EXCLUSIVE SERIES
The B2B Tech Marketers Handbook for 2021
We know that effective business-to-business (B2B) marketing is difficult to get right. Juggling sales hungry teams, creative demands, budget restrictions, and channel decisions can make developing an impactful marketing strategy a challenge – especially in the wake of last year.
Priorities and processes may have shifted, but one thing remains a constant: The biggest determinant of effective marketing is your audience.
That’s why we’ve created this series. To guide all you senior B2B marketers back onto the path towards your greatest asset.
That’s not to say you don’t already know this. We just know how easy it is to get sidetracked, to focus on, say, optimising your social channels without first establishing the personas you’re aiming to target.
Every two weeks we’ll release a new Chapter to our Senior Marketer’s Handbook tackling another hot topic on every B2B marketers’ agenda this year.
So, view this guide as a helpful friend. Or a little nudge in the right direction.
Whatever your marketing goals are for 2021, this exclusive B2B marketing handbook is the place to start.
Browse the series:
PART 3
Coming soon
PART 4
Coming soon
This article is part of our exclusive series "The B2B Tech Marketers Handbook for 2021".
When it comes to B2B marketing, there are a unique set of challenges that cause many senior marketers to struggle with their approach.
B2B marketers are expected to acquire qualified leads then hand the reins over to the sales team. This makes the B2B buying process more complicated as you’re tasked with promoting products and services which can be highly technical and complex. Considering that you’ll likely be dealing with a web of stakeholders, things aren’t looking any easier.
And it’s this tangled nature of B2B that can leave senior marketers in a muddle. It becomes difficult to understand where to invest resources for meaningful ROI.
The top market research mistake is recruiting too narrow an audience
When researching an audience for a particular product or promotional event, you’ll want a data set that includes all potential personas: your current customers, competitive buyers, decision-makers across the entire buyer journey, and so on. Deciding which of these categories best reflects your target audience is key. Choosing the wrong one – or not including all potential personas – and you won’t gain an accurate representation of your audience.
In fact, a recent study revealed that undergoing systematic research on your target market impacts the growth and profitability of your organisation.
Firms that conduct systematic research on their current and potential clients grow from three to ten times faster and are up to two times more profitable.
This perspective is referred to as a firm’s “internal brand.” It’s how they see the world looking out. A firm, however, often looks very different from the outside looking in — its “external brand.”
When companies were asked to identify their competitors — following clients and prospects being asked the same question — the average overlap between the two groups was about 20%.
Here are a few more stats to consider:
Professional service firms aren’t aware of 80% of their true competitors.
65% of clients admit to not knowing what other services (beyond the one they are using) their provider offers
Over 85% of the time clients wish their firm could perform services that they already offer
Companies that haven’t conducted target market research have just a 50–75% understanding of their external brand
Our approach
When we run our Digital to Human™ campaigns, the first thing we do is take our clients’ data set and use it to analyse how active that target audience is around the key words that underpin the theme of the campaign.
We might find that the theme in fact resonates more with other personas. In that case, we’ll suggest broadening the audience when we start our outreach.
For this reason, B2B companies require robust market research that can help them to identify new development opportunities and threats, uncover their Unique Selling Point (USP), manage stakeholders’ expectations and navigate their budgets towards the right resources.
So, to help you cultivate that all-important competitive edge and overcome the challenges you face as a B2B marketer, we’ve developed a comprehensive guide to market research that can elevate your B2B marketing strategy for more informed decision-making and improved ROI.
You may think you know your clients, but how well do you know your audience?
Knowledge is (marketing) power
All marketers know that doing some amount of research on clients and prospects is important. You may think you know your clients, but how well do you know your audience?
It goes without saying that target market research can be very useful. But because so many factors affect growth and profitability, how much of that research plays a significant role in a company’s performance?
A recent study revealed that undergoing systematic research on your target market impacts the growth and profitability of your organisation.
In fact, firms that conduct systematic research on their current and potential clients grow from three to ten times faster and are up to two times more profitable.
Case study: NUTANIX
We worked with Nutanix whose Enterprise Cloud OS software melds private, public and distributed cloud operating environments and provides a single point of control to manage IT infrastructure. Nutanix’s mission was to come face-to-face with the decision makers they were previously struggling to reach.
Through our 330,000+ database, we were able to target a network of specific target personas and engage them by developing a business theme that was relevant to Nutanix’s offering. Due to the seniority of the target audience, we then developed a proven personalised invitation programme to engage prospects, followed by a strategic confirmation process.
We exceeded our target of 60 guests, receiving 71 attendees in total. Of the 71 leads, 18% (13) were C-Level.
Why research is important
Senior B2B marketers require robust market research because it tells them who their customers are, and why they purchase their products. It also helps companies to gain valuable information about:
- Competitors
- Current market trends
- Customer insights
- Economic shifts
- New opportunities
That’s why B2B market research companies often test products, ads, services and market opportunities – they’re searching for the following outcomes:
Desirability
A product/service must be desirable, or the market will not create demand for it.
Distinctiveness
Customers should be able to differentiate a company’s offering from other players in the market
Defensibility
Companies must be able to deter or prevent competitors from replicating strategic advantages.
Our approach
Once we’ve established a client’s data set, and created an event invite that’s hyper-targeted to the personas in question, we then set out to create a lead nurturing email marketing campaign.
We establish a timeline that maps out when and to who we send out our carefully constructed emails. We run a series of A/B tests to help us understand what messaging works best, and who the most engaged target persona is.
It’s through this approach that we can gain a deeper insight into our clients’ prospective customers and why they are seeking out that particular product or service.
The most effective way to capture information is to conduct in-depth interviews and online surveys.
Defining your goals
Once you have a clear understanding of who your target audience is and why that audience wants to engage with your product or service, the next step is to develop your own research marketing strategy. Use this as an opportunity to start establishing some clear and measurable goals.
To give you some food for thought, we’ve curated a list of focused and relevant real-world objectives that may shape your own research marketing strategy:
- To sharpen brand positioning and messaging
- To uncover true, relevant and provable differentiators
- To improve the way your organisation goes to market
- To pursue strategic market opportunities
- To develop new services
- To offer better training for business development staff
- To identify and profile top competitors
Objectives in mind, it’s then time to ask yourself…
8 questions to drive growth & profitability
1.
Why do your best clients choose your company?
Focus on your best clients; this can help you attract others just like them.
2.
What are those same clients trying to avoid?
This offers a valuable perspective off the back of the first question. The answer can help shape your business practices and strategy.
3.
How do potential clients see their greatest challenges?
An answer to this question helps you understand what’s going through a prospective clients’ mind, and how they describe and discuss about those issues. You may offer services that can be of great benefit to these organisations, yet they never consider you because they think about their challenges through a different lens. If you can’t connect the dots, you might miss a great opportunity.
4.
What trends and challenges are emerging?
Understanding emerging trends can help you manage your workforce and budget.
5.
How strong is your brand/reputation?
Knowing where you stand can not only guide your overall strategy, it can have a huge impact on your marketing budget. An understanding of your brand’s strengths and weaknesses can help you figure out why you are getting traction in one segment and not another.
6.
What is the best way to market to your primary target clients?
Do you want to know where your clients go to get recommendations and referrals? Or how they want to be marketed to? Just ask!
7.
How should you price your services?
Often, organisations overestimate the role price plays in buying decisions. That’s not entirely their fault; “It was too expensive” is the easiest reason for rejecting a firm. In reality, rejection may be owed to a perceived level of expertise, a lack of attention to detail or an impression of non-responsiveness.
8.
How do your current clients really feel about you?
How long are they likely to remain a client? These are the kinds of questions that can help you fine tune your procedures and get a more accurate feel for what the future holds.
Case study: DIGITAL REALTY
Digital Realty wanted to position itself as the gateway and enabler for succeeding with next generation technologies, company transformation, and industry disruption.
Our task was to create true thought leadership in the data centre space that would generate global awareness and position Digital Realty as a digital transformation leader. But to do that, we had to focus our efforts on making the topic of data centres exciting.
With an end goal of generating conversations with senior executives and turning these into C-Level opportunities, we tailored our content and approach to this new target audience by undergoing extensive research into the wants, needs and expectations behind their decision making.
By developing a strong understanding of industry trends and challenges, we were able to develop content that spoke to our clients’ primary target audience. This in turn helped position Digital Realty as a true thought leader, strengthening their brand and reputation and encouraging prospective clients to utilise their services.
Via this approach, we helped Digital Realty generate 250+ leads and secure 50+ meetings to discuss upcoming projects.
Developing a research marketing strategy begins with establishing some clear and measurable goals.
A few final words
Research hasn’t always been a common feature in professional services marketing strategies, but now, more than ever before, it’s fast becoming a major part of every modern company’s marketing toolkit. It not only provides a clear competitive advantage but allows you to reconsider and strengthen your firm’s strategy, offering, and marketing plan to adapt to a changing marketplace.
If you want to broaden your audience and connect with unreachable target accounts for 2021, get in touch with our team today to find out more about our diverse and comprehensive B2B marketing approach that aims in helping you form new and relevant business connections.
THIS ARTICLE IS PART OF OUR EXCLUSIVE SERIES:
The B2B Tech Marketers Handbook for 2021
We know that effective business-to-business (B2B) marketing is difficult to get right. Juggling sales hungry teams, creative demands, budget restrictions, and channel decisions can make developing an impactful marketing strategy a challenge – especially in the wake of last year.
Priorities and processes may have shifted, but one thing remains a constant: The biggest determinant of effective marketing is your audience.
That’s why we’ve created this series. To guide all you senior B2B marketers back onto the path towards your greatest asset.
That’s not to say you don’t already know this. We just know how easy it is to get sidetracked, to focus on, say, optimising your social channels without first establishing the personas you’re aiming to target.
Every two weeks we’ll release a new Chapter to our Senior Marketer’s Handbook tackling another hot topic on every B2B marketers’ agenda this year.
So, view this guide as a helpful friend. Or a little nudge in the right direction.
Whatever your marketing goals are for 2021, this exclusive B2B marketing handbook is the place to start.
Browse the series:
PART 1
Utilising data for market research
PART 2
Sales & marketing alignment
PART 3
Coming soon
PART 4
Coming soon