Six Steps to Improve Your B2B Marketing Campaigns for Successful Demand Generation

B2B marketing campaigns can be a work of art, with many components and elements contributing to the overall success. The main objective of these campaigns is demand generation. Generating awareness and in the long run leads and customers can start from one B2B marketing campaign. B2B demand generation can seem complex, but keep in mind the main goal; appeal to the target audience and entice them to engage with your brand, eventually turning them into a lead. So, where should you start? We’ve got six simple marketing campaign steps you need to know to improve demand generation.

1.  Start with your Target Audience

If there is no clear understanding of your target audience, it can be difficult to put together marketing campaigns. And when it comes to demand generation, it is critical to know how to target ideal buyers and meet their expectations and needs. To know the target audience and how to effectively reach them, know these characteristics:

• Demographics: Age, gender, education level, role/job title and location
• Firmographics: Annual revenue, number of employees and number of locations
• Behavior: Marketing or sales content they engage with or what they purchased
• Psychographics: Values, pain points and points of view on certain topics

2. Establish Lead Definitions

All B2B organizations are different when it comes to defining what a lead is. Some might score everything as a lead while others might start with a prospect and then move into a marketing qualified lead (MQL) and sales qualified lead (SQL.) Whatever your organization decides, ensure that everyone involved knows the appropriate definitions for leads and qualified leads. Why is this important for B2B marketing campaigns and demand generation? Knowing the definition of a qualified lead helps in understanding the success of marketing campaigns as well as the accuracy compared to ideal target audiences.

3. Develop a Content Strategy

With a clear understanding of the target audience, it is important to then form a B2B content strategy that addresses buyer pain points in a variety of content formats. Of the marketing campaign steps, this can often be the most important. Ungated content generates awareness while gated content generates leads. Understand the difference between the two and implement the appropriate content where needed. Here are a few tips for building a content strategy that drives demand generation:

• Create Various Types of Content: Content serves as the connection between your brand and audience. Creating various types of content depending on the buyer’s journey is a best practice. For example, in the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey, prospects are looking to understand their options, so content such as a blog, article or infographic is ideal for this stage. When buyers are in the decision stage, a product demo or case study can serve as ideal content pieces.
• Create Content Consistently: We know it is not always easy to create content, especially with limited resources for smaller B2B organizations. This is why it is critical to set goals based on what is achievable. Whether you create one new blog every week, every month or every day, producing content consistently establishes expectations with the audience.
• Create Engaging, Trustworthy Content: When someone consumes your content, it must be engaging and trustworthy. No one wants to read something that is not backed by data or is ambiguous. Thought leadership content is a perfect example of this as it typically comes from thought leaders with trusted expertise.

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4. Build out an Email Marketing Nurture Cadence

With a content strategy solidified, it is time to put those assets to use in an email nurture series or cadence. According to OptInMonster, 79% of B2B marketers say email is the most successful channel for content distribution. Putting several emails together to engage prospects and leads keeps your organization top of mind while pushing them further down the buying cycle. Consider these points for creating effective email nurture cadences for B2B marketing campaigns:

• Deliver engaging, valuable content users want to read and engage with
• Personalize content to pain points, needs and other user characteristics
• Segment audiences and customize content for each
• Keep email copy short and sweet and include clear calls to action

5.  Boost Social Media Activities

Social media has become a reliable channel for B2B organizations, with nearly 84% of B2B executives using it as a source for purchasing decisions. If you are not sharing content on social media or using it as a channel in your B2B marketing campaigns, you might be missing opportunities. Here are a few tips for generating awareness and demand on social media:

• Share content posted on your website
• Drive users to various landing pages on your website
• Utilize hashtags to broaden post reach and audience interaction
• Choose the right social media platforms for your audience

6. Consider Account Based Marketing (ABM)

While ABM is not always a tactic used by B2B businesses, it can be highly successful when planned and executed correctly. ABM is a strategy that aligns marketing and sales on targeting specific accounts with content, messaging, ads and more. The organization’s accounts are chosen carefully to complement its ideal buyer persona or customer profile. With the accuracy of these targets, demand generation is a top goal here. While ABM is not fit for all organizations, it is something to consider if there are resources available.  

Many components go into building a strong B2B marketing campaign focused on demand generation. The strategies and marketing campaign steps above give plenty of ideas of what to implement for success and to generate leads.

Looking to kick start your demand generation with powerful marketing campaigns? Contact us today or request a free marketing consultation! Our B2B marketing experts have helped hundreds of clients implement marketing campaigns and generate impressive ROI and leads.