B2B Archives - FunnelEnvy

Top Mistakes in B2B Lead Generation CRO and How to Fix Them

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is one of the top goals for B2B marketers. Why? A significant reason is that improving CRO creates a beneficial ripple effect. It can lower customer acquisition costs by getting more ROI from existing visitors and users. Like a rising tide, when CRO goes up, it can influence other metrics and lead to higher revenue per visitor and more customers.

CRO is the art and science of making your website more effective at converting visitors into customers. Even for relatively simple business models, this process has many variables. It can feel overwhelming to keep track of everything, and even the most seasoned marketers fall prey to the top mistakes in B2B lead generation CRO. Helping simplify the overwhelm is where Funnel Envy can help.

The critical thing to remember is that it’s not just about driving traffic to your website; it’s about converting that traffic into meaningful leads. The overall goal is to understand your audience, tailor your digital marketing experiences to their needs, and continually adjust your strategies based on data-driven insights.

There is so much data to track in digital marketing, especially now with the release of a new AI tool almost weekly. Improving your conversion rate is a moving target.

Where to start? It depends on your business, of course. Organic search is most likely job 1. If budgets are tight, a synergistic combination of organic and smart blogging is an excellent place to start.

You can use this chart from Databox to give you an overview of ideas on where to put your efforts.

Let’s look at some common mistakes, plus ways to fix them.

Audience, First and Always

The success of any lead generation strategy hinges on a deep understanding of the audience. Here are two common marketing mistakes related to audience targeting in B2B lead generation:

Not Defining Your Target Audience

Many B2B marketing strategies falter due to a need for more specific targeting. Not knowing who you are trying to reach with your content marketing, social media, and other efforts can lead to inefficiencies and wasted resources.

A well-defined audience is the foundation upon which marketers build successful lead-generation strategies. Defining the audience requires understanding demographics and your customer avatars’ unique challenges, interests, and behaviors.

Forgetting the Buyer’s Journey

Another frequent oversight is neglecting to factor in the buyer’s journey. The customer journey has multiple stages, from the initial awareness of a problem to the consideration of various solutions and the decision to purchase. Each phase requires different marketing approaches and content types.

For example, blog posts might be effective in the awareness stage, while detailed case studies and product demos are more suitable for the decision stage. Webinars can nudge prospects into decision mode, too.

Aligning your content and strategies with the buyer’s mindset ensures that your efforts resonate with prospects at the right time and in the right way.

Failing to Optimize Your Website

Think of optimizing your website like a lever effect – a well-optimized website can simultaneously knock out several lead-generation mistakes. Search engine optimization is the essential starting point.

Here are some other common pitfalls:

Focusing Too Much on Quantity Over Quality

One of the more common lead generation mistakes is that more leads always equal better results. However, the quality of leads is often more important than quantity. You want to optimize your website to attract, filter, and convert people with genuine interest and need for your product or service.

Poorly Designed Landing Pages

Landing pages play a vital role in converting visitors into leads. However, many B2B websites suffer from poorly designed landing pages. Poorly designed pages have unclear calls to action, lack relevant information, and are visually confusing.

Optimizing your lead capture forms and content to appeal to your ideal customer profile is essential to attracting quality leads. Well-designed forms increase the chances of conversion and ensure better alignment between your marketing campaigns and sales efforts.

A well-designed landing page should be clear, concise, and compelling. It should provide visitors with exactly what they are looking for and guide them smoothly toward the desired action, whether filling out a form or signing up for a webinar.

Lack of Clear Goals and KPIs

Setting clear goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is essential for any successful lead-generation strategy. Goals guide your efforts and help you focus on what’s critical, and KPIs allow you to measure the effectiveness of your strategy.

Common KPIs in B2B lead generation include conversion rates, click-through rates, and the cost per lead. Without these, it’s difficult to gauge the success of your campaigns and make informed decisions about where to allocate your resources for improving results.

Ignoring Data and A/B Testing

Data and testing are at the heart of effective CRO, yet it can be hard to know where to start. Here are some tips:

Testing Without a Strategy

Random testing must have a clear strategy to avoid confusion and misinterpreting results. Each test should be designed with a specific goal, whether to improve the click-through rate on a call-to-action button or increase the number of form submissions.

A strategic approach to testing ensures that you are always learning and improving your lead-generation efforts.

Pro-tip: Test Pages That Are Doing Well

While fixing broken pages is crucial, the low-hanging fruit is improving pages that are performing well. Regularly testing and optimizing all pages, including the high-performing ones, ensures you maximize your lead generation potential.

Multiple Landing Pages: The More the Merrier

Hubspot reports that business websites with 10-15 landing pages increase conversions by 55% over those with less than 10 landing pages. And that’s not all. Increasing to over 40 landing pages improved results by an eye-popping 500%.

So, obviously, multiple landing pages can lead to a dramatic improvement in performance. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy fix. The more pages, the more complex tracking and reporting will be. If you have questions about how to scale your landing page program, we can help.

Not Using Social Media Effectively

With appropriate strategies and implementation, social media is a powerful tool in the B2B marketer’s toolkit. Effective use of social media in B2B lead generation involves more than just posting regular updates.

Like your website content, social content requires a strategic approach, with content tailored to the platform and the audience. LinkedIn is the go-to platform for B2B marketers, offering opportunities for targeted networking, content sharing, and ad campaigns.

TikTok, which started as a trendy haven for GenZ self-expression, now has a rapidly growing B2B sector. Podcasts and YouTube are still the most powerful channels for teaching and trust-building. If your blog strategy is already solid, the next step could be to experiment with augmenting high-performing copy with podcast or video content.

Moving Ahead to Avoid Top Mistakes in B2B Lead Generation CRO

When designing or optimizing complex processes, workflows, or SOPs, a simplified place to start is to be aware of typical mistakes and take preventive action. From optimizing your website’s user experience to fine-tuning your social strategy, optimizing CRO involves constant learning and testing.

AI tools will continue to up the ante for marketing performance. With the right approach and focus on critical areas, you can avoid common pitfalls and drive successful outcomes for your business. At Funnel Envy, we have the expertise and tools to help you dial in your website and landing page performance to increase CRO. Reach out today. We’re here to help.

By Kala P|2023-12-18T21:59:27-08:00December 26th, 2023|Conversion Rate Optimization|0 Comments

The Power of Short B2B Videos for Marketing: Leveraging the TikTok Effect

Even before the internet, corporate video was a powerful (and expensive) tool in the marketing mix. During the 2000s, video production costs plummeted, bandwidth increased, and B2B videos quickly became a staple for online marketing.

After its 2005 launch, YouTube was the dominant video platform until TikTok’s meteoric rise in US popularity from 2018 to the present. Initially popular with mostly young viewers watching videos for entertainment, TikTok’s bite-sized videos offer an increasingly viable option for B2B marketing.

For example, after almost changing careers due to a lack of business traction on LinkedIn, B2B Marketing expert Jade Tambini now leverages 30,000 followers on TikTok and a growing YouTube presence. Only after she grew and monetized her TikTok following did she re-invest time into LinkedIn.

From B2B SaaS to high ticket sales, video is the perfect format for providing richer content to keep fans engaged. Click To Tweet

Today’s B2B buyer wants as much self-service info as possible on their customer journey with brands. From B2B SaaS to high ticket sales, video is the perfect format for providing richer content to keep fans engaged.

Source: Sprout Social

Regardless of the platform, the versatility and accessibility of short videos make them a powerful option in the B2B marketer’s toolkit, providing opportunities to connect with audiences that increasingly prefer video.

How can your business tap into B2B video? Check out our tips and best practices in this post.

Planning B2B Short Video Campaigns

Before you press Record, the first step is establishing clear, measurable video marketing campaign objectives. These goals include increasing brand awareness, generating leads, or boosting engagement. By setting specific targets, you can focus your efforts and measure the success of your video content more effectively.

Compelling videos share a few common traits. Let’s explore this a little further.

Choose one key point: Simplicity is vital in short-form video content. Focusing on one core message per video is essential to avoid overwhelming your audience. This singular focus ensures that your message is clear, concise, and memorable, making it more likely for viewers to take the desired action.

Importance of the Hook: The opening seconds of your video are crucial. Captivating your audience right from the start is necessary to keep them engaged. The hook should be intriguing, relatable, and relevant to your audience, enticing them to watch the entire video.

What is the One Thing? Narrow down your key point even further – What is the one takeaway you want your audience to remember? Mention it early in the video and right before your CTA at the end.

Always use captions: Most people watch videos with the sound off. Be sure to use captions for accessibility and a better user experience.

Know Your Audience

Understanding your audience is crucial in creating impactful video content. Before you start brainstorming videos, check in with your marketing basics.

Buyer Personas for B2B videos

Now is the time to lean on your Buyer Persona. Relying on your buyer persona information helps you develop a personalized approach that ensures higher engagement and a deeper connection with your messaging. Here are three ways to leverage Buyer Personas for impactful B2B video content:

Addressing Specific Pain Points and Interests: Craft your video content to address your personas’ specific challenges or interests. For example, if your persona is a marketing executive concerned about ROI, create content demonstrating how your product or service can enhance marketing efficiency and profitability.

Using Appropriate Tone and Style: Align the tone, style, and language of your videos with the preferences of your personas. A more formal tone may suit C-level executives, while a casual and energetic style might appeal to creative professionals.

Choosing Relevant Topics: Select topics for your videos that are relevant to your buyer personas’ industry and professional interests. For instance, IT professionals may appreciate videos on the latest tech trends or cybersecurity tips.

Tailor B2B video content to the B2B funnel stage

Each stage of the buyer’s journey requires a different approach. You can customize short videos to address these various stages, from raising awareness to nurturing leads and closing sales. Here are some examples:

Awareness Stage

Educational videos, explainer videos, and brand videos

Interest Stage

Webinars, how-to videos, and product demos

Consideration Stage

Testimonials and case studies, detailed product demos, and comparison videos

Decision Stage

FAQ Videos, customized product demos, and consultation offers.

Retention Stage

Training and tutorial Videos, customer success stories, updates, and new features videos.

Advocacy Stage

User-generated content (UGC), community-building videos, and referral program explainers

Videos that meet the needs and objectives of the respective stage in the sales funnel establish trust and help keep potential customers moving through your funnel.

What Platform is the Best for B2B Videos – TikTok or YouTube?

When it comes to choosing the right platform for your short video content, there are several considerations. Both platforms offer unique advantages and cater to different audience behaviors and expectations.

Here’s some info to consider to determine which platform aligns best with your B2B marketing goals:

TikTok: Known for its virality and creative content, TikTok is ideal for reaching a younger demographic. The platform’s algorithm is excellent for discoverability, making it easier for new audiences to find your content.

YouTube Shorts: As an extension of YouTube, Shorts allows you to leverage the platform’s vast audience. It’s well-suited for longer-form content edited to shorter clips. YouTube’s detailed analytics can be invaluable for understanding audience engagement and refining your strategy.

Audience Demographics: Evaluate where your target audience spends their time. If your buyer personas skew younger or are more engaged with trendy, fast-paced content, TikTok might be the better choice, although, as we’ve seen with Jade’s example, TikTok can also work to reach the Millennial B2B audience. For a more diverse age range and a preference for informative, detailed content, consider YouTube Shorts.

Integration with Existing Marketing Channels: YouTube’s strength lies in its seamless integration with Google’s ecosystem, offering advantages in SEO and content discoverability. TikTok is growing fast and offers unique social sharing and engagement opportunities. If Facebook is critical to your brand, then Instagram reels can have a ripple effect on your Meta outreach strategy.

Choosing between TikTok and YouTube for your short video B2B marketing efforts hinges on understanding your audience, content style, and marketing goals. By aligning your platform choice with these factors, you can create more effective and engaging video content that resonates with your target audience.

Maximizing LinkedIn for B2B Short Video Marketing

LinkedIn holds a unique position for B2B video marketing, and it’s not entirely positive. LinkedIn’s process for uploading videos is not seamless, and they gatekeep who can go live on the platform.

The good news is that a LinkedIn video can be valuable for targeted outreach if you put in some extra effort. LinkedIn videos get 3x more engagement than text posts. Members also reshare B2B short videos more than other types of content.

Use LinkedIn’s networking capabilities to amplify your video content. Engage with comments, share your videos in relevant groups, and tag industry influencers or partners to expand your reach.

Ideas for video content on LinkedIn include industry trends, thought leadership, case studies, webinars, and how-to guides. Be sure to keep them concise and informative. Well-done videos have a higher value than most written content, so sharing a video as part of a LinkedIn messaging outreach can also be an effective tactic.

Moving Ahead with B2B Short Video

Video for B2B marketing is a valuable tool, but it takes extra work. Creating the content is only half the story. Planning, testing, integrating analytics, and tracking the results of your video marketing efforts can be complex and time-consuming. These steps are critical in understanding your campaigns’ effectiveness and making data-driven decisions for future strategies.

FunnelEnvy has helped many clients across diverse sectors better understand the impact of their video content. If you’re interested in discovering how our services can align with your needs and to get more information on our pricing, we invite you to fill out a brief questionnaire. Click here to get started and see if we’re the right fit for your needs.

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By Kala P|2023-11-29T00:43:00-08:00December 11th, 2023|General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments

Two Keys to Unlock B2B Landing Page Performance – Customer Journey and Intent

Who hasn’t had the experience of being chased out of a showroom by a pushy salesperson? Those experiences are tiresome because they don’t respect where we are in our customer journey.

We see this mirrored in B2B landing page performance with annoying popups and premature calls to action (CTAs) that don’t offer prospects what they need when we need it.

For digital marketing, integrating customer journey and intent into landing page design is essential for its success. You can reverse engineer a path to higher engagement and conversion rates by mapping out the customer journey and intent across all stages.

What Is Intent in the B2B Customer Journey?

The customer journey is like a timeline of their experience with your brand, from initial awareness to the final decision to purchase. At each journey stage, prospects have a specific intent for their goals.

Intent refers to what the customer wants to achieve at each journey stage – and this also speaks to their underlying motivation.

Remember that customer intent is almost always very different based on price. For example, in high ticket sales, customers rarely intend to purchase the first time they engage with a brand.

Prospects may value their time more than shopping around for small, low-risk purchases. In this instance, the landing page may look like a traditional sales page, hosting the entire funnel content from awareness to consideration to a “buy now” button.

Understanding intent can help businesses create targeted, intentional marketing strategies that align with the customer’s journey phase. This awareness is essential to creating an excellent customer experience. From the customer’s perspective, the wrong offers at the wrong time are confusing or irrelevant at best and annoying at worst.

Why B2B Landing Page Performance is More Important Than Ever

Recent research shows that most post-pandemic B2B buyers prefer a self-service customer journey over “booking a call” to speak to a salesperson or company representative.

Gartner predicts that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions will occur in digital channels, making landing pages more crucial to lead gen and conversion than ever.

It’s also excellent news for companies that fully embrace digital marketing. Landing pages allow for a precision-tailored approach to marketing. Optimizing landing pages can result in more effective lead generation, higher conversion rates, and better customer retention.

Successful conversion rates for landing page forms vary across industries but tend to hover around 2 to 3%.

B2B Landing Page Performance with Customer Journey and Intent

Source: Ruler Analytics

When you consider landing page content for each stage of the journey, a good starting place is to ask what kinds of questions your prospects have at each phase. That question can help you tailor content that anticipates their needs.

Optimizing CTAs for B2B Landing Page Performance

What makes a landing page a landing page? It’s the Call to Action (CTA). The most important predictor of landing page success is how well the content and the CTA align with the customer journey.

For example, a prospect at the awareness stage of a high-ticket purchase will likely not click “buy now” but may respond to a CTA for an educational webinar. A typical conversion CTA is a free trial requiring credit card information with lower-cost products and services.

Now, let’s look at some landing page tips for each step of the customer journey.

B2B Landing Page Tips for the Customer Journey Awareness Phase

In the awareness stage, the customer is just getting to know the brand. Common questions include “What solutions or options can address my business problem? Who provides these solutions?”

Their intent likely includes narrowing their options. Here are some key considerations to increase B2B landing page performance in this phase:

Content: Landing page content at the awareness stage should seek to move prospects further into the consideration funnel. For lower-cost purchases with minimal risk, like a SaaS subscription, the funnel is relatively short, so the landing page includes consideration information and a “sign up now” button.

For higher ticket items, you can use “top of funnel” (TOFU) content like blog posts, whitepapers, and industry reports to cover the most common questions and challenges your prospects face to drive organic traffic to your landing page.

SEO Optimization: Conduct keyword research to understand what your target audience is searching for and optimize your landing page content to increase visibility in search engine results.
Retargeting: Only some visitors will convert on the first visit. Showing targeted ads to visitors who didn’t initially convert keeps your brand top-of-mind and provides multiple touchpoints along the customer journey. With dynamic retargeting, these ads can showcase products or services they viewed, reminding them of their interest and your value proposition.

B2B Landing Page Tips for the Customer Journey Consideration Phase

In the consideration stage, you now have something precious and rare – your prospect’s attention. Gary Vaynerchuk goes so far as to say that attention is the number one asset in the business world today.

In this stage, simply providing more information about your product is not enough to engage and nurture leads. The CX during this phase builds trust. Trust is essential because people rarely buy from companies they don’t trust.

So, how do you keep the audience’s attention and build trust with B2B prospects? Here are some ideas.

Personalized messaging and experiences. Consumers now expect personalized experiences across all their customer journeys. Let your prospects know you understand where they are in their customer journey by providing appropriate content. For example,

consumers looking for in-depth information will be annoyed by constant “buy now” pop-ups or repeated offers for the same lead magnet they just downloaded.

Personalize the viewer experience. Implement dynamic content on your landing pages, meaning integrate that content changes based on visitor demographics, industry, or behavior on your site.

AI for landing pages. As you might expect, AI tools are taking landing page personalization options to the next level. At Funnel Envy, we leverage AI and manage the added complexity of multiple landing pages to help our clients optimize results.

Lead magnets. Customer preference for self-service info is good news for lead magnets if done correctly. Instead of making “book a call today” the only option for moving ahead, offer valuable resources like webinars or downloads appropriate for the consideration phase in exchange for contact information.

B2B Landing Page Tips for the Customer Journey Conversion Phase

By this time, your prospect has gotten to know and trust you. Landing pages for sales are both an art and a science. Here are some tips:

Testimonials and Case Studies: Provide social proof through testimonials, reviews, and case studies. Real-world success stories can significantly influence decision-making.

Live Demos or Consultations: Now is the time for in-person contact for high-ticket items. Offer live demonstrations or free consultations to prospects who have shown a high level of engagement. This direct interaction can be the final nudge they need to convert.

AI for Continuous B2B Landing Page Improvement

Continuous improvement in B2B landing page performance is a crucial goal. With AI, A/B testing is evolving rapidly. AI can now manage dozens of split tests of landing page elements, such as headlines, images, and CTAs, and even automate optimization based on the results.

This development has significant implications for improving lead gen because studies show that the more landing pages companies run, the better. The study revealed that 31 to 40 landing pages generate five times more leads than 1 to 5 landing pages, and over 40 pages generate 12x the leads.

Moving Ahead

Optimizing even five to ten landing pages can be a lot to manage in-house. From testing to reporting, Funnel Envy can help you with the complexity of scaling your landing page strategy. We specialize in optimizing B2B landing pages to drive conversion and boost sales.

We understand the complexities and have the tools and expertise to help you take your landing page performance to the next level. Reach out today to get started.

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By Kala P|2023-11-16T08:44:13-08:00November 27th, 2023|Landing Pages|0 Comments

Beyond the Obvious – Drilling Down on B2B Buyer Personas

From the time of Don Draper in the hit show Mad Men to mega Super Bowl ad spends in the 1980s, marketers traditionally relied on demographics and social trends to target and segment broad audiences. In the 2000s, digital marketing revolutionized marketers’ ability to reach more specific segments.

One risk of data is losing sight of the real people behind the numbers. Without analytics, we know nothing about the prospects behind the clicks. In 1985, a software designer named Alan Cooper invented a user persona named Kathy to add human context to the development process.

Over the years, marketers built on that idea to develop buyer personas – profiles of fictional people that embody several ideal client characteristics. Creating buyer personas is a subjective and analytical process based on data and actual customers or prospects.

The idea is to translate the raw traffic like this:

AI and ABM are driving the evolution of buyer personas

Into information to help you fill out a buyer persona template, like this:

Source: Hubspot

Why Buyer Personas Work

The buyer persona helps craft tailor-made experiences for every buyer category. In a time when empathy and personalization are more crucial than ever for funnel performance, teams must develop a granular view of the buyer’s points and journey through touchpoints to a sale.

A well-defined buyer persona can improve demand gen by filtering traffic for top-quality leads exhibiting strong buyer intent. While companies should tailor their personas to their industry and other factors, here are some basics all personas should include:

Demographics: Age, gender, location, income, etc.
Psychographics: Interests, values, lifestyle, personality traits.
Goals: What they want to achieve using your product or service. What are their motivations for considering your product or service?
Challenges: Pain points and obstacles they face in reaching their goals.
Buying Behavior: Is this a B2B or B2C customer? How do they make purchasing decisions?
Preferred Channels: Where they gather information and engage online.

A well-defined buyer persona can improve demand gen by filtering traffic for top-quality leads exhibiting strong buyer intent. Click To Tweet

Behavioral Analysis and Intent Data for Buyer Personas

Effective buyer personas use quantitative and qualitative data to segment data about existing customers, website visitors, and leads. This data may include information from website analytics tools, interviews, social media insights, and customer interactions.

Customer surveys are also helpful in fine-tuning segments and gauging customer intent. Human nature means people don’t always do what they say they might. Analytics data combined with surveys help marketers see how well what people say correlates with the actual behavior of the website traffic.

Analyze data for visitor browsing behavior patterns, content consumption, engagement levels, and purchasing history. This analysis will help you understand their preferences, pain points, and motivations.

Buyer intent refers to prospects’ actions or expected behaviors before purchasing. Analyze the keywords they use in searches, the content they engage with, and their actions on your website. Are they looking for information, comparing products, or ready to purchase? Intent analysis identifies which actions signal intent to buy as they move through the funnel.

AI-Driven Personalization Engines for Buyer Personas

AI-powered personalization is providing new tools to elevate customer experiences. By harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, enterprises can delve deep into extensive customer datasets about online behaviors, transaction history, social media engagements, and demographic insights.

Implementing AI personalization includes:

Data collection and integration into customer data platform (CDP).
Using AI algorithms to segment customers.
Automating marketing messages and content tailored to each customer persona, such as personalized email campaigns.

AI algorithms enable the personalization of the customer journey in real-time, detecting shifts in customer behavior and updating personas. Dynamic content generation can match snippets of content that resonate with specific personas, offering responsive options and recommendations that adjust for buyer personas.

Keeping up with prospects across channels has long been a challenge for marketers. AI can help synchronize personalization efforts and create more of an omnichannel user experience.

AI is rapidly evolving and still very early. Companies need to watch for bias in AI that could have unintended results. Consumers are more sensitive about their data than in the past. Governments are stepping in with privacy and data protection regulations. Companies that adopt transparency and ethical guidelines around the use of data and AI will maintain customer trust.

Account-Based Marketing Personas

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a B2B model that adapts the persona concept to create personalized experiences for entire target accounts rather than individual prospects.

While regular customer personas offer valuable insights into your customer base as a whole, account-based customer personas are laser-focused on a select few high-priority accounts.

This approach aims to develop hyper-personalized strategies that lead to more effective engagement and conversion within these critical accounts.

ABM marketing typically targets large accounts where a buying group decides over an extended period. Account-based customer personas dive into the specific organizational structure, key decision-makers, pain points, objectives, challenges, and opportunities within the target account.

The goal is to gather in-depth insights that you can use to create personalized and highly relevant strategies. For a deep dive into ABM personalization in action, check out our video, The Secret to Making Your ABM Personalization Campaign a Success.

In crafting ABM buyer personas, sales teams should realize that B2B prospects want a DIY discovery process. More than that, 33% would rather not talk to another human to complete the sale. (source: Gartner Sales).

Increasingly, sales will be won or lost by depending on getting the right content at the right time to the prospect via dynamic content generation and B2C UX. B2B prospects also appreciate experiences that “feel” more B2C, such as virtual tours or shopping cart-like check-out processes.

Moving Ahead

Every innovation disrupts the status quo, but eventually, the entire sector smooths into the next level. The 1990s transition from analog marketing to digital is a great example. Today, AI and other innovations are revolutionizing marketing with more personalization and precise buyer persona targeting.

All of these changes may improve results, but they also increase complexity. If you need help figuring out where to start, we can help. Our FunnelEnvy customer data platform enables you to create a personalized experience that responds to your website visitors within milliseconds. Reach out today to get the conversation started.

By Kala P|2023-09-08T11:10:03-07:00September 18th, 2023|Conversion Rate Optimization|0 Comments

Top 3 Demand Gen Strategies of 2023 and Beyond

In the fast-moving landscape of B2B marketing, demand generation isn’t just a buzzword; it’s the backbone of success. You may have the best product or service in the marketplace, but growth will be challenging if your target audience doesn’t know about you.

This gap is where the power of demand generation comes into play; the art and science of creating awareness, interest, and desire among your potential customers. This blog post will review three tried and true strategies to improve your demand generation.

As a backdrop, let’s review the difference between lead and demand generation. They sound similar, but they are very different.

Remember, demand generation is for the top of your funnel, where people notice and interact with your content. Click To Tweet

Remember, demand generation is for the top of your funnel, where people notice and interact with your content. This chart from Gartner will help you clarify and create content for your demand gen phase.

The information in the chart speaks to implementation. Let’s look at the strategies to boost your demand gen efforts.

Clarify Your Unique Selling Point (USP)

Before diving headfirst into demand generation, it’s crucial to answer one fundamental question: What sets your business apart? Your Unique Selling Point (USP) is your competitive edge, differentiating you from the competition. It should be something that you could sum up in a short statement.

Your USP isn’t always the same as a company slogan or tagline, although it could be. For example:

“Fast, efficient deliveries” is not unique to one company. That is a tagline.

“Overnight or it’s free” – that’s a USP.

To pinpoint your USP, look for a corner of the market where you can establish dominance. Take a fresh look at your industry to uncover gaps, unmet audience needs, or underserved niches.

Study what your competitors offer, not to copy them but to identify the untapped potential your business can uniquely fulfill. The book Blue Ocean Strategy is one resource to help you think outside the box and craft a strong USP.

The authors include many examples of how some companies have created new markets with few or no competitors. One technique is to reconstruct an existing market’s boundaries.

With an emphasis on carving out unique market space, Blue Ocean Strategy is a toolkit for taking advantage of untapped market space in almost any industry, including tech, healthcare, and manufacturing.

Create a Targeted Social Media Plan

Social media can be a potent tool for B2B demand generation. However, social media creation and distribution are resource-intensive and time-consuming. It’s essential to have a content strategy in place before you begin ramping up your socials.

Tailor your tactics to match your goals. An organic growth strategy is the long game of consistently posting free content and sharing or commenting on others’ posts. Paid strategies are usually part of a strategic funnel, with content focused around a specific outcome, like driving traffic to a landing page or freebie.

Once you have your content strategy in place, here are some tips.

Tip 1 – Repurpose Your Blog.

To increase efficiency, use your blog as the foundation of your content. Doing this makes it easy to repurpose snippets from blog posts for social.

Tip 2: Create a Social Metrics Dashboard

Be sure you have a dashboard for capturing metrics on your posts to help you avoid the trap of posting just to put some content out there, aka “spray and pray.”

Tip 3: Be Choosy About Platforms.

Remember, you don’t have to be on every social platform.

To decide where to post, check out where your prospects are spending time on social. For most B2B companies, LinkedIn is the obvious choice. X (as in ex-Twitter) is also a popular B2B and B2C channel. X has an informal chat format with more flexibility than Linkedin for interacting with people.

Tip 4: Consider TikTok

Finally, don’t discount TikTok as a source of leads. Successful B2B marketer Jade Tambini says most of her leads come from TikTok.

Source: DataAI via HootSuite

TikTok is the current growth metrics winner for both B2B and B2C. In 2022, people averaged more time spent per month on TikTok than every other platform except YouTube.

Tip 5: Link to Your Website Early and Often.

While not every social post has to include a link back to your site, the overall goal of social media should be to drive traffic to your website. That’s because when prospects visit the website, you can track their progress through the conversion funnel.

Incorporate Data into Decision-Making

The best part of marketing today is the data it provides versus the pre-internet era. Data is the compass that helps cut through insider bias and assumptions that may or may not be on track.

An important step to remember is to ensure you have a good sample size before drawing significant conclusions. Small sample sizes can lead to skewed insights and misguided decisions.

Also, remember that not all metrics are critical. Ensure your dashboard tracks the correct numbers, not just vanity metrics. If you need clarification about what to track and why, Funnel Envy can help.

Moving Ahead

Demand generation is like the broader net for your lead generation that can also be an accelerator for your lead gen efforts. Improving demand gen can create a ripple effect that enhances results through the rest of your funnel and organization. The flip side is also true. A weak demand generation strategy wastes resources and undermines sales from the top to the bottom of the funnel.

Interested in learning more about leveraging demand gen and getting expert help optimizing your results? Our team at FunnelEnvy is ready to help. We’ve got many years of combined experience with funnel optimization, CRO, and other vital elements of demand gen across several industries, from tech to healthcare to manufacturing.

To learn more about working with us and see if we’re a good fit, fill out this short quiz.

By Kala P|2023-08-24T03:21:34-07:00September 4th, 2023|General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments

Why Audience Data is Vital to Your B2B Funnel

There’s a famous quote often attributed to John Wanamaker, an early American department store entrepreneur: “Half my advertising budget is wasted – the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” The phrase has become somewhat trite these days, showing up often in PowerPoint presentations given by marketers across the world.

But the saying itself speaks to a problem at the heart of many marketing departments: it’s just tough to know which of your marketing campaigns are successful and which are a waste of time and resources. 160 years after Wanamaker opened his own retail store, in our advanced digital age with AI and automation galore, his words seem to ring more true than ever before.

One of the easiest ways to minimize waste in advertising – or any other part of your marketing budget – is gaining a better understanding of your audience. Knowledge about the people you’re selling to and how you can help them solve their problems has been the holy grail of all kinds of marketing and advertising since the inception of human commerce.

Today, audience knowledge is arguably more important because of the huge volume of noise prospects face every day in the marketplace. Below, we’re diving into more specifics about why knowing your target audience may be the key to unlocking more success – and ROI – from your marketing.

Reduces Content Costs

As we mentioned in the intro, greater audience knowledge means less money spent on the wrong thing. For marketers today, a significant chunk of their resources go towards creating content. From blog posts to social media updates to email newsletters, companies in all sectors spend lots of time and money on creating content.

But what’s actually in all that content? Is it really helpful, or is it only being produced because there’s a need? Robert Rose, a strategy executive with the Content Marketing Institute, frequently talks about the problematic concept of the content team operating as a “vending machine” – you need a piece of content for a funnel, so you push a button and the staff member, team or contractor produces it. The problem with this approach is it creates a siloed attack where different arms of your marketing campaigns function with different goals.

In an ideal situation, audience data serves as a connecting factor that ties the creators of content in your business to all other areas: including the broader goals of the company. When this happens, there is in turn less money and time wasted creating content that doesn’t resonate with your target audience.

Improves Brand Reputation

The impact of strong audience knowledge on brand reputation might be most apparent in B2B sales. When your audience operates in a highly technical field that requires specialized knowledge, it’s easier for them to tell if you really know what you’re talking about. This can serve as something of a double-edged sword, however – it also means that if you have authentic knowledge of your audience and their goals, you’ll stand out in your marketplace.

When your audience operates in a highly technical field that requires specialized knowledge, it’s easier for them to tell if you really know what you’re talking about. Click To Tweet

The key here is to stay current by studying and immersing yourself in communities of people like your target customer. Whether it’s a sub-forum on Reddit, a Discord channel, or a social media group, it’s important to take time to understand the newest concerns and discussions among your audience. Ideally, these are communities you already are or were present in at one time. This is a big reason why many of the most successful healthcare services and product companies are created by former doctors, nurses or healthcare office employees. They have first-hand knowledge and experience in a highly specialized field where it’s easy for prospects to pick out impostors.

Guides Direction of Your Business

Great companies respond quickly and effectively to the most important requests of their prospective customers. The idea has been ingrained into the modern business community, particularly since the rise of the Lean Startup model popularized by Eric Ries and others in the startup community.

But the best companies are able to predict what their customers want in the future. Reaching this level has the potential to put a business in rarefied air reserved for the biggest brands in history: Nike, Microsoft, IBM, etc. Steve Jobs once famously paraphrased Henry Ford, believing that he’d once said: “If I asked my customers what they wanted, they would’ve told me a faster horse.”

Over the years, this quote has been twisted into an argument against customer research. If people wouldn’t have asked for a car or an iPhone, why bother paying attention to their input on your product or service? This interpretation neglects the first part of the quote, where Jobs says “our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do.”

You don’t reach that depth of audience understanding by ignoring relevant data. Just the opposite: the only way you can really predict what your customer wants before they do, like Jobs and Ford, is by so deeply understanding your audience that you begin to think the same way. This level of familiarity can only be attained with an extremely strong grasp of prospect data, and typically takes a long time to achieve.

Final Thoughts on Audience Data for Your Funnel

The specific methods you use to collect data and learn about your audience will vary depending on the kind of product or service you offer. We’ve covered individual tactics like landing page and form optimization on many other posts here on this blog.

We believe, however, what’s more important than any one tactic or data collection method is adopting a broader philosophy about audience data within your company. The truth is, audience data is important to your B2B funnel and almost every other part of your marketing, from the initial creation of customer avatars right on through to the way you hire and build your team.

As your organization changes and grows, you’ll find that the particular campaigns you deploy may change. Sometimes you’ll focus on high-level content intended to make your prospects think deeply; other times you’ll just be creating a simple demonstration video that shows off one of the key features of your product or service. No matter what particular actions you are taking, they’ll always be more successful with a foundation in audience data. If you can pay close enough attention to what your ideal client wants, what’s stopping them from achieving it, and what they need to be convinced that you can help them in this pursuit, all of your marketing endeavors will flow much more easily.

And if you need a little veteran help to give you a better perspective on how to wrap your head around customer data, FunnelEnvy is here to assist. We have a wide breadth of experience helping businesses of all sizes in all different industries get a better handle on their audience. Whether you’re a brand new startup or a seasoned marketer looking to enter the next phase of growth, we can help fill in some of the natural gaps that may occur as your marketing gets more and more developed. The more things you have going on, the more difficult it is to keep your audience central to your mission.

To start the process, just click here to fill out a quick quiz that will help us learn more about ways we may be able to assist.

By Raj C|2023-04-25T09:04:40-07:00May 1st, 2023|General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments

How to Incorporate UX Principles into B2B Funnels

There’s something of a paradox happening in many business marketing circles today: everyone wants to ensure their funnels are well-optimized for the user experience, but relatively few marketers can tell you what user experience (UX) actually means!

The truth is, there’s a good reason for this paradox: UX is a huge umbrella term that can encompass several different things to many other groups and individuals. This article will focus on some of the UX concepts most relevant to B2B marketing funnels. The key to successfully incorporating these ideas is thinking about how they may apply to your funnels and marketing campaigns.

Let’s dive in.

Incorporate as Much Feedback as Possible

According to their definition, The Norman Nielsen Group says user experience “encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.” The key term there is “user.” Some misguided or inexperienced marketers might believe they can optimize their user experience without input from their prospects. This approach simply isn’t possible if you want to maximize the improvement of your funnel UX.

For the best results, remember the idea of a specific audience and diverse methodology. In other words, you should have a highly detailed target persona already mapped out before you seek feedback from anyone – otherwise, you’re just wasting everyone’s time. Be as specific as possible about the kind of people you want to take UX information from because this data will ultimately shape your product or service’s development.

Once you’ve settled on a specific type of audience, do your best to offer them several methods of providing input on your funnel and other marketing elements. In an ideal situation, you can build intimate relationships with prospects by creating a community centered around their characteristics and business objectives. Think about what HubSpot did to grow its Inbound.org community, a forum for marketers to share experiences and tactics for the inbound methodology. At its peak, the site was bringing in over 300,000 visitors per month.

Consider building a community within your customer group, even if it’s on a smaller scale. In the era of remote work, plenty of tools are available to bring people together, including Slack and Discord. You can use a more traditional forum-based system for your community – whatever fits best into your operating methods and your customers’ preferred ways of learning about potential business solutions.

Consider building a community within your customer group, even if it’s on a smaller scale. Click To Tweet

Think About Your Microcopy

Adobe defines “microcopy” as “tiny tidbits of copy found on websites, applications, and products.” You probably run into dozens of examples of microcopy every day – think about form fields, button text, disclaimers at the bottom of a page, headlines on popular articles, etc. Even the captions on your images can technically be considered microcopy.

These items may seem pretty small individually, but taken together, they can have a severe impact on the perception of your funnel by users. We already know headlines are important, given statistics indicating that an average user only reads about 20% of the content on any given website. You can find similar studies on the importance of key microcopy within your funnel, such as the call to action found on a button at the end of a form.

While your specific approach may vary depending on the type of microcopy you’re looking to optimize, generally speaking, it’s wise to eliminate as much as possible: the shorter, the better. Most of your prospects don’t have time for unclear or lengthy instructions. Be concise and direct with your microcopy.

Review Your Funnel for Unnecessary Elements

As marketers, there tends to be an obsession with adding the next “thing” that will make your stack even better. In describing his 1980 Los Angeles Lakers team that failed to defend its championship, the legendary coach and executive Pat Riley coined the term “disease of more.” Each player wanted more accolades, money, and playing time, to the point where it started harming the collective team.

Thinking about this in a marketing context, we see parallels to software, email scripts, video courses, new form options, etc. There are lots of shiny “widgets” we can add or tweak with the idea that it will improve our funnel. In reality, several of these add-ons may not be necessary to make prospects convert. Some of them may even negatively impact your funnel’s conversion rate.

One of the best things you can do to optimize your funnel’s UX is to go through the entire thing (start to finish) and see if you can identify unnecessary things. Do your best to put yourself in the shoes of a prospect, trying not to think of it as a marketer. Think about forms, text, images, menu items, footers, headers – anything and everything should be considered. The fewer elements you have on the page, the more likely it will push visitors to the result you desire.

Even with this mental exercise, fully adopting your prospect’s mindset may be challenging. It may be better to ask a trusted customer or outside consultant to give you accurate insights.

Test Constantly and Seek Outside Perspective

Whether you incorporate these or other tactics to improve user experience, it’s important to remember the fundamental tenet of conversion rate optimization (CRO): always test your changes. Collecting data that shows the performance of a new strategy or idea in your funnel builds a concrete foundation from which you can understand what’s working and what isn’t. UX ideas can change quickly, but data will ground your funnel in the specific concepts that get results.

We also suggest that you seek perspective beyond yourself and, if possible, beyond your entire organization. As much as you can try to embody the mindset of your ideal prospect, you’ll never fully be able to get there simply because you aren’t that person. Even if you are a doctor-turned-marketer offering a product or service to the same kind of doctors, you still have the mental experience of developing and selling that offering, which colors your judgment and beliefs.

The best way to overcome this challenge is to get outside help with your UX optimization. Even if you don’t have the means (or desire) to hire an outside contractor to help you, there are options to get an external opinion. You might consider reaching out to a loyal customer, as well as some newer customers, for help evaluating the current elements in your funnel and any ideas you are thinking about implementing.

Of course, working with a group of experts with years of collective experience working on UX improvements for clients can also be helpful. We’ve helped startups and software companies in several industries increase their conversion rates by making their funnels more user-friendly and accessible so that prospects only see what they need.

If you’re interested in getting some UX assistance from the FunnelEnvy team, click here to fill out a short questionnaire, learn more about our pricing and determine if we’d be a good fit to work together.

By Raj C|2023-01-25T21:39:06-08:00February 6th, 2023|Conversion Rate Optimization|0 Comments

3 Trends in Multi-Step Forms for B2B Funnels in 2023

Forms used in digital marketing have come a long way since the earliest days of simple radio buttons, one-line form fields, and dropdown options. Today’s users expect the forms they engage with to be as frictionless as possible, but they also want to know exactly how much of an investment of time they’ll need to make – and what kind of return that investment can bring.

In this modern environment, multi-step forms have emerged as a way for marketers to make forms more easily digestible for users. In turn, this increases the conversion rates typically seen on multi-step forms. According to some stats, multi-step forms can convert 300% more than forms with a single step.

Knowing the value of multi-step forms in today’s B2B marketing, it’s essential to construct them well and keep them updated as trends and best practices change. As the new year progresses, we’ll track multi-step form trends.

Artificial Intelligence and Forms

There’s a lot of discussion in the media about artificial intelligence and what it will mean for the future of business. ChatGPT, a sophisticated text-based AI platform created by the prominent research firm OpenAI, has dominated headli n es and social media posts thanks to its accuracy and authentic-sounding tone.

AI tools are exciting to discuss but are still far from being a core element of any B2B marketing campaign or funnel. One of the most common deployments of AI in multi-step forms comes with chatbots, which can be helpful tools for certain prospects but aren’t a panacea for all sales needs.

Specifically, AI tools like chatbots can help when a visitor has a straightforward question about an element of a form but aren’t as valuable for complex inquiries. Throw in the technical complexity and high-dollar amount often associated with B2B purchases, and you can see why many prospects may not want AI heavily involved in their transactions. Despite this, we anticipate AI tools becoming more and more helpful for their predictive capabilities in the early parts of forms when users may need a straightforward clarification or additional detail.

Increase in Social Proof

Since the earliest days of business, social proof – or validation of a product or service from other buyers – has always been a valuable marketing source, especially for companies selling complex and high-dollar solutions. In the economic conditions of 2023, where budgets are likely tight due to pressure on supply chains and other global factors, B2B buyers may want even more social proof before committing to a specific vendor.

In 2023, we expect the changes to multi-step forms in this category to be more related to the specific nature of the social proof provided. For example, we’re already seeing more videos used as social proof throughout marketing funnels. Some studies show that two out of three people would be more willing to purchase after watching a testimonial video showing how a product or service helped someone else like them.

Another important social proof indicator for 2023 will be the participation in industry groups and organizations. These associations and trade organizations are increasingly effective in certain industries – like healthcare and medical technology – and should continue to grow in importance throughout the year. If your form can remind visitors of your participation in well-respected associations or industry forums, it may increase your conversion rate and improve your overall marketing results.

Progress Indicators & Dynamic Forms

For many years, studies by major research organizations have shown the value of using progress bars, indicators, or icons somewhere on your form. These elements show people where they are in a multi-step form and how much they have left before completion. Research indicates that these elements extend the attention span of users and may make them more likely to finish the form.

Throughout the rest of the year, we expect these elements to become even more prominent throughout B2B forms. Look for leading marketers to deploy these elements in slick, user-friendly ways that don’t detract from the experience. For example, you might incorporate additional information about a form behind a hover icon near the progress bar.

Along the same lines, we’re also projecting an increase in the importance of dynamic forms. Everyone has had the experience of filling out a long form with multiple unnecessary questions that may or may not even apply to their situation. Dynamic forms that adjust based on user-provided information are a valuable solution to this problem. If your forms aren’t adaptable based on specific details that people provide, you may be adding friction to the process and making it less likely that people will complete the form.

Going forward this year, we expect dynamic forms to become even more popular and wide-reaching in their applications. One of the more popular dynamic form use cases involves providing extra content to give prospects even more details about a specific solution. Combining these ideas with technology like automated follow-up tools can create a powerful push to get prospects through your funnel.

One last note on this point – remember that there’s a fine line between helpful form add-ons and excess clutter that distracts a user from completing the form. With multi-step forms that already require a larger investment of time and energy, it’s crucial to be mindful of clutter or wasted elements. Finding the correct balance requires testing and input from real prospects and customers.

Remember that there’s a fine line between helpful form add-ons and excess clutter that distracts a user from completing the form. Click To Tweet

Incorporating Multi-Step Form Trends Into Your Funnel

As is always the case when we discuss trends, developments, or best practices in a particular area, we aren’t suggesting that you rush to incorporate these three ideas into your campaigns as quickly as possible. Not all of these ideas may be right for your multi-step forms, or you may already have some in current funnels.

Instead, it’s critical to identify which concepts make the most sense for your forms and then thoughtfully plan a strategy for adding them to your campaigns. Multi-step forms may not be the sleekest or most exciting elements of your marketing funnels, but they can be vital to the success of your campaigns. A minor tweak to a multi-step form can cause a significant improvement in its conversion rate, leading to massive results in your business.

If you’re looking to apply one or more of these ideas to your multi-step forms but aren’t exactly sure how getting help from an experienced advisor can be valuable. Our team at FunnelEnvy has many years of experience helping clients plan, develop, and optimize multi-step forms that move prospects along their funnel. Whether you want to improve a mid-campaign form that helps existing prospects or you want to optimize your lead capture form, we can help you incorporate all the elements your form needs to be user-friendly, concise, and persuasive to all prospects who use it.

Fill out this brief form to get more details about our pricing structure and learn more about how we can help your organization.

By Raj C|2022-12-29T00:26:25-08:00January 9th, 2023|Landing Pages|0 Comments

How to Optimize Your Funnel for Today’s Generation of B2B Decision Makers

Technology, especially digital tools like email, electronic signatures, and marketing automation, has significantly impacted our business operations. But one of the more underrated elements of business change is the evolution of the people involved. Every generation is different from the previous one, and while you shouldn’t hold preconceived notions about individuals solely because of their age, it is possible to draw broad conclusions about age groups as a whole.

In today’s B2B tech and software world, many buyers are from the millennial age range – born between the mid-1980s and early 1990s. Studies have shown that this group has a distinct preference for a few specific styles of sales and marketing. Generally, incorporating these concepts into your funnels can help even if you aren’t specifically targeting a millennial prospect.

Self-service

One of the nice things about the digital era is that it has removed several time constraints that may have previously restricted business transactions. If a prospect desires, they can load a company’s website at midnight and learn about their offering’s important features and benefits. In previous eras of business where buyers relied on suppliers to learn about a potential product or service, this model wasn’t possible.

According to research, many buyers want to do business precisely this way. Forrester’s 2021 B2B Buying Survey reported that the number of self-directed sales interactions in a typical transaction has now surpassed the number of human interactions. Other data shows meetings with potential suppliers now represent a relatively small portion of the B2B purchasing process: Gartner research says B2B buyers spend only 17% of the purchasing process on meetings with potential vendors.

It may not always be possible to show off everything your service or product can do in a way that facilitates self-service, but it’s an important ideal to endeavor to meet. In fact, buyers may get frustrated or abandon your site entirely if you don’t have the right information accessible to them whenever they want it.

Personalization

Not only do buyers want to be able to access sales information at any time, but they also have a strong desire for a customized buying process. Accenture reports that over 7 out of 10 B2B buyers want a more personalized, “consumer-like” purchasing process. This customization can manifest itself in several ways, but the foundation is always the same: a deeper understanding of your prospect’s buying journey. You must be more aware of each prospect’s specific challenges, needs, and biggest concerns throughout the purchasing process.

Buyers may get frustrated or abandon your site entirely if you don’t have the right information accessible to them whenever they want it. Click To Tweet

Another reason personalization is essential is the increasing quantity of decision-makers involved with B2B purchases today. As budgets tighten and hiring slows in uncertain economic conditions, companies are more frequently assembling buying groups to ensure they spend their dollars wisely. More people involved in buying creates a greater demand for personalized content throughout your funnel.

Finally, remember to include a personal touch in each funnel stage. From top-funnel content like blog posts and white papers to your final product demonstrations or purchase negotiations, it’s critical to stay mindful of your prospects’ needs. Understanding their desires requires a skillful blend of early-stage communication and consistent research about your audience.

Responsive Design

Making sure every element of your funnel can be viewed and consumed properly on all devices is vital because of prospect tendencies. Certain studies show that over 4 in 10 B2B buyers use mobile devices during the purchase process. Consuming content is typically one of the primary uses for mobile devices, though, in certain industries or segments, consumers might also use them for communication with suppliers.

Another reason you should ensure your website and all other parts of your funnel load correctly on mobile devices: it’s essential for technical elements of your marketing. A website that loads on mobile devices is critical for search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is also a significant element of most B2B marketing campaigns today. In other words, if your page doesn’t load on an array of mobile devices – especially tablets and smartphones – you risk alienating your prospects and negatively impacting your visibility on search engines.

Form a Human Connection

This tip is especially applicable for persuading B2B buyers of all generations – though some evidence suggests creating personal relationships is even more important with millennial and Gen Z purchasers. Of course, a buyer needs to obtain a service that fulfills their company’s objective, but beyond that, today’s buyers want to feel a more human connection with their suppliers. It’s part of why many purchasers today – both in consumer and business – emphasize spending money with companies that align with their worldview and contribute to solving significant global problems.

You don’t have to offer a cutting-edge software solution to solve a grand problem like climate change to be more human. There are plenty of ways to incorporate personal relationships into more conventional types of business. One easy tip is to try and schedule in-person or video meetings whenever possible, as opposed to communicating via phone or email. These relationships make creating a rapport with prospects much easier, which is especially important for most B2B sectors.

Implementation Tips for Funnel Optimization

Now that you have a better understanding of the specific elements to incorporate into your funnel, it’s vital to take some time to consider how you can use this information in your own funnel. The first thing to know is that it’s impossible to do everything at once – you shouldn’t rush to make sure you meet all of the requirements for the current generation of B2B buyers. Whatever steps you take to make your funnel more appealing, put your company’s authentic spin on it. Don’t try to be something you aren’t just because you think it might broaden your audience. That approach often backfires, alienating your core customer group who appreciates your service for what you do and don’t provide.

Finally, we suggest incorporating technical benchmarks to help determine whether or not these changes were successful. It’s easy to throw out broad suggestions like, “we need to personalize our content to attract the right audience.” But when you can quantify the improvements made with a statement like, “after personalizing our content, the conversion rate on our funnel’s main landing page increased by 6%,” it offers much more value when it comes to informing the rest of your marketing strategy.

Are you looking to get some assistance shaping your funnel to be more in line with the current generation of buyers? The team at FunnelEnvy can assist. We have lots of experience helping clients tighten up their funnels to increase conversion optimization rate (CRO) and bring more success to their marketing efforts. We’ve helped businesses in every sector modernize their funnels to get attention from their target audience.

To find out more about FunnelEnvy pricing and what we might be able to offer, click here to fill out a short quiz that will help us learn more about your needs.

By Raj C|2022-12-15T15:54:03-08:00December 26th, 2022|Conversion Rate Optimization|0 Comments

Why Account-Based Marketing is Key for the Future of B2B Marketing

Anyone working in any type of marketing in the last five years or so has probably noticed one big trend that’s stood out among many others: personalization. Even in some of the most traditional consumer-driven industries, like cleaning supplies and groceries, prospects want customized help to assist with the challenges they’re trying to solve by making a purchase.

According to McKinsey, over 7 in 10 buyers expect personalized interactions. If a prospect expects to get custom advice on cleaning a sink, they’ll definitely want information tailored specifically for them when buying a new product for their company.

Account-based marketing – often abbreviated as ABM – represents one of the best opportunities today’s marketers have for personalizing their efforts to improve conversion rates and prospect satisfaction. We’ve certainly noticed a surge in the number of clients we work with deploying personalization efforts at different places throughout their funnels.

As we’ll get into in this blog post, one of the other significant benefits of ABM is its versatility. You can shape ABM tactics to work well for your particular situation regardless of your industry, marketing goals, or company size.

What is Account-Based Marketing?

We’ve previously defined ABM on this blog as “Personalized campaigns that are designed to engage each account based on the marketing message on the specific attributes and needs of that account.” Adobe’s definition says ABM “uses the combined expertise of the marketing and sales teams to target select groups of accounts that require tailored marketing.”

Discussing combined expertise is particularly helpful since ABM shouldn’t be exclusively in sales or marketing. In an optimal setup, your sales and marketing teams contribute to ABM campaigns, making them more effective than they would be siloed to either department individually.

Finally, you can think about ABM visually using the “inverted funnel” model. Where a typical funnel is wide at the top and gradually gets narrower, an ABM strategy works the opposite way: the top narrow part represents a few target accounts, based on which you identify a larger number of people as possible buyers.

In an optimal setup, your sales and marketing teams contribute to ABM campaigns, making them more effective than they would be siloed to either department individually. Click To Tweet

Here is a helpful visual model that breaks down the above inversion in three steps, courtesy of Drift:

Why is ABM the Future?

There’s already been plenty of talk and advice on why and how marketers should use ABM. We believe this strategy is so effective that it will be a centerpiece of B2B marketing for the next five to ten years – if not longer.

What makes us so confident? A few critical factors.

ABM is Personalized

In a sense, ABM represents the highest possible level of personalization. When it comes to B2B, you can’t get more custom-made than tailoring something for one specific customer. In a world with ever-increasing marketing communications, advertising, and options for professional purchases, ABM is helping B2B buyers cut through the noise and get what they need. If they want to be successful, all business buyers must be somewhat selfish in focusing exclusively on their needs. It’s easy for some marketers to get frustrated by this, but when you think about it, being a professional buyer is inherently a selfish job. There are dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people depending on the buyer to make a decision that enables them to do their jobs better. This necessity is why, when done properly, ABM can be like music to a prospect’s ears.

ABM Adds Maximum Value to Prospects

To continue from the point above, maximum personalization means maximum value. An easy comparison to make is within the realm of personal fitness. Anyone can sign up with a colossal gym, show up a few times a week, mess around with a few machines, and progress towards their fitness goals.

Now think about working with a personal trainer; who evaluates your specific goals, needs, and lifestyle to create a specific plan for your needs. The personal trainer requires a considerable investment of time and capital upfront, but you get more value while working towards the same goal.

Just like traditional mass-appeal marketing, getting plenty of value and getting in shape from working out on your own is still possible. But a personal trainer is like ABM – it’s created specifically for an individual to achieve the best possible results.

ABM is Highly Flexible

While the relatively broad definition of account-based marketing may make it difficult to understand without firsthand experience, the tradeoff is that it applies to almost any channel. Text-based marketing is usually most effective on a blog or social media site. Video marketing is usually best on a company website or video platform. The great thing about ABM is you can pair it with almost any type of marketing for great results – including the tactics mentioned above. Even as marketing and technology move towards tools like crypto and AI, ABM will be a viable strategy to deploy in these developing worlds.

How to Get Started With ABM

Hopefully, we’ve convinced you that ABM is a strategy worth pursuing. What may be less clear is how actually to implement it. The details of your execution depend on the specifics of your business, but we can provide three tips with pertinent examples to help you think about using ABM.

Research. Of course, you’ll need to identify the specific accounts you want to target, but to do ABM properly, you must go deeper. How are they structured, and who makes final buying decisions? Who else is involved, and what’s their buying cycle? These are all questions to keep in mind during the research component of ABM.
Identify pain points. Once you know your prospects’ blocks and challenges, you can map your funnel content to match them. Your map will then increase personalization and give your marketing a better chance of resonating with prospects – especially if you can identify their problems in their own language.
Measure and iterate. It’s impossible to tell whether or not your ABM has been successful without tracking results. If possible, try choosing the same metrics to measure your everyday marketing efforts and see how they change when applied to your ABM campaigns. Conversions, appointments scheduled, follow-up emails, and clickthrough rates are just a few examples of numbers you might look to track to get a sense of your ABM campaign’s success.

Looking for some expert help with account-based marketing? Whether you’re new to the concept and want to start on the right foot or you’ve been doing it for a while and aren’t fully satisfied with the results, our team at FunnelEnvy can help. Our conversion rate optimization specialists have lots of experience assisting clients of all sizes with ABM tactics to ensure their marketing campaigns stand out and get noticed by the right audience. We’ll help you understand key concepts like attribution, lead scoring, and other metrics to get you on track for success with ABM.
To get in touch with us, click here to fill out a short quiz to get more information about our pricing and see how we can help.

By Raj C|2022-11-30T20:41:18-08:00December 12th, 2022|General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments

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