In 2019, guess which marketing channel produced the most leads for B2B companies? Email!
According to the Digital Marketing Community, “Email marketing is ranked as the top B2B digital marketers marketing channel that delivers the highest ROI at a rate of 49%.”
Rounding out the top five are live events, search engine marketing, content marketing, and social media.
What does that mean for B2B companies?
Your marketing efforts need to happen on more than one plane, while taking a few things into consideration, including the target market, preferred media, and where the lead is along the buyer’s journey.
What type of B2B content helps to move the customer through the buying funnel?
As you can see from this Modern Marketing Partners chart, B2B marketers adjust their approach based on where a buyer is in the marketing funnel.
Early: blog posts, articles, ebooks, interactive content, and videos, podcasts
Middle: white papers, webinars, videos, interactive content, case studies
Late: case studies, in-person events, webinars, white papers
What does that mean for me?
If your business goal is to increase leads and to generate additional income this year, consider this approach.
- Define your target market – only those you want to work with this year. Break that down into a top 5, secondary 10, and tertiary 20. Use a prospecting tool to help you identify those people.
- If you already have some of those people as clients, consider where they are in the buying funnel. Then develop content using their preferred media format to take the next step in the service-buying process.
- Develop an on-going, relationship touch-point strategy to connect with them each quarter. This may be face to face or over the phone, generally avoid email for this step.
- Step up your social media efforts by adding more organic content about your business, yourself, and your community to help increase engagement. Testimonials, behind the scenes, and interviews are a great way to give insight into why you do what you do.
- Create a monthly theme for your marketing and social media efforts that are geared toward lead growth. Share that with your staff so they too can be on the lookout for content and ideas to help you reach a monthly goal.
If you’re a sole practitioner, consider working closely with a marketing and/or business development professional who understands your goals and knows how to make them a reality.
If you have marketing or social media questions, or are looking for a support team to help you with your efforts, give us a call or complete the following form. We enjoy helping CPAs and small business owners build their marketing muscle.
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