Burnt-Out Demand Gen Strategy?

Too often, a B2B-marketing team will hit the ground running. At first, all goes well. Then they run into a wall and struggle to scale their marketing campaigns.?We’ve all been there, being burnt out by not having a repeatable?B2B demand generation strategy.?

That burnout affects everyone in some way or another — CEOs, CMOs, business owners, and more.?

Repeatability is the key to creating a dynamic, ongoing B2B marketing strategy that continually reaps the lead generation results you want.?

So pull up your favorite chair. We’re going to dive into the most common pitfalls and tactical tips to ease burnout.?

What makes a repeatable B2B marketing strategy?

As marketing managers and entrepreneurs, you are highly creative. And these ad-hoc deployments based on sound ideas are great! There are just so many eureka moments we can have before we come to an eventual standstill.?

Instead, a repeatable B2B marketing strategy is like a blueprint that runs on the same basic ingredients, for a longer time.

These ingredients consist of foundations like?telling a great brand story , or a mechanism to turn your customers into advocates. For us at ViB, we’re making real investments in the following four ingredients, compiled into a 4-step framework you can easily follow:

Common challenges in B2B marketing???

Before we jump into the solution, let’s quickly review the biggest challenges B2B marketers face when running their day-to-day operations.?

Marketing burnout can happen for a wide variety of reasons, such as the following:?

Over-focusing on one-off campaigns?

This occurs when a team puts?a lot?of its resources into a campaign that runs only once. The effort it takes to create, run, and measure the campaign is likely to drain your energy and enthusiasm.?

One-hit wonders?

Often someone on the marketing team will have a brilliant idea. You run with it and it’s a success. However, it’s a one-hit wonder, like singers who are known for only one amazing song. Yes, they generate sales, but only for a short time. Then you’ve got to keep coming up with more short-term brilliant ideas to sustain the momentum.?

Being overly reactive instead of proactive?

Remember when everyone was writing content about COVID? While it seemed like a good idea at the time, all that content is basically useless now. This is a great example of being overly reactive to marketing pressures. To avoid wasting time and creating inefficiencies, the smarter approach is to be proactive. This means strategically determining your ideal long-term plan and marketing sticking to it.?

Not building a long-term, self-sustaining strategy

If you want a solid plan that gives you purpose and guides your process, then you must create a solid, future-focused, repeatable B2B demand generation marketing strategy.?

How to Build a Scalable and Repeatable B2B Marketing Strategy

Step 1 —?Build a Strong Brand, Then Show It Off

A brand is more than just a logo, tagline, and visual image. It’s?the way a company, product, or individual is viewed ?by those who experience it.?

For B2B companies,?brand recognition is how well your target audience can recall your brand and identify your products. It’s the major indicator of how well your customers and potential customers differentiate your company from your competitors.?

Everyone wants a strong brand but creating one can be difficult. But if you do miss this crucial step, you’ll struggle with driving a more repeatable marketing strategy.?

Start With a Strong Brand Strategy

Powerful brands have a full-bodied identity that includes a distinct style, trademarked visuals, core values, and unique tone and voice. If done right, you’ll find that it’s your?branding that helps you sell in the cluttered tech market .

There are seven essential tips for creating a long-term recognizable brand.

Actively Market Your Brand to Your Target Audience

There are four leading ways to get your brand out in the world and in front of the people you want to reach:?

1. Branding building?through target-rich networks.?Find the networks that include your target audience, then ensure they are aware that you exist, what you do, and why they should care.??
2. Inbound lead generation.?This helps you build a funnel of prospects through practices such as search engine marketing, organic and paid ads, and content marketing activities. Once you find them, nurture them through to sales.?
3. Outbound prospecting. To grow at a moderate or high rate, you’ll need to incorporate activities that generate a predictable flow of income leads, such as?content syndication ,?webinar marketing , and?cold calling for appointments .?
4. Create fans who refer you.?Word-of-mouth references from satisfied customers are one of the most powerful ways to generate leads and make sales.?

Pro Tip: Don’t lead with lead generation.?While it’s tempting to want to jump into lead generation right away, the wise move is to first build a strong brand that helps lead you into the marketplace with top-of-mind awareness.

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Step 2 —?Invest in Your Inbound Marketing Engine

Here’s a quick crash course:?inbound marketing is a way to attract prospects and customers ?using great content, SEO, social media and other digital marketing strategies.?

It’s a more sustainable approach to marketing because it focuses on building relationships with potential customers, instead of interrupting them with sales-heavy approaches like ads, cold calling and cold emailing.?

Create a Content Marketing Plan

Leading B2B inbound marketing tactics include SEO and social sharing, followed by website conversion optimization and lead nurturing once your leads are safely in your sales pipeline.?

You also need to, of course,?create content that is strong and valuable . Basically, your content is a sales tool, so it needs to both inform and impress your prospects — and you need a lot of it.?

The basics of a?content marketing plan ?include:

• Define your mission
• Establish your KPIs
• Plan your content and channels?
• Produce the content
• Distribute and promote the content
• Measure your results — and repeat!

Pro Tip:?You can maximize your inbound marketing strategy in several ways. Two proven methods are through nurturing campaigns and?content syndication .?

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Step 3 —?Don’t Shy Away from Vendors and Agencies

Now, we’re not saying to not engage in outbound marketing! It’s a tried and tested method of marketing that seeks to push messaging out to potential customers to generate new prospects. Outbound marketing includes activities such as cold calling, webinars, and trade shows.?

A specialized?outbound lead generation agency ?can deliver several benefits, including lower costs and better results. Basically, their expertise, scale, and proprietary lead generation approach can help you gain a lower cost per lead and more ROI.?

Find two tactical examples of outbound services you can hire a specialist to do for you at https://vibriefing.news/repeatable-b2b-marketing-strategy/.

Pro Tip:?To get the most from your marketing dollars, choose an agency that pays per result — like a?pay-per-lead company . As opposed to lump sum or monthly fees, pay per lead means that you only pay for quality leads delivered.??

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Step 4 —?Think of Your Customer Journey as an Infinite Loop

As a B2B marketer, you’re probably familiar with the buyer’s journey. It’s a handy tool for understanding how prospects move through your sales funnel — from awareness to consideration to buying.

But what happens after they purchase? The buyer’s journey doesn’t end there. In fact, it’s just beginning.

The “after-purchase journey” is all about retention and advocacy — getting customers to come back to you again and again, or even encouraging others to join them.?

Turn Your Existing Customers into Evangelists and Loyalists?

When you think about how much effort goes into building new accounts, it becomes clear that customer retention is just as important as acquisition.

By enlisting the help of your happy customers and keeping them around longer than just one purchase, you can?perpetuate the customer journey ?to drive growth that’s?repeatable.

Having your customers do your work is one of the most cost-effective and repeatable tactics any marketer can imagine –?once you have a sound customer success and referral system in place.?

Here are three examples of ways to leverage the power of customer evangelists and loyalists.?

Pro Tip:?Experience the same success that hundreds of other companies have when they tapped into the power of a?ready-made, sales-ready community .?

Get more in-depth details on how to implement this 4-step repeatable marketing strategy at https://vibriefing.news/repeatable-b2b-marketing-strategy/.