Tips for you B2B online marketing!

With the ending of 2016 we now move forward in 2017. Which great online successes did you achieve in 2016? What did you learn? What are new opportunities or goals? All these points are valuable in making your new online marketing plan for the new year. I would like to give you 11 tips that are related to lead generation in the B2B market which you can use for your marketing plan in this new year.

1.Start properly at the beginning: Get correct and accurate data

One of the big advantages of online marketing is that the effort and effects are easy to measure and analyse these days. This makes it even more crucial to measure all marketing activities accurately during the whole year. Try to arrange his at the end of each year. After collecting all data you will be able to organise and evaluate it for the following year.

2.Dive deep: Evaluate the past year

Is everything measured correctly? Then you will make your plan for the upcoming year. This includes a detailed data analysis of all your online projects of the past year. In Google Analytics all data from different channels is collected in one place. With a dive deep you will analyse where there is improvement and what proved to be a challenge. It is important to decide which challenges you want to handle first. Which challenges cost less and are easier to solve? After these decisions are made you will be ready for Take Away 3. My advise is not to make these plans on a yearly basis, but try doing it every 4 months unless the amount of visitors on your website is sufficient.

3.Conversion optimisation: one step ahead each time

Give conversions an important place in your marketing plan. After evaluations decide which parts of your website or online marketing channel could give you a higher value or conversion rate. Make this your conversion optimization project with a certain priority, budget and attention. This allows you to improve the ROI of your marketing budget.

4.Online goals, target groups and products/services

Decide for yourself whether you have growing goals or if you will expand your current market with new products. Make sure you have a sufficient budget. Doing more with the same budget simply doesn’t work. Think out of the box! Here are some points to think about.

• Which target groups/ audiences are now targeted online? Are there still groups that are not connected but have a lot potential?
• Which services do we provide now? Maybe it is better to reposition some or to connect them to another target group?
• Try not to stay limited within your own country borders. Are your products sellable outside your country? Online your reach is unlimited!
• Which products and services earn the most money online? Put these high in your marketing plan and budget.
• Are there any new rules and laws that can be used for your own benefit? Or maybe something needs to be changed according to these rules? Are there any interesting developments within a certain target group? These are some important questions you need to ask yourself.

5.Are you able to view and follow the whole buyer journey?

How is the orientation and buying process of your customer? Make sure to be well aware of this especially when it comes to your most important products and market combinations. The online competition is huge these days and the number of touch points is increasing. Most people orientate themselves on their mobile devices these days. This makes it crucial to know each buying process phase on each device which logs in to your website. The ideal situation would be to know each buyer journey of your target group with all relevant information (content) for each specific contact moment.

6.Put together your digital channel mix

Decide which digital channels you will use to connect with your lead online on contact moments during his buyer journey. Which channel will offer you the biggest chance to realise your goals? Don’t forget to get you ROI channel information from your Analytics deep dive during the buyer journey.

7.Make a connection with your offline marketing plan

No one is constantly online or offline. Make sure that your campaigns run parallel. In this way, the online and offline campaigns can support and strengthen each other for a maximal effect. Sometimes it is also good to test if campaigns will run better online or offline. In this way, you can find our fast and rather cheap which propositions and images have the best effect.

8.Target your audience as accurate as possible: make persona’s

“Target group thinking” is too general for the audience targeting options that online has to offer these days. Most companies make use of persona-thinking with their marketing strategy for B2B and with their B2C market. A persona is a detailed description of your most ideal customer. The persona describes his background, challenges, fears, ambitions, frustrations and buying behaviour. A proper worked out persona will help you to be more direct and specific in your online marketing of your products and services displayed in content and advertisements. Develop persona’s as a starting point for your content marketing.

9.Develop relevant content – Cherish your leads

Writing of good and educative content (content that is useful for your persona’s without selling them something) is getting more important each year, certainly in the business market. Make sure to start up a conversation with your leads. Try to make a great impression on the first visit so that your lead will definitely visit your website again. This will only be achieved by offering interesting and relevant information. This means creating lots of touch points and persona’s who will help getting the right insights to create relevant content and on how to find this content!

10.Marketing automation

Are you just starting with your persona’s and content development? Or have you been doing this for over a year? Perhaps it is interesting to make use of marketing automation software for automatisation of the inbound marketing process. It could be a good choice for your company and market. Use this year to do proper orientation and this new way of automatisation in the marketing world.

11.Reserve budget for new developments

Try to be well informed on relevant developments that suit your business. Set aside some extra budget. Not all developments are well known at the beginning of each year. Developments evolve rapidly and it is good being able to take advantage of that and jump in directly when the train races by.

I hope to have given you some useful tips regarding your marketing plan. Should you have further questions please feel free to contact me by making a comment or by emailing to info@marcodegroen.com