Over 42% of B2B marketers are planning to raise their investments in B2B integrated marketing in 2022. If this time-tested method of marketing has piqued your interest too, here is all you need to know before embarking on your marketing journey!
What is B2B integrated marketing?
B2B integrated marketing unites a company's brand and communications across all required media. The strategy creates a complete plan with the greatest possible impact by accounting for the many techniques needed to succeed on each channel.
Why B2B integrated marketing Is Good For B2B Companies?
You've probably heard of the "Rule of 7" if you have had your share of experience as a marketer. It explains that it takes at least seven exposures for potential customers to recognize your brand and take action. Keep in mind that the rule only applies to the buyer journey's awareness stage.
The lengthy and challenging B2B sales cycle necessitates communicating with these leads at a further 5 to 7 touchpoints before they become genuine purchasers.
All of this effort can be included into your B2B integrated marketing plan through an integrated marketing campaign, which guarantees that each contact you have with a potential customer is connected and deliberate.
What Is Included in B2B integrated marketing?
An B2B integrated marketing strategy is made up of many different parts, and each one is based on the theme and messaging of the campaign. Once this foundation has been laid, you must decide how the messaging will be conveyed.
1. Foundation of B2B integrated marketing
The foundation of any integrated marketing strategy is crucial because it will power the one message you promote. It is recommended that a company lays this foundation first before moving on to other things. In this stage, you should determine:
- Issues your market is facing (your Buyer Matrix)
- Qualities that make you unique
- Your growth targets
- Tools, strategies, and positioning required to engage with the market
2. Campaign
You can start constructing your multi-channel B2B integrated marketing campaign after you have your framework in place. But wait! Before you start creating the material for your campaign; there is still some prep work to be done. You must establish your in order to create a successful integrated marketing strategy.
- Campaign objectives: What constitutes success? What Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) would you use?
- What will be the message that you wish to spread across your multi-channel B2B integrated marketing campaign?
- Campaign timeline: When will you start creating collateral, and how? When will you going to analyze the campaign again?
3. Channels for B2B integrated marketing
Which channels are necessary for your integrated marketing plan? Probably quite a few. Additionally, each one will require a unique set of campaign materials to adhere to the channel's best practices for success and engagement. You will likely need to select some (or all) of the following channels for your integrated marketing campaign:
- Optimization for search engines (SEO)
- Ads on social media
- Organic Social Media Content (on your selected social media channels)
- Business website
- Slicks for sales and printed marketing materials
- PR and media relations
The approach is the same whether you use three channels or twenty: a single message that ties them all together.
4. Analysis
The effort doesn't end after your integrated marketing campaign is out into the world though. Keep a careful check on performance, evaluate outcomes, and confirm that you are on course to meet the early-set targets in your B2B integrated marketing plan.
Steps to create a B2B integrated marketing campaign
Now that we know what exactly is B2B integrated marketing and what it includes, we are ready to see what steps are crucial in your B2B integrated marketing campaign.
1. Outline Your Campaign Goals
Like any campaigns, the effectiveness of B2B integrated marketing initiatives isn't just determined by the quantity of leads you were able to create or the calibre of those leads. Full-funnel success, which demonstrates how it affected the possibilities and how much income the campaign drove, is essentially how it is measured. It is essential to clearly establish your campaign goals so that you can compare the outcomes to them in order to gauge the campaign's overall performance.
Once your campaign's objectives have been established, check to see that your aims are in line with the demands of your company.
2. Know Your Target Customer Personas
Your B2B integrated marketing efforts' main building block is your target audience, thus it is critical to recognise and comprehend who you are trying to communicate with. This assists in improving your focused marketing initiatives and generating high-quality leads.
According to the B2B Content Marketing (2019) research, just 36% of marketers with average performance use buyer personas, compared to 77% of top-performing B2B marketers. Discover how your services can benefit potential customers by speaking with them and learning about their preferences and problems. Even if it's only a small group of individuals, you could do this by speaking to them directly.
Prepare your sales team to speak with prospects and understand what sells and what interests them as well.
3. Ensure You Have the Right Team Members
Qualified team members are the foundation of every successful integrated marketing strategy for lead generation; thus, a thorough study of people, technology, and procedures is required. Every team working on an B2B integrated marketing programme plan needs a strong leader, as well as some contributors and collaborators.
You must carry out the strategy if your team is incompetent. You could think about outsourcing the tasks. You may successfully achieve your aims and objectives if you have skilled B2B marketers.
4. Develop A Relevant Message
A message is a narrative and concept that centres on your product or service and seeks to engage customers.
You will need to identify your product differentiators, the strengths of your solution or products, and what makes you stand out from your competition as part of this process. You may use this kind of information to develop a message that appeals to and resonates with your target audience. After that, you may use this messaging material to create a campaign theme and catchphrase.
The following areas should be addressed by your B2B integrated marketing campaign:
- You can talk about the main issues that your present and potential clients are now facing.
- Think about hosting a webinar to demonstrate how your product benefits your target market by helping them address their possible problems.
- Making a video to illustrate the benefits of your product's features and capabilities can help convince customers to choose your offering over that of your rivals.
- The ultimate objective should be to maintain your theme throughout the whole campaign across all media and to give a consistent message.
5. Nail the B2B Integrated Marketing Design
After choosing your campaign topic, coordinate your ideas with the design team. This is the first stage in producing an integrated marketing campaign that has a consistent feel and appearance across all platforms, from the banner advertisements to the landing pages.
Through consistent design across all campaign touchpoints, you can better engage with your target audience.
6. Determine The Right Marketing Channels
For a full-fledged demand generation strategy, B2B marketers nowadays use a growing variety of paid, earned, and owned channels.
The most effective channels for you ultimately rely on your brand, industry, customer personalities, and other relevant variables. For instance, your marketing funnel's top-performing media may not be the most effective for converting leads at the bottom of the funnel.
According to a poll of B2B marketers published in The 2018 Demand Generation Benchmark Survey Report, the following channels are the most effective in the funnel stage:
The top five Engagement Channels (Early-Stage):
- Email (59%)
- Search (56%)
- Website (51%)
- Social (44%)
- Online Ads (27%)
The top five Conversion Channels (Later-Stage):
- Email - 81%
- Website - 50%
- Telemarketing - 45%
- Retargeting - 27%
- Direct Mail - 20%
To enhance your capacity to connect with and engage with your target consumers, keep in mind that your B2B integrated marketing execution plan incorporates a variety of channels. So don't be afraid to try out different mediums, and let the information gained be your guide.
7. Create A Plan To Nurture Your Leads
Have a solid plan in place for processing, routing, nurturing, and qualifying your leads as they start to come in.
The leads that the campaign generates must be nurtured in order to encourage conversions. Don't send too many emails to your leads; instead, make an effort to stay on their minds.
To provide potential customers an experience that feels seamless, your B2B integrated marketing material and the message of your lead nurturing workflows should be in sync. Use follow-up emails to share value and establish trust.
8. Measure And Track The Overall Campaign
Consistent efforts are necessary for an B2B integrated marketing plan to succeed. Utilize the feedback you receive after publishing your material to enhance your subsequent campaigns. To evaluate the success of your campaign, track the performance of your sales funnels.
After all, it might take months or even a year for a sales staff to clinch a contract. According to CSO Insights' 2018–2019 Sales Performance Study, 74.6% of B2B prospects require at least four months to become genuine paying clients and 46.4% require seven months or more.
The world is trying B2B integrated marketing. Where are you?
B2B integrated marketing has stood the test of time in the marketing industry and has continued to flourish. This approach has formed a crucial aspect of marketing strategies employed by a variety of businesses.
