Simply put, B2B marketing can be tricky. Proving your return on investment can be difficult. Identifying your target audience and end-user is a process, and creating messaging that finds just the right balance of professionalism but is still accessible is hard. Once a target audience is identified and content is created, the hard work just begins. Then begins the process of identifying and implementing the appropriate technology and software to track and monitor new leads and marketing activity in order to circle back around to connecting marketing performance with ROI. While you may have the right software in place, does your entire internal team know how to use it cohesively? These are all pain points to identify early on with B2B marketing campaigns but are even more crucial to identify when operating within very narrowed and specific industries, such as the Security Industry for instance.
Hoosier Security designs, sells, installs, and services custom-built HD security camera systems throughout the entire United States, with direct dispatch to Central Indiana and the surrounding Detroit, Michigan areas. Their sole mission is to provide high-quality security systems to commercial and industrial businesses, with zero interest in the residential market.
When Hoosier Security approached us at StrataBlue, their experience with outside marketing agencies wasn’t great. They had experienced very little ROI, with very few low-quality leads; their messaging was off and simply was attracting the wrong markets at the wrong times. They were missing the mark, feeling disconnected from their prospective clients, and really lacking the presence they needed in certain locations. Their online presence was disjointed, and they needed cohesive messaging across the security space that accurately described who they are as a company.
That said, being that there are so many questions circling successful B2B marketing, we decided to lay out a simple framework using our plans and the implementation we created for Hoosier Security that led to high ROI.
Step 1: Research: Immerse yourself in your target audience. Determine their motivations, their wants and needs, and the attributes that create who they are. With Hoosier Security, we took a deep dive into their differentiators and into their target personas. Point blank, by the end of our research quest, we knew everything there was to know about the security industry’s target audience and what drove their decision-making.
Step 2: Develop a Plan: As a marketing agency, we strategize with all of our clients and hone in on narrowed tactics best suited to specific goals. With B2B marketing, it’s a little different in the aspect that having a lead qualifier in place is crucial. Without a robust lead qualification process, B2B businesses would waste most of their time chasing people who are not ready to buy or chasing after the wrong leads. It’s not only a huge waste of time, money and resources, but can also be incredibly demotivating. Hoosier Security had leads coming in, but not from their target audience.
Step 3: Content Creation: B2B content is not your typical, run-of-the-mill consumer-facing content. Successful B2B content requires the attributes of being useful, engaging, and high-quality. Delivering relevant and impactful messaging to your target audiences requires keeping user intent in mind. It’s also incredibly important to continually immerse yourself in hot topics that are trending within your specific industry. Based on this, you can prepare content that either presents a new angle on an existing topic – something that readers crave – or even as a counterpoint to prevailing opinion about a topic relevant to your business. For Hoosier Security, they needed to showcase and position themselves as experts within the security industry. As a company, they thrived on offering unique ideas with very innovative technology solutions, but their branding and messaging wasn’t cohesive in portraying this.
Step 4: Implementation: A B2B sales funnel can be a beast to manage and maintain. Your target consumer can halt and be lost at any of the marketing stages. With B2B marketing, it’s imperative to have smooth transitions throughout the stages of your consumer’s journey and for those stages to interlock with one another. That’s where successful CRM systems come into play; they observe and measure the sales process with a new user from start to finish. This allows you to observe and track any problem areas you may have in your sales funnel throughout the implementation process of your marketing campaign. Our tactic suggestions for Hoosier Security touched different points of their sales funnel throughout the entire customer journey. These tactics included things like increasing website performance through SEO, optimization of their paid media through Google ads, and taking over to manage their ads and lead generation systems.
Step 5: Tracking ROI: When we were able to take the reins on Hoosier Security’s lead generation systems, we were able to track where the leads were coming from so that we could then begin optimizing and honing in on areas of the sales funnel that were progressing and converting to contracts, both successfully and the quickest. Once you have a clear idea of what efforts are performing the best, you can begin focusing on the best performing channels. Just within a few months, our efforts for Hoosier Security resulted in a 50% increase in qualified, target audience leads, a 28% increase in website speed performance, earned media coverage at several reputable media outlets, and cohesive brand presence across the different channels.
In conclusion, successful B2B marketing can be tricky, but it’s achievable through extensive homework and consistent output. Our efforts with Hoosier Security increased their project and sales growth by nearly 10% and decreased their Google ad spend’s cost per conversion by nearly 50% per lead. If you’re looking for proven results like these, give us a shout!
