B2B marketing: you can go in multiple directions with it. Lead generation, demand generation and branding. But how do you determine what the right strategy is to focus on? And can you focus on one strategy, or should you opt for a balance? The choices you make depend on a number of factors. For example, there are a number of factors that are important to determine your marketing strategy.
In this article I will discuss what these factors are:
Long term vs short term
The complexity of the buyer journey
The ideal customer
The importance of buyer personas
Step 1: Short-term vs. long-term goals
Is your CEO’s focus on short-term goals or long-term goals?
This is important to know, because that is where the resources go that you can invest in with your marketing. If you are completely convinced of demand generation or branding and want to invest in that, while the CEO sees the pipeline drying up, then you will not get any resources. It is therefore important to know where the priority lies for the company and where the resources can be invested.
It is important that you as a marketer take a proactive role in this. And to be proactive, you will have to know how things are going. Where do we want to go and how do we stand for that?
Dive into the data
This means that you know what the Customer Acquisitions Costs are, what the lead time is of an average deal and what the average deal values are. A CEO or entrepreneur looks at what is coming in terms of turnover and determines the priorities based on that. You will have to be able to determine whether the short or long term will be the focus within your marketing strategy. If you strike the right chord with the CEO, you will also gain more trust, understanding and resources.
So, dive into the data, get your business goals straight, and decide whether you should prioritize short-term or long-term goals. So, make sure you’re on the same page with your CEO when it comes to priorities.
Dive into the data source: PeopleImages.com – Yuri A /Shutterstock
Step 2: The ideal customer and the market size
Do you have multiple products and services? How are you going to tell a clear story that attracts as many ideal customers as possible? Marketing often means making choices. You make it very difficult for yourself if you focus on various segments. That is simply not focus. Focus is key: it is better to tell one strong story for a specific group of customers than not a good story for many. But how do you determine the ideal customer?
Investigate your customer data
Again, start with what you already know. 5가지 유형의 성과 마케팅 So dive into your current customer portfolio and collect characteristics of the best customers you currently have and of which you would like to have more. Are they in a certain industry? How many employees does that company have? How much turnover does that company have? Are they usa lists in a certain region? Collect this in a simple spreadsheet and then you will already have a clear picture. The point is to collect quantitative characteristics of that ideal customer, so that you can start finding more of these types of companies.
