Hands up – how many of you still have the back-to-school mindset in September?
You may not go as far as buying a new pencil case or school bag these days, but the new term feeling you get when the summer holidays draw to a close means that it’s a great time to try something new.
So, here’s seven B2B marketing habits you can try now that will give you a head-start on 2019.
1. Get to know your customers
Nothing interesting ever happens in the office. Ok well it might, but the nub of this phrase coined by Pragmatic Product Marketing is that winning product ideas don’t come from brainstorms in the office, they come from getting out of the office and talking to your customers, and not just those that bought from you but also those who didn’t.
So, this autumn go meet your customers at their offices, attend the same conferences as them, or help man the exhibition stand at the next trade event. Ask your customers and prospects simple questions, listen to their answers, and you’ll uncover nuggets of insight that will inform your marketing for the year ahead.
2. Spend some time with your sales team
They may get all glory for bringing home the bacon but equally all the pressure is on our sales colleagues for getting the client to sign on the dotted line and generate revenue for your whole company. Gulp, not sure I’d want to be in their shoes.
Set yourself and your team an objective to go out to one appointment a month with your sales team, see what it’s like to sell your products and use your marketing collateral with real-life customers. You’ll come back with loads of useful insight that will help you improve your marketing before the New Year.
3. Brief your marketing campaigns internally
The extent to which your sales team are engaged with your marketing campaign can turn your average performing campaign into a winning one. Consider developing a marketing campaign playbook. They’re an internal sales enablement guide relating to the campaign. They explain how the campaign will ‘play out’. They give sales teams an overview of the campaign, how and when they can make use of the campaign assets in their own sales activity.
Don’t just rely on sending your playbook out via email, brief your marketing campaign in person and help your sales colleagues look like experts in front of potential customers by giving them plenty of time to digest your thought leadership content. And they’re worth it, because B2B buyers are five times more likely to engage with salespeople who offer relevant insights.
4. Think beyond your marketing campaign, and consider the customer experience
You’ve worked hard with your agency to develop an amazing campaign strategy; your creative is award worthy and your media agency have pulled out all stops to develop a highly targeted plan. But all this effort and budget could be wasted if there’s a broken step in your process.
So, before you launch your big marketing campaign in January, spend some time walking through the end-to-end customer journey just as a customer would – from campaign to the online journey, right through to buying. This will help you check you’re making it easy to engage and buy, and that there aren’t any unexpected barriers to doing business with your company.
With 83% of B2B buyers saying they would give a referral after a great experience, you can’t afford to focus solely on your campaign – customer experience is your key.
5. Develop the test, and learn habits
I can’t remember the precise moment my wise marketing elder sagely advised me to allocate 10% of my budget to testing. But for as long as I can remember, I have done just that and without it I’d have missed out on a brave creative route, a more effective media channel or new ways of working.
This wise adage passed down from one generation of CMOs to the next is not just a chance to experiment but is also an opportunity to continuously improve your marketing efforts. And if you test now, and it works – it could make your 2019 marketing budget a whole load more effective.
6. Make your metrics and KPIs matter
Do your metrics turn the heads of people outside of marketing? That stuff you’re tracking and reporting on – is it in sync with broader business goals and key performance indicators?
The truth is, your board probably doesn’t care about the same things you do. So between now and the end of the year make it your mission to understand the metrics that matter most in your business and spend some time aligning your marketing KPIs so in the new year you can demonstrate the impact your activity is having on the stuff your business really cares about.
7. Don’t hide your results away
Marketing is terrible at marketing itself. Oh, the irony.
Get the tracking right, get the metrics right, and then invest time in presenting and promoting these results internally. Create a ‘board-friendly’ dashboard or scorecard that makes it really easy for stakeholders to understand what you’ve achieved. And don’t forget to highlight where your marketing successes align with the wider business goals.
