, analytics, and a seamless connection to Salesforce CRM.

If you’re already using Salesforce, Pardot is the perfect marketing automation platform. With its seamless integration with Salesforce CRM, it’s a perfect fit for B2B marketing campaigns.

From nurturing leads to tracking ROI, Pardot offers a comprehensive set of tools to help you make your marketing campaigns more effective and stand out from the competition.

Marketo by Adobe:

Marketo! The old faithful friend of marketing automation platforms. Marketo is your most dependable ally, providing a comprehensive suite of tools and robust features that will always have your back.

It is now part of Adobe and a comprehensive marketing automation platform that focuses on B2B lead management, email marketing, and analytics. It’s known for its scalability and integration capabilities.

Marketo may not have all the latest features that some newer platforms offer, but it excels at what it does best.

Whether it’s lead generation, email marketing, or anything in between, Marketo provides comprehensive solutions that are as comforting as a warm blanket on a cold winter night.

Eloqua by Oracle:

Let’s discuss Eloqua, which is considered to be one of the most experienced marketing automation platforms available. Oracle’s Eloqua is an enterprise-grade marketing automation platform.

Eloqua is a powerful marketing automation platform that provides features such as lead scoring, segmentation, and personalized campaigns.

It is designed for large B2B organizations and can help you provide tailored experiences to your customers based on their browsing habits. With Eloqua, you can leverage their wealth of knowledge and experience to achieve your marketing goals.

If you’re seeking a platform with a dash of old-school charm and modern sophistication, Eloqua could be the right choice.

ActiveCampaign:

On our list of top B2B marketing automation tools, ActiveCampaign may be the last, but it certainly isn’t the least. It’s like the underdogs in sports movies, who despite all odds, begin as tenacious underachievers and go on to win.

ActiveCampaign surprises you with its hidden strengths, such a user-friendly UI, strong automation features, and a committed customer support team that is always there to assist.

Despite not having the same name recognition as some of the bigger players, it can still deliver knockout marketing campaigns.

Act-On Software:

Act-On Software is a versatile marketing automation platform that caters to businesses of all sizes. The platform is known for its user-friendly interface and comprehensive features that enable marketers to execute data-driven campaigns and achieve the best possible results.

Act-On’s primary focus lies in customer engagement and personalization, making it the foundation of their offerings. It provides marketers with tools to segment audiences based on their behavior and demographics.

Making it easier to deliver targeted messages through various channels. Adopting this approach can improve customer satisfaction and increase their loyalty towards the business.

Act-On makes it easy to automate tasks such as lead scoring and nurturing, ensuring efficient and timely interactions with prospects.

The platform’s reporting and analytics functionalities provide valuable insights into campaign effectiveness, allowing marketers to refine their strategies and achieve better outcomes.

Conclusion

Each of these platforms has its unique strengths and is well-regarded in the industry. When selecting the right platform for your needs in 2024, consider factors like your company’s size, specific marketing requirements, budget, and integration capabilities.

Conduct thorough research and consider consulting with experts in marketing automation to make an informed decision that aligns with your business objectives.

Certainly, the B2B marketing automation industry is evolving at a rapid pace, and these platforms are continuously improving with new features and capabilities.

Based on current market trends and projections, the top 6 B2B marketing automation platforms for 2024 are likely to be those that prioritize artificial intelligence, data visualization, and integrations with other marketing technologies.

However, it’s crucial to evaluate each platform carefully based on your specific business requirements, goals, and budget before making a final decision. We hope that this overview of the top 6 options for 2024 will assist you in your selection process.