Layers of a B2B digital marketing plan
My friend Tom Pick did a wonderful job of laying out the basic vehicles of a B2B digital marketing plan in his recent blog post. For anyone who is new to online marketing in the business-to-business realm, his 8-layer model is a great guidepost -- and it's good as a reminder for some of us who have been in the business for a while too. Click here to read it and view the pretty picture!
Although Tom did a great job of summarizing what a digital marketing program could look like and the basic use of each tactic, remember this is a simple model that is meant to span the hundreds of segments and sub-segments that make up the B2B world. So you need to explore your specific market and determine whether all these rings fall in the same place for your particular vertical. For example, the decision-makers in your vertical industry or niche might not use white papers as much, so you would put a greater emphasis on other vehicles -- perhaps webcasts/webinars, or maybe e-newsletter ads.
To take Tom's model one step further, B2B digital marketers need to keep their goals in mind. The basic goal is often to generate interest or a lead, the intermediate goal might be for a product demo or a sales presentation, but the ultimate goal is driving a purchase. Even though the sale is often outside the direct control of the marketer (that's a whole different blog post for another day!), marketers still need to do their best to give their company the best chance of making a sale. To that end, marketers need to measure the effectiveness of each "layer" in the model, deciding what's providing the best investment, and optimizing their marketing efforts based on their findings.
For example, let's look at some of the inner rings such as SEO and search marketing. They are a great place to begin if you're starting a B2B marketing plan from scratch. But to truly measure their effectiveness, you need to look at more than just cost per click or cost per lead. The value of each potential customer should be quantified as best as possible -- not just as a cost per lead, but also as a cost per demo/sales appointment, and finally as a cost per purchase. (And yes, it's easier to measure these metrics on some marketing tactics than on others...yet another blog post for another day!)
In other words, all leads aren't created the same. A lead generated from search marketing might not be as qualified as a lead from an e-newsletter ad, which might not be as qualified as a webcast attendee. So even though you're only paying $1 for the search marketing lead, versus $15 for the e-newsletter lead or $50 for the webcast attendee lead, the total cost for the webcast leads might actually be less when you're measuring the cost per sales appointment, or the cost per new customer. These figures will vary from industry to industry, they'll vary from company to company, and even from product to product or campaign to campaign.
Also, this model isn't meant to be like school, where you have to master 1st grade to get into 2nd grade. You can't take the position of, "We haven't mastered search marketing yet, so we're not ready to step out to the next ring in the circle." Nobody ever truly masters any of these tactics! It's about continuous improvement, always getting better, but always being ready for the next challenge too. Whenever possible, you need to be trying a combination of all these tactics, and choose the ones that work best for your market and product.
Although Tom did a great job of summarizing what a digital marketing program could look like and the basic use of each tactic, remember this is a simple model that is meant to span the hundreds of segments and sub-segments that make up the B2B world. So you need to explore your specific market and determine whether all these rings fall in the same place for your particular vertical. For example, the decision-makers in your vertical industry or niche might not use white papers as much, so you would put a greater emphasis on other vehicles -- perhaps webcasts/webinars, or maybe e-newsletter ads.
To take Tom's model one step further, B2B digital marketers need to keep their goals in mind. The basic goal is often to generate interest or a lead, the intermediate goal might be for a product demo or a sales presentation, but the ultimate goal is driving a purchase. Even though the sale is often outside the direct control of the marketer (that's a whole different blog post for another day!), marketers still need to do their best to give their company the best chance of making a sale. To that end, marketers need to measure the effectiveness of each "layer" in the model, deciding what's providing the best investment, and optimizing their marketing efforts based on their findings.
For example, let's look at some of the inner rings such as SEO and search marketing. They are a great place to begin if you're starting a B2B marketing plan from scratch. But to truly measure their effectiveness, you need to look at more than just cost per click or cost per lead. The value of each potential customer should be quantified as best as possible -- not just as a cost per lead, but also as a cost per demo/sales appointment, and finally as a cost per purchase. (And yes, it's easier to measure these metrics on some marketing tactics than on others...yet another blog post for another day!)
In other words, all leads aren't created the same. A lead generated from search marketing might not be as qualified as a lead from an e-newsletter ad, which might not be as qualified as a webcast attendee. So even though you're only paying $1 for the search marketing lead, versus $15 for the e-newsletter lead or $50 for the webcast attendee lead, the total cost for the webcast leads might actually be less when you're measuring the cost per sales appointment, or the cost per new customer. These figures will vary from industry to industry, they'll vary from company to company, and even from product to product or campaign to campaign.
Also, this model isn't meant to be like school, where you have to master 1st grade to get into 2nd grade. You can't take the position of, "We haven't mastered search marketing yet, so we're not ready to step out to the next ring in the circle." Nobody ever truly masters any of these tactics! It's about continuous improvement, always getting better, but always being ready for the next challenge too. Whenever possible, you need to be trying a combination of all these tactics, and choose the ones that work best for your market and product.
1 comments:
Michael --
Thanks for the kind words, and for the improvements on my ideas! Obviously, companies will need to modify this for their own specific circumstances. The model is intended more to help guide planning than to serve as rigid model.
I placed SEO at the center because it is such a basic activity, akin to publishing your business address in the yellow pages; if people can't find you, they can't do business with you.
I agree as well that it is all about continuous improvement. And while metrics such as cost-per-lead are critical to track, it's also essential to keep in mind that these tactics tend to support one another.
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