This blog post was written by Kathy Floam-Greenspan.
Now, more than ever, everyone is on social.
With over 302 million users and a 91% market penetration, social media connects most people across a vibrant ecosystem.
They spend a lot of time there. The average person dedicates nearly 2.5 hours daily on social media platforms, a number that has increased almost every year since 2012. Collectively, users invest an eye-popping 4 trillion hours on social media annually.
Since social media is where the proverbial party is, it’s no wonder that 95 percent of B2B marketers rely on it as a central part of their marketing strategy.
They’ve found a receptive audience.
Ninety percent of social media users follow at least one brand on social media, proving that consumers prefer direct connections with brands and making social media an essential component of cultivating customer relationships and brand loyalty.
When implemented effectively, the results can be incredible. One survey found that 75 percent of B2B buyers use social media to help make buying decisions.
Social media is a crowded and fast-moving space, requiring B2B brands to be strategic and agile in their approach.
Here are five secrets to success in B2B social so your brand can capture attention and foster meaningful engagement with your customers.
1. Pick the Right Platform
The average person uses 6.7 social media accounts every month, making it difficult to reach the right people in the right place and at the right time.
Knowing where to reach your audience is a critical first step in an effective B2B social media strategy.
B2B marketing often starts on LinkedIn, where 93 percent of B2B content marketers leverage the platform for social media marketing, making it a significant lead generator for many B2B brands.
LinkedIn is ideal for businesses focusing on B2B marketing. It offers opportunities to connect with decision-makers and publish niche content tailored to a specific audience.
According to LinkedIn’s own survey data, 40 percent of B2B marketers say LinkedIn is the most effective channel for driving high-quality leads.
However, LinkedIn isn’t the only social media platform for B2B marketing.
For instance, Gartner reports that 70 percent of B2B buyers use Facebook when making purchasing decisions, while 62 percent turn to YouTube.
Undoubtedly, the right platform will look different depending on your industry and target audience, but prioritizing a few of the most important platforms is a better strategy than trying to be everything to everyone all the time.
2. Prioritize the Right Content
Social media users don’t just care about what information you share. They care about how you share it.
As a Forbes analysis succinctly explains, “Both brevity and authenticity are winning the day on social media, with short-form videos—typically less than a minute—capturing the attention of 66% of consumers.”
High-quality, short-form videos are a great place to start. When paired with compelling carousels, striking photography, and personal stories, B2B brands can effectively engage their audiences across platforms.
Most importantly, avoid constantly posting sales material. Instead, create valuable social media content that your audience wants to engage with, and let your audience grow from there.
3. Present the Right Vibe
Social media platforms are still, as their name suggests, social institutions.
As a result, people don’t just want information. They want to make connections, even with brands.
Therefore, don’t only publish long-form content and problem-solving posts. When posting, be sure to:
Be relatable: Share stories and experiences that resonate with your audience, showing that your brand understands and reflects their values and daily lives.
Be authentic: Let your brand’s personality shine through in every post, whether through behind-the-scenes content, team introductions, or sharing your brand’s mission and vision.
Be interactive: Encourage engagement and monitor accounts for near real-time follow-up when people comment or engage with your posts.
A dedicated social media person is critical to striking the right tone and presenting the right vibe. This person should have an excellent awareness of each platform’s strengths and limitations while ensuring audience engagement is always at the top of their minds.
4. Provide the Right Value
Social media isn’t second-tier content for casual consumption. It should be high-quality, compelling information that is valuable, relevant, and engaging to your target audience.
This might include links to informative articles accompanied by helpful commentary, entertaining videos that convey your brand’s personality, and eye-catching graphics that break down complex information.
This is important for engaging your audience today and growing your audience tomorrow.
When people find your content engaging and valuable, they are more likely to share it with their network, amplifying your reach, expanding your lead generation potential, and building your brand reputation as a thought leader in your sector.
It’s multiplied marketing that doesn’t increase costs while activating your audience to become more engaged buyers and better brand ambassadors.
5. Pivot at the Right Time
Social media trends come and go, and today’s captivating strategies are tomorrow’s cringe content.
Don’t let your social media strategy grow stagnant.
Stay informed on the latest trends, solicit feedback from your audience, and innovate boldly, recognizing that social media is a dynamic ecosystem where experimentation is often rewarded, and stagnation is the worst outcome.
Put differently, feel free to try new things, experiment, and pivot your strategy as you determine what works and what does not.
Pomerantz Marketing Supports Your Social
Social media isn’t just for influencers and celebrities. It’s a valuable part of any brand’s B2B marketing strategy, allowing you to connect with customers, share your story, and build brand loyalty.
It can be difficult to cut through the noise in a crowded social ecosystem, but you don’t have to do it alone.
Pomerantz Marketing is your social partner. From strategy and branding to content creation and social media management, we are here to help you develop online strategies and campaigns that enable leading companies to engage with prospective customers, strategic partners, employees, and recruits on various social media platforms.
Connect with us today to learn how we can help you make social a central (and impactful) part of your B2B marketing strategy.
Maximize Results With the 12 Days of B2B Marketing
/in Featured, Marketing, Strategic MarketingHow to Turn B2B Trade Shows intro ROI Goldmines
/in Featured, Marketing, Strategic MarketingTrade shows offer valuable opportunities for B2B companies to connect with potential customers, nurture pending prospects, and establish themselves as leaders in their space. Simply attending and showcasing your solution at your booth, however, isn’t enough to ensure a positive return on investment (ROI). Ensure that your time, budget, and efforts yield tangible results at your next industry event by laying out a strategic plan based on your goals. With many spring events on the horizon, now is the perfect time to start laying the groundwork for your B2B conferences and tradeshows.
How to Maximize ROI at B2B Trade Shows:
1. Define Clear Objectives and Streamline Your Strategy
Set Specific Goals: Identify what success looks like for your company. Is it a certain number of qualified leads? A launch of a new product or service? More media exposure? Defining these goals up front allows you to tailor your approach for maximum impact.
Limit Your Focus: Instead of trying to do it all, concentrate on the objectives that will drive the most value for your brand. Streamlined priorities lead to more impactful interactions and a better experience for attendees who visit your booth.
2. Leverage Pre-Show Marketing and Outreach
Reach Out to Prospects and Clients: Use email, LinkedIn, and other digital media to let people know you’ll be attending and invite them to connect with your team. Highlight what makes your booth experience unique, such as product demos, interactive elements, or exclusive insights, to encourage clients and prospects to stop by.
Create Targeted Content: Share industry insights, sneak peeks, or value-driven content that teases what attendees can learn from visiting your booth. This positions your brand as knowledgeable and builds intrigue.
3. Optimize Your Booth for Engagement
Keep Your Booth Open and Welcoming: Avoid overly cluttered designs or layouts that block entry. Create a welcoming space with comfortable areas for conversation.
Use Visuals and Interactive Elements: Enhance your booth with interactive elements like product demos or digital displays that highlight your solutions. These interactive features create a more engaging booth experience and ensure that attendees remember your brand long after the show.
Have a Clear CTA: Make every interaction count by having a clear CTA that supports your objectives, whether it’s scheduling a follow-up meeting or connecting on social media. Ensure your CTA is easily visible and compelling.
4. Qualify Leads and Prioritize Follow-Up
B2B marketers are constantly seeking new ways to reach their audience. As you wrap up the year, assess your current channel mix—did you focus too heavily on certain platforms, like LinkedIn or email? Now is the time to explore new channels or tactics that could help expand your reach in Q1.
Qualify Leads on the Spot: Instead of collecting every business card you come across, focus on quality over quantity. Train your team to ask insightful questions that reveal the attendee’s pain points, needs, and buying potential.
Use Digital Lead Capture Tools: Streamline your lead capture process with a mobile app or digital platform and include notes about each lead’s interests or pain points to ensure personalized and targeted outreach.
Plan Your Follow-Up Strategy In Advance: The sooner you reach out after the show, the better. Create email templates and follow-up resources in advance so that your team can personalize and send them promptly. When reaching out, reference specifics from your conversation to reinforce the connection and enhance follow-up by directing leads to custom landing pages.
Seal the Deal on Trade Show Success:
Attending a B2B trade show is a serious investment, but with the right preparation and approach, it can yield strong returns. By setting clear goals, engaging with prospects effectively, and following up strategically, you can turn trade show contacts into long-term, high-value relationships for your brand. Now is the time to get organized and make this trade show season your most successful yet!
How POM Can Help:
Navigating trade shows successfully requires expert planning, effective marketing, and targeted follow-up. POM offers comprehensive support to help you at every stage, from pre-show marketing campaigns and booth strategy to lead qualification and follow-up execution. Whether you need engaging content, branding guidance, or a targeted outreach plan, our expert team of B2B marketing specialists can tailor a strategy to maximize your ROI and drive real results. Reach out to learn how we can support your success at upcoming trade shows.
Ready to get started? Book an intro call!
5 Steps to Finish Your Marketing Year Strong and Prepare for Success in Q1 ‘25
/in Featured, Marketing, Strategic MarketingAs the year winds down, it’s crucial for marketing teams to reflect on what worked, identify areas for improvement, and lay the groundwork for success in Q1. The fourth quarter is the prime time to recalibrate strategies and ensure you’re hitting the ground running come January. Here are five essential steps to help you end the year on a high note and set up for marketing success in the new year.
Essential Steps for Year-End Marketing Success:
1. Review Your Annual Marketing Performance
The end of the year is the perfect time to evaluate your marketing efforts. Take a deep dive into the performance of your campaigns—what worked and what didn’t? Were your objectives met, or did you fall short in some areas? Look at key performance indicators like conversion rates, ROI, and lead generation across your channels.
Pro Tip: Create a detailed performance report that outlines strengths and weaknesses. Use this analysis to guide your strategy for Q1, ensuring you’re building on what worked while addressing any gaps.
2. Clean Up Your Marketing Database
Your marketing database is a critical tool for reaching the right audiences. Over time, though, it can become cluttered with outdated or irrelevant data. A clean database ensures your messaging reaches the right people and reduces wasted resources on unqualified leads
Pro Tip: Take time to remove inactive leads, revise incomplete or incorrect information, and segment your audience for more personalized outreach in Q1. This not only improves your email marketing, but also helps improve targeting in your ad campaigns.
3. Align Sales and Marketing for Key Account Growth
B2B marketing success often relies on seamless collaboration between sales and marketing teams. Before the year ends, meet with your sales team to align on key accounts for growth in Q1. Share insights from your marketing campaigns, and listen to their feedback on lead quality, messaging, and conversion challenges.
Pro Tip: Use this time to refine your lead hand-off process. Ensure sales has the right content to nurture conversations, and that marketing is capturing the most relevant lead data to aid personalization efforts.
4. Evaluate New B2B Channels and Tactics
B2B marketers are constantly seeking new ways to reach their audience. As you wrap up the year, assess your current channel mix—did you focus too heavily on certain platforms, like LinkedIn or email? Now is the time to explore new channels or tactics that could help expand your reach in Q1.
Pro Tip: Explore innovative channels that go beyond the usual platforms like LinkedIn or email. Consider launching B2B podcasts or hosting industry-specific webinars. To minimize risk, start by running small-scale pilots during Q4 to identify what resonates with your audience before fully committing to larger campaigns in Q1.
5. Plan a Q1 Marketing Calendar
A well-planned marketing calendar is essential for a successful Q1. Take the time to map out your marketing activities, ensuring that all campaigns, content, and promotions are aligned with your broader business objectives. Planning ahead gives you clarity and the ability to be more strategic in your approach, ensuring that you’re not scrambling to meet deadlines as the new year begins.
Pro Tip: Build your Q1 calendar with key campaign dates, content schedules, and industry events. Create a clear, goal-oriented plan to ensure your marketing efforts are focused and ready to drive results in Q1.
Get ready for Q1:
By taking the time to review your annual marketing performance, clean up your database, align sales and marketing, and explore new B2B channels, your Q1 will be well-planned, ensuring your marketing efforts are strategic, streamlined, and ready to drive results from day one.
At POM, we help B2B companies craft tailored marketing strategies that not only address immediate needs, but also support long-term growth. Whether it’s refining your messaging, optimizing your lead nurturing efforts, or developing a more focused content strategy, our team is here to help you create a plan that aligns with your goals — and gets results.
Ready to get started? Book an intro call!
POM’s Approach for Refreshing Email Templates to Maximize Engagement
/in Featured, Marketing, Strategic MarketingRefreshing your email templates is more than just a design update—it’s a strategic move to enhance engagement and performance. At Pomerantz Marketing, we understand the importance of ensuring your email templates align with both your brand identity and marketing objectives. Here’s how we approach the process to deliver modern, effective templates that resonate with your audience and drive results.
How POM Does It:
1. Comprehensive Audit of Existing Email Templates
Our process begins with a thorough audit of your current email templates. We evaluate the design, content, and performance metrics to identify what’s working and where there’s room for improvement. As part of this audit, we also recommend looking at emails you receive from other brands. These can be a great source of inspiration, helping to identify fresh ideas and design trends that can be adapted to suit your brand. This holistic approach ensures that we develop templates that will better engage your audience and align with your brand’s goals.
2. Goal-Driven Strategy Development
A key part of our approach is setting clear goals for your email templates. What do you want recipients to do? Whether it’s clicking a link, scheduling a demo, or making a purchase, defining these goals upfront drives the design and content strategy. We work collaboratively with you to ensure each template is equipped with 1-2 strong calls-to-action (CTAs) that guide your audience toward those goals.
3. Design and Content Refresh
In today’s fast-paced world, people don’t read lengthy emails—they skim. That’s why we focus on creating visually engaging content that captures attention quickly. Our refreshed templates feature modern design elements paired with concise, meaningful text, ensuring your emails are both visually striking and easy to navigate. This approach not only draws in your audience but also encourages them to take action.
4. Optimization, Testing and Deployment
Before your new templates go live, we rigorously test them across different email clients and devices to ensure they perform flawlessly. We also optimize them to enhance deliverability, making sure your emails land in the inbox, not the spam folder. Once everything is fine-tuned, we handle the seamless deployment, setting you up for improved engagement and success.
The Advantage of Refreshing Your Email Templates with POM:
With a focus on modern design, strategic content, and seamless performance, POM’s email template refresh process ensures your communications are both engaging and effective. By aligning your email templates with your goals and keeping them current with industry trends, we help you capture your audience’s attention and drive meaningful results. Let us enhance your email strategy and set you up for long-term success.
Ready to get started? Book an intro call!
Why an Email Template Refresh Is Critical for Maximizing Engagement
/in Featured, Marketing, Strategic MarketingIn the ever-evolving digital landscape, email remains one of the most powerful tools for communicating with clients and prospects. Just like any other part of your marketing strategy, however, email templates can become outdated and less effective over time. Regularly refreshing your email templates is essential to ensure they continue to resonate with your audience, reflect your brand’s current identity, and achieve the best possible results. Here’s why it’s essential to keep your email templates fresh:
Benefits of Refreshing:
1. Keep Up with Design Trends
Design trends in email marketing evolve quickly. What looked fresh and modern a year ago might now appear outdated or cluttered. Updating your email templates to align with current design trends ensures your emails are visually appealing and engaging. Clean, modern designs not only grab attention, but also help your message stand out in crowded inboxes.
2. Improved Engagement and Readability
An outdated email template can result in lower engagement rates. By refreshing your templates, you can enhance readability with more effective fonts, improve spacing, and organize content more effectively. A well-structured email that’s easy to read on both desktop and mobile devices is more likely to capture attention and drive action. This ultimately leads to higher open rates, click-through rates, and conversions.
3. Adapt to Evolving Brand Messaging
Your brand’s messaging and voice are likely to evolve over time, especially as your company grows and market dynamics change. Your email templates should reflect these changes, ensuring consistency across all your communication channels. Whether you’re introducing new products, services, or rebranding altogether, updating your templates is key to maintaining a cohesive brand image.
4. Enhance Deliverability
Deliverability is crucial to the success of your email campaigns, but outdated templates can pose challenges. Older templates may include elements that inadvertently trigger spam filters or cause compatibility issues with newer email platforms, preventing your emails from reaching your audience. Refreshing your templates with modern coding techniques and simplified designs can boost deliverability, making sure your messages reach the inbox where they’re intended to be.
5. Reflect Product and Service Updates
As your products and services evolve, your email templates should too. Keeping your templates up to date ensures that your emails accurately reflect your current offerings. This not only informs your audience but also highlights your company’s growth and innovation, building trust and credibility with your clients and prospects.
The Advantage of Refreshing Your Email Templates:
Refreshing your email templates is more than just an aesthetic update—it’s a strategic move that can significantly boost engagement and performance. Modern, goal-oriented templates not only capture your audience’s attention but also drive meaningful interactions. POM’s B2B marketing experts are here to help transform your email communications to reflect your evolving brand and achieve your marketing objectives.
Ready to elevate your email strategy? Book an intro call!
Why Vertical Marketing Outperforms Broad Campaigns for Lead Generation & Demand Creation
/in Featured, Marketing, Strategic MarketingIn the ever-evolving landscape of B2B marketing, companies constantly seek strategies that maximize reach and effectiveness. A common approach is “casting a wide net,” aiming to attract a broad audience. While this might seem like a surefire way to increase leads and drive sales, it often falls short of expectations. Casting a wide net requires deep pockets to get results, and you need to expect to pull in many fish you will want to toss out. Here’s why targeting specific industry verticals outperforms casting a wide net in B2B marketing:
Understanding Vertical Marketing:
Vertical marketing focuses on tailoring marketing efforts to specific industry sectors, or verticals, such as healthcare, finance, manufacturing, or technology. This approach allows businesses to develop a deep understanding of the unique challenges, needs, and trends within each vertical, enabling them to create highly relevant and personalized content.
This approach contrasts with horizontal marketing, where messages are broadly applied across multiple industries. By concentrating on verticals, you can gain a comprehensive insight of the unique challenges and needs within those sectors, allowing for more targeted and effective marketing strategies.
Benefits of Vertical Marketing:
By focusing on verticals, you can develop content that speaks directly to the unique challenges and priorities of each industry. This targeted approach ensures that your audience feels heard and understood, leading to higher engagement and establishing your brand as an expert in their specific field.
Vertical marketing attracts more qualified leads. Instead of a high volume of unqualified leads from a broad campaign, you gain fewer, but more relevant leads who are more likely to convert into customers.
Focusing on specific verticals enables more efficient use of marketing resources. Your budget, time, and effort can be concentrated on strategies that are more likely to yield results within those sectors, rather than being spread thin across a broad audience.
Implementing Vertical Marketing:
Conduct thorough industry research to understand the pain points, challenges, and trends within each vertical as they relate to your offerings to help tailor your messaging and solutions to address these issues directly. Additionally, analyze your current customer base to identify which verticals generate the most revenue and engagement. Study competitors to see how they target these verticals and identify gaps and opportunities where you can differentiate your offerings.
Create content that addresses the specific needs, challenges, and trends within each vertical. This could include industry-specific blog posts, case studies, e-books, white papers, and webinars.
Customize your marketing messages to resonate with the audience in each vertical. Highlight how your product or service can solve their unique problems and add value to their industry.
Leverage industry-specific channels and platforms to reach your audience. Participate in industry events, join relevant associations, sponsor marketing activities and advertise in vertical-specific publications.
The Strategic Advantage of Vertical Marketing:
While casting a wide net in B2B marketing might seem like a good strategy for reaching a large audience, it often leads to inefficiencies and low conversion rates. By focusing on vertical marketing, you can develop deeper industry expertise, create more relevant and personalized content, and attract higher-quality leads. This targeted approach not only improves your marketing ROI but also builds stronger, long-term relationships with clients in your key verticals. Utilize vertical marketing to drive better results and establish your brand as a leader in an industry.
Read how the power of vertical marketing generated 300+ monthly leads for our SaaS client.
5 Ways to Make Your B2B Social Media Strategy a Success
/in Featured, Marketing, Strategic MarketingThis blog post was written by Kathy Floam-Greenspan.
Now, more than ever, everyone is on social.
With over 302 million users and a 91% market penetration, social media connects most people across a vibrant ecosystem.
They spend a lot of time there. The average person dedicates nearly 2.5 hours daily on social media platforms, a number that has increased almost every year since 2012. Collectively, users invest an eye-popping 4 trillion hours on social media annually.
Since social media is where the proverbial party is, it’s no wonder that 95 percent of B2B marketers rely on it as a central part of their marketing strategy.
They’ve found a receptive audience.
Ninety percent of social media users follow at least one brand on social media, proving that consumers prefer direct connections with brands and making social media an essential component of cultivating customer relationships and brand loyalty.
When implemented effectively, the results can be incredible. One survey found that 75 percent of B2B buyers use social media to help make buying decisions.
Social media is a crowded and fast-moving space, requiring B2B brands to be strategic and agile in their approach.
Here are five secrets to success in B2B social so your brand can capture attention and foster meaningful engagement with your customers.
1. Pick the Right Platform
The average person uses 6.7 social media accounts every month, making it difficult to reach the right people in the right place and at the right time.
Knowing where to reach your audience is a critical first step in an effective B2B social media strategy.
B2B marketing often starts on LinkedIn, where 93 percent of B2B content marketers leverage the platform for social media marketing, making it a significant lead generator for many B2B brands.
LinkedIn is ideal for businesses focusing on B2B marketing. It offers opportunities to connect with decision-makers and publish niche content tailored to a specific audience.
According to LinkedIn’s own survey data, 40 percent of B2B marketers say LinkedIn is the most effective channel for driving high-quality leads.
However, LinkedIn isn’t the only social media platform for B2B marketing.
For instance, Gartner reports that 70 percent of B2B buyers use Facebook when making purchasing decisions, while 62 percent turn to YouTube.
Undoubtedly, the right platform will look different depending on your industry and target audience, but prioritizing a few of the most important platforms is a better strategy than trying to be everything to everyone all the time.
2. Prioritize the Right Content
Social media users don’t just care about what information you share. They care about how you share it.
As a Forbes analysis succinctly explains, “Both brevity and authenticity are winning the day on social media, with short-form videos—typically less than a minute—capturing the attention of 66% of consumers.”
High-quality, short-form videos are a great place to start. When paired with compelling carousels, striking photography, and personal stories, B2B brands can effectively engage their audiences across platforms.
Most importantly, avoid constantly posting sales material. Instead, create valuable social media content that your audience wants to engage with, and let your audience grow from there.
3. Present the Right Vibe
Social media platforms are still, as their name suggests, social institutions.
As a result, people don’t just want information. They want to make connections, even with brands.
Therefore, don’t only publish long-form content and problem-solving posts. When posting, be sure to:
Be relatable: Share stories and experiences that resonate with your audience, showing that your brand understands and reflects their values and daily lives.
Be authentic: Let your brand’s personality shine through in every post, whether through behind-the-scenes content, team introductions, or sharing your brand’s mission and vision.
Be interactive: Encourage engagement and monitor accounts for near real-time follow-up when people comment or engage with your posts.
A dedicated social media person is critical to striking the right tone and presenting the right vibe. This person should have an excellent awareness of each platform’s strengths and limitations while ensuring audience engagement is always at the top of their minds.
4. Provide the Right Value
Social media isn’t second-tier content for casual consumption. It should be high-quality, compelling information that is valuable, relevant, and engaging to your target audience.
This might include links to informative articles accompanied by helpful commentary, entertaining videos that convey your brand’s personality, and eye-catching graphics that break down complex information.
This is important for engaging your audience today and growing your audience tomorrow.
When people find your content engaging and valuable, they are more likely to share it with their network, amplifying your reach, expanding your lead generation potential, and building your brand reputation as a thought leader in your sector.
It’s multiplied marketing that doesn’t increase costs while activating your audience to become more engaged buyers and better brand ambassadors.
5. Pivot at the Right Time
Social media trends come and go, and today’s captivating strategies are tomorrow’s cringe content.
Don’t let your social media strategy grow stagnant.
Stay informed on the latest trends, solicit feedback from your audience, and innovate boldly, recognizing that social media is a dynamic ecosystem where experimentation is often rewarded, and stagnation is the worst outcome.
Put differently, feel free to try new things, experiment, and pivot your strategy as you determine what works and what does not.
Pomerantz Marketing Supports Your Social
Social media isn’t just for influencers and celebrities. It’s a valuable part of any brand’s B2B marketing strategy, allowing you to connect with customers, share your story, and build brand loyalty.
It can be difficult to cut through the noise in a crowded social ecosystem, but you don’t have to do it alone.
Pomerantz Marketing is your social partner. From strategy and branding to content creation and social media management, we are here to help you develop online strategies and campaigns that enable leading companies to engage with prospective customers, strategic partners, employees, and recruits on various social media platforms.
Connect with us today to learn how we can help you make social a central (and impactful) part of your B2B marketing strategy.
How to Use Competitor Insights to Level Up Your B2B Marketing in 2024
/in Featured, Marketing, Strategic MarketingThis blog post is written by Kathy Floam-Greenspan and appears on the Forbes Agency Council. You can read the full post here.
Successful B2B brands are intensely focused on their customers, and they should be. After all, without a thriving customer base, brands will struggle to build and maintain thriving, sustainable companies that succeed. However, brands can’t afford to ignore the other part of the successful company equation: the competition.
Competitor analysis—the process of identifying your competition and researching their products, tactics and communication strategies—allows brands to better understand the competition, enabling their success in the process.
This doesn’t mean brands should lose sight of what they did well. Rather, competitive market research contextualizes their offerings to identify paths to differentiation, not emulation.
Let’s make it more personal.
Competitor analysis isn’t about replicating what your peers are doing. When implemented effectively, competitor analysis creates opportunities for original marketing strategies highlighting your product or service’s unique value proposition.
Here are three things every B2B brand can learn from competitor insights that allow them to level up their marketing in 2024 and beyond.
1. Product or Service Positioning
Many products or services seem revolutionary when they are in development. Of course, promise and potential are very different from actual consumer impact…
READ MORE ON FORBES AGENCY COUNCIL >
B2Bs: 5 Questions to Ask When Shaping Your 2024 Marketing Plan
/in Featured, Marketing, Strategic MarketingThis blog post is written by Kathy Floam-Greenspan and appears on the Forbes Agency Council. You can read the full post here.
As we approach a new year, it’s time for companies to reflect on their marketing strategies and sales outcomes.
The past 12 months have been uniquely disruptive, so these efforts can be especially fraught, as identifying patterns, trends and best practices from an atypical time can be incredibly difficult.
Many companies know they will (slightly) increase their marketing budgets, incorporate generative AI, and accommodate the latest B2B buy preferences. They are much less sure about how they will achieve this.
Asking the right questions can help illuminate shortcomings, opportunities and strategic steps marketers can take to elevate results in the year ahead.
Here are five essential questions to ask to elevate your 2024 B2B marketing plan.
1. What does my sales team say?
Marketing and PR should support sales outcomes. These teams should work in tandem, collaborating to better connect with customers and drive sales outcomes. In this regard, content is king…
READ MORE ON FORBES AGENCY COUNCIL >
5 B2B Lead Generation Ideas to Fill Up Your Sales Pipeline
/in Featured, Marketing, Strategic MarketingThis blog post is written by Kathy Floam-Greenspan and appears on the Forbes Agency Council. You can read the full post here.
Lead generation as a concept is simple: Find buyers with a problem and provide a product or service that solves that problem. When your brand is a good fit, your leads will convert to buyers, bolstering your bottom line and enabling business growth.
If only it were that easy. Lead generation can be incredibly difficult, as any sales or marketing professional will tell you. Many rank lead generation among the most pressing business challenges, allocating significant financial and personnel resources to generating new leads.
However, quantity and quality are not synonymous. Effective lead generation isn’t just about volume. Inundating sales teams with low-quality leads can be debilitating and counterproductive.
Rather, effective lead generation is about leveraging the right strategies to generate high-quality leads that convert. Here are my top five ways to identify and engage with these high-quality leads.
1. Provide Useful Content
Content marketing works. It allows you to promote your products and services while providing value to an eager audience…
READ MORE ON FORBES AGENCY COUNCIL >