B2b Marketing Puns

While this is my first post here,

Thanks to all I've learnt here, and how y'all have helped me.

I'm actually interested in giving back to the community.

If you are in B2B SaaS,

What's in your top 2 marketing challenges?

I'm always wondering what other marketers are doing in terms of the media that you're using to target your markets. Enlighten me please as I'm not sure If I'm missing a trick by following the same media techniques every single time.

Maybe we can help each other out if people are doing something differently to me.

Or are there any other facets of marketing that brings you higher ROI?

I've always wanted to get into marketing, and have been trying to get into it for the last 2 years, I accepted the offer last week and now I'm the global marketing specialist B2B.

I wanted to go for my MSc digital marketing in September 2021 but has to defer it due to covid and was completely heart broken.

Needless to say I kept learning through other sources (LinkedIn learning, Harvard mentor manager) and seeking opportunities and welI I made it happen!

Email Marketing was and still to an extent is one of the best channels for generating B2B leads for businesses. But in recent years the results have gone down for various reasons which make some marketers wonder if they should be focusing more on other platforms rather than investing in Email Marketing.

Hey folks.

I have been reflecting on developing go-to-market strategies for B2B tech companies during the last 8 years and mapped out on a napkin my full-funnel framework.

Curious to hear your feedback.

So here are the main parts of Full-Funnel B2B Marketing Strategy.

0. GTM strategy that includes:

- Target segments to focus
- ICP (ideal customer profile) and account segmentation
- Marketing message
- Marketing, sales, and executive alignment on points above and strategic goals/targets.

1. Awareness.

Doesn't matter what goals you set up for your marketing, all starts with creating brand awareness.

Lots of companies heavily invest in ads, but I saw way better ways to generate awareness:

- Producing high-quality guides that are optimized for your niche keywords (not broad ones)

- Growing proactively network on target social and doing thought leadership to generate organic awareness

- Public speaking, podcast guest appearance, guest posts, and partnership webinars to grow audience and awareness

- Engage with strategic communities and accounts

2. Demand generation.

Demand is created when you show that your product can help to achieve a desired result or solve a specific challenge for your target audience.

The best way to create demand is by delivering detailed case studies via:

- Manual and paid targeting distribution
- Webinars
- Newsletter

3. Demand capturing.

To capture the demand, you need to set up an engagement threshold and intent data to start involving strategic accounts in your warm-up plays.

I don't believe in passive demand capturing only.

To accelerate demand capturing you need to have a buyer enablement program - content hubs that include content tailored to a specific buyer + continuous nurturing.

4. Activation.

At a specific point, you need a light push to activate strategic accounts.

Social selling and creative personalized outreach + phone follow-ups are the most effective ways to do the activation.

5. Client success.

When the deal is won, you start out a new relationship with the clients. Your goal is to make every customer happy and learn more about:

- what motivated them to buy,
- what influenced their decisions,
- what alternatives did they consider, etc.

6. Expansion.

When you have a success story (your customer achieved the desired result), you should:

- Release a detailed case study
- Start deal exp

Just started a new role and am relatively new to this type of analysis. Anyone have any good recommendations for courses that focuses on digital marketing? Doesn't necessarily have to be B2B.

Edit: Huge thanks! I'm buckling down for work today so won't be logged on for awhile. Lots of great advice and has straightened out my mindset a bit! (1 person marketing team also means no one to bounce ideas really!) Thanks again! Any further advice or resources/tools/courses appreciated.

[TLDR: My initial strategy is not working or getting leads. What type of B2B courses or outside resources would you reach for? Can't tell if my strategy or expectations are out of place or if an agency or data tool could help us get on track?]

So I'm 6 months in at a very small B2B software company & frustrated. I have a marketing degree, but no B2B experience and I'm struggling to define and implement our companies marketing strategy.

Good: -New website 👍🏻 -Updated marketing/sales materials like decks, use case demos, examples. -Consistent posting to LinkedIn/Twitter -White paper creation -Started marketing emails (company never sent one before) -Started Ads (again never before) -Feedback from our sales team is it's easier for prospects to understand what we offer

Bad: I've made no leads

Boss states it's typically an 18 month sales cycle. I have no clue how to support that from marketing or if it should be owned by sales.

-Barely any website traffic. Traffic raised 80% since last year but is not making leads or able to track exactly who is visiting. (Our HubSpot isn't capturing many visitors, should I look into other software?)

-Just started sending marketing emails. Literally 3 so far. With our whitepaper and our compelling usage rate. We're in SPAM on outlook! Our open rate & clickthrough were ok (17% & 5%) compared to industry. But previously our sales team went hard on cold emailing so don't know when the spam issue really came about. And worse I don't know how to fix it.

-Segmentation for marketing emails is a mess. New contacts enter the CRM from all sales and operational emails. I need to update properties but often don't have info on hand (ie are they a blocker/champion. Should they even be getting marketing emails or are they just looped in on a department wide email?) (Ya this really borders on CASL & CANSPAM operating purely under assumed legit interest)

-Ran a few preliminary LinkedIn Ads (company never had before) Got good impressions & data to move forward optimizing, but my boss suspected "spam" LinkedIn accounts (he was viewing all the likes on ads and many didn't have photos/many connections/full profiles) He basicall

Hi, I run a small business that makes organic shampoo. Is it illegal to sms other small business hair dressers and ask if they would like to have a look at our product as I believe it could add value to their business?

I believe SMS is illegal but i’m not going to be bulk sending these out.

Looking forward to your replies !

Our company has only had a dedicated marketing department for one year now and we are still trying to understand the best practices/strategies to utilize for b2b marketing. Our company is a large commercial printer that works directly with mid-to-large businesses to provide print solutions of all types (small format, signage, vehicle wraps, trades how displays, etc.). Any advice, strategies, or campaigns that you have seen work or are worth investing money/time into?

I find it hard to learn about how good B2B Marketing should be set up. I work in a huge company but no one seems to have a clue. For example I don't think even my superior knows how B2B Marketing should be set up so all activities work together or an actually lead generation machine is getting created at some point in the future.. Money gets spend by different channels and with partners how the sales contacts and marketing employees argue for it but is not spent by looking at actual conversions (probably because there is no clear measurement, even though I know that is not always possible) instead only soft impressions and clicks are used without actual knowledge of sellout and ROI.

I feel like buying personas are missing and there is no long term or short term strategy but only the goal to not loose budget and therefore to spend it the best they can, which is why I will have to take it into my own hands. But I don't know where to start and I realize I am becoming like everyone else and stop questioning the approach and tasks because of the high workload. Where should I start and where can I learn about proper B2B marketing?

I'd like to prove my worth by actually delivering ROI positive campaigns or ideally a long term way to get to ROI positive B2B Marketing..

Happy to elaborate more about what is done just ask. Currently there is no superior with more marketing knowledge, who I could ask. That being said my marketing knowledge is limited. I have worked in sales for a marketing agency for about 6 years. And have studied marketing but have never worked in a functioning marketing team from B2B client side before.

Edit:

Thanks for your Input. Im so thankful for the sharing of knowledge on Reddit you don't know how helpful this is as I have no one to talk to!

Info about the company: Consider one of the Top 10 hardware manufacturers out there providing laptops, desktops monitors etc. Using a primarily indirect sales method by selling to smaller resellers and big distributors (sell also to smaller resellers). Those resellers again sell to end customers like actual companies in need of hardware. This is the commercial side with commercial end clients from all industries like Automotive, Aviation, Insurance.. you name it. There are also specific verticals with a lot of potential like the public sector, education, health care.

The big deals come through tenders that manufacturers and resellers apply for together delivering devices based on the tend

In recent years the use of Email Marketing has gone down irrespective of the results. So, what do you guys think will be trends in the future.