OneIMS https://www.oneims.com/ Wed, 03 Apr 2024 17:17:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.oneims.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/favicon-oneims.png OneIMS https://www.oneims.com/ 32 32 B2B Case Studies: A Guide to Meaningful, Compelling Customer Testimonials (with Examples) https://www.oneims.com/b2b-case-studies-a-guide-to-meaningful-compelling-customer-testimonials-with-examples/ Wed, 03 Apr 2024 15:15:54 +0000 https://www.oneims.com/?p=23417 Connecting with today’s buyers is more challenging than ever. They’re looking for credibility, reliability, and authenticity—how can B2B organizations rise to the challenge? Customer testimonials and case studies play a vital role in connecting with modern B2B audiences. By asking happy customers to share their story in their own words, you can create compelling, meaningful […]

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Connecting with today’s buyers is more challenging than ever. They’re looking for credibility, reliability, and authenticity—how can B2B organizations rise to the challenge?

Customer testimonials and case studies play a vital role in connecting with modern B2B audiences. By asking happy customers to share their story in their own words, you can create compelling, meaningful testimonials that encourage prospective buyers to make a purchase and lead to long-term, steady growth.

What Are Customer Testimonials & Case Studies?

Customer testimonials are authentic stories, endorsements, or feedback from individuals who have firsthand experience with your products, services, or brand. They help build trust in your company by showcasing people’s confidence and trust in your products or services. Case studies fall under the customer testimonial umbrella but tend to be much more in-depth and informative, including detailed results, statistics, and data concerning overall return on investment.

Video testimonials are especially popular. According to a 2023 study by Wyzowl, 39% of video marketers have created video testimonials and 89% of consumers want to see more videos in 2024.

In other words, now is the time to invest in creating high-quality video-based customer testimonials for B2B audiences.


The Importance of Impactful B2B Case Studies & Customer Testimonials

When the Content Marketing Institute asked marketers about the most effective types of content, 53% agreed that case studies and customer stories lead the pack—tied with video marketing. Additionally, while 67% of marketers used case studies and customer testimonials in 2022, that percentage increased to 78% in 2023.

The numbers don’t lie: Case studies and customer testimonials are now essential to the success of B2B organizations. They act as professional recommendations, build trust with your target audience, provide social proof of brand credibility, add authenticity to your company image, and influence the purchasing decisions of potential customers.

What Makes an Effective Customer Testimonial?

Effective customer testimonials resonate with prospective buyers and convince them that they can experience the same benefits your existing customers do. But what makes a customer testimonial truly effective? Let’s break it down.

It Incorporates Persuasive Storytelling

At its core, a customer testimonial is a (brief) story of a customer’s journey and experience with your company, products, or services. It’s the storytelling elements of a customer testimonial that make it relatable and persuasive as well as transform what would otherwise be a dull series of numbers into a memorable customer journey.

Therefore, the most effective customer testimonials rely on persuasive storytelling techniques, not just the emotional connection with the audience but also regarding their structure (introduction, middle, conclusion, clear call to action ).

It Leverages Powerful Visual & Multimedia Effects

A picture says a thousand words—or, in this case, visual and multimedia effects do.

Leveraging visual storytelling and multimedia elements is a powerful way to make a customer testimonial more interesting, engaging, memorable, and believable. From illustrations and annotations to videos and infographics, visual or multimedia elements can be used to explain, highlight, and simplify different parts of an effective customer testimonial.

It Highlights Problems & Solutions

The perfect customer testimonial highlights a problem the customer faces and shows how your products or services solve that problem, including plenty of details as well as specific examples. Clearly drawing a line between customers’ problems and your solutions makes it easy for prospective buyers to imagine how you can also help solve that same problem for their company too.

It Centers the Customer

Many customer testimonials slide too far into a traditional sales pitch, therefore losing their effectiveness. A customer testimonial or case study should not be about you or your B2B organization—it should be about the customer.

Centering the customer, sharing their story, capturing their voice, and focusing on their problems (and how you solved them) is essential to creating a testimonial that is relatable, personal, compelling, and insightful.

It Showcases High-Quality Production

High-quality customer testimonials require high-quality production value. Effective customer testimonial videos are edited to ensure the storytelling is in an order that makes sense and should have a superior audio, video, and lighting setup before filming. It’s these aspects that make the difference between a “good” customer testimonial into a “great” one.

It Focuses on the Specifics

An effective customer testimonial should be as specific as possible.

Why? Because the devil is in the details.

Measurable results, relevant statistics, detailed stories, and other specifics help prospective buyers visualize how they can achieve the same positive results if they also work with your company. Testimonials and case studies should include specific details while telling the story of the customer’s journey.

It Avoids Anonymity (When Possible)

When a customer testimonial includes the individual’s name, job title, and company or industry, it builds credibility and shows prospective buyers that the testimony is reliable and authentic. Avoid anonymity when possible by including these identifying details, and add a headshot and company logo to further establish its trustworthiness.

Keep in mind that some companies must follow specific guidelines to stay in compliance with industry regulations, so always ask before attributing a testimonial to an individual or company.

It Reviews Your Business (Not Individual Employees)

If a customer gushes about one of your fantastic team members during their testimonial interview, it may be tempting to include their positive words in the final product. However, it’s best to avoid reviews of individual employees.

What happens if your employee leaves the company or industry? You won’t be able to use the testimonial anymore—or, if you continue to do so, it will no longer be accurate, and prospective buyers may feel deceived.

Stick to quotes and reviews that praise your business rather than specific team members.

How to Get Customer Testimonials: 8 Tips & Tricks for B2B Companies

A successful customer testimonial or case study requires careful planning, teamwork, and creativity. Follow these tips and tricks when creating or optimizing your approach to B2B customer testimonials.

1. Identify the Right Customers

Impactful testimonials start with the “right” customers. Look for buyers who meet the following criteria:

  • They have had a positive experience with your company, products, and/or services.
  • They want to participate and are willing to answer your questions.
  • They can tell a story about their purchasing journey.
  • They expect to remain loyal to your brand in the long term.

These clients are more likely to share experiences and stories that add value to your customer testimonials.

2. Craft a List of Questions

Whether you are sitting down with a customer on camera or requesting a written review, you need a plan—now is not the time to wing it.

Brainstorm a list of questions well beforehand, ideally those that are designed to curate a positive, impactful, effective customer testimonial. Start with these examples:

  • What was your overall experience working with us?
  • What was your thought process for choosing to work with us?
  • What made us stand out from other options?
  • What was it like before using our products/services?
  • What problem(s) were you trying to solve with our products/services, and how did our products/services help solve your problem(s)?
  • What have you been able to achieve since using our products/services?
  • What has made you happiest about working with us?
  • What has exceeded your expectations?
  • Would you recommend others do business with us? Why?
  • What can we do differently to improve your experience with us?

Your questions should direct customers to share their problem and address how your B2B company’s products or services addressed their pain points and made their lives better. Think of this line of questioning as a map; where do you want the conversation to go? How can you lead them in the right direction?

3. Ask for Testimonials at Various Milestones

Ideally, your B2B organization should share customer testimonials at various milestones—after 30 days, after six months, after one year, when they renew, etc. These milestones give customers time to see the true value of your products or services and get a better understanding of their return on investment. Be sure to include customer voices over time and provide a range of testimonials.

4. Invest in the Right Tools & Equipment

Quality is key here. Are you asking a customer to speak on your B2B podcast? You’ll need a high-quality microphone and audio recording equipment on hand. Filming a testimonial video? Ensure you achieve superior audio and visual quality with the right cameras, microphones, and software.

Investing in the right tools and equipment is essential to the production value of the final product.

5. Make It Easy for Customers to Say “Yes”

When pitching customers to ask if they will participate in a testimonial, make it easy for them to say “yes.”

B2B professionals are understandably busy; they won’t have the time or capacity to respond to requests that are vague or missing key details like time commitment and the structure of the potential testimonial. Fortunately, if you preemptively answer their primary questions in your initial pitch, they will be more likely to agree. Include information such as the expected time commitment, questions you will ask, and whether their team will have a chance to review before publication.

6. Follow Up with Existing Positive Reviews

An easy way to find the right customers for testimonials and case studies is to follow up with existing positive reviews, whether they are left on review sites, social media, or in comments to your customer success team. Why? Because if a customer has already gone out of their way to leave a positive review, they are more likely to be willing to provide additional feedback.

Browse positive reviews, thank customers for leaving a review, and ask them if they would be willing to talk about their experience with your team.

7. Incentivize Participation

Video testimonials are a step above written quotes or statements—but sitting down for a video or audio interview takes additional time and commitment from your customers. They may be more willing to go the extra mile if you can incentivize their participation. Offer a free service upgrade, a gift card, or other small token of appreciation when possible to thank them for their time and effort.

8. Get Input from Marketing & Sales

Many B2B organizations leave customer testimonials solely in the hands of their marketing team. And while marketing may take on the bulk of the work crafting testimonials and case studies, it would be a mistake to leave the sales team out of the loop.

Your sales representatives know your customers better than anyone. They work with them almost every day, collect valuable feedback, and have existing relationships with long-term customers.

Ask your sales team to identify ideal customer testimonial candidates and reach out to see if they would be willing to speak on video about their experience with your products or services. Having a familiar face requesting this favor can make all the difference.

4 Ways to Promote B2B Case Studies & Customer Testimonials

For customer testimonials to effectively resonate with potential buyers, they have to be able to find those testimonials. Use these four methods to make sure prospects can find, access, and resonate with your customer testimonials and case studies.

1. Share on Your Company Website

First things first: Share customer testimonials on your B2B company website.

Consider setting up a dedicated page for testimonials and case studies, and include a link to it in your main page navigation so visitors can easily find and explore published testimonials. Ensure the page is branded, visually engaging, easy to navigate, and showcases recent feedback. Additionally, try to include a range of testimonials, not only featuring customers at different milestones but also those highlighting different aspects of your company (like certain products).

2. Post on Social Media Platforms

Customer testimonials lend themselves well to visual media, so create short videos of testimonials or graphics with key quotes and post them across your company’s social media platforms.

Social media is a powerful tool for sharing testimonials with prospective buyers, and it’s also a great method for encouraging followers to leave their own feedback. By posting testimonials on social media, you can also build trust and brand awareness with your audience.

Remember to get permission from customers before posting their testimonials on social media platforms, and ask about their privacy preferences. (For example, businesses in certain industries, like financial services, may request anonymity.)

3. Incorporate into Marketing Materials

Customer testimonials and case studies support marketing claims your business makes. Why not incorporate them into your existing (and future) marketing materials?

Include written testimonial quotes on relevant website pages. Share case studies in your email newsletter. Incorporate clips from video testimonials into presentation slides. The possibilities are endless.

4. Repurpose into Different Formats for Different Audiences

Let’s say you record a two-to-three minute, high-quality, engaging, compelling customer testimonial and post it on your B2B website. That’s great! But there’s no need to stop there. How can you repurpose an existing testimonial into different formats for different audiences? It takes a little creativity, but you can turn one testimonial into several separate assets—saving you time and resources while increasing your return on investment.

  • Taking the video from the previous example, you could repurpose it in a few ways:
  • Create short 10-second clips to share on social media
  • Pull impactful quotes to post on your home page or relevant product pages
  • Draft an email newsletter introducing the highlights of the customer’s story (and encouraging subscribers to watch the full video)
  • Write a blog post on the topic of the customer’s pain points and use the testimonial as an example or evidence of your company’s success in addressing similar problems

The world (of content) is your oyster.

B2B Customer Testimonial Video Examples

At OneIMS, we have collected testimonials and case studies from several of our client partners. We’ve created a dedicated page, called Success Stories, to exhibit the finished products and to highlight the positive storytelling contained within each testimonial. Following the recommendations described above, the page is easy to navigate, attractive, and displays essential information at a glance (names, job titles, companies, and headshots for each customer).

Let’s take a closer look at two of these customer testimonials in action.

Example #1: Descriptive Storytelling & Clear Recommendation

Meet John Mitchell, Global Marketing Operations & Analytics Manager at Minitab, a company that helps other companies and institutions spot trends, solve problems, and discover valuable insights through data analysis.

His customer testimonial video is authentic and approachable, starting with a hook and clear introduction. John then delves into a clear description of the problem he was facing pre-OneIMS—a lack of resources, support, and expertise in an agile company with a small marketing team.

After clarifying the pain points he was facing at Minitab, John gives a brief but descriptive explanation of how OneIMS provided a new perspective, specialized advice, and became a partner not only in the marketing department but also in the operations department and within the content team.

John also shares a specific example: HubSpot templates. While HubSpot is a powerful automation and inbound marketing tool, it’s only as good as its users. OneIMS assisted with building effective HubSpot templates and transformed Minitab’s use of the popular content management system.

He ends the testimonial with a clear recommendation and call to action for prospective customers.

Example #2: An Authentic Look at a Long-Term Partnership

Say hello to Corey Gustafson, President of JohnsByrne, an innovative premium packaging and printing company.

This customer testimonial video starts with a bit of company history, including a memorable story of how the “JohnsByrne” name came to be. Corey talks about how the long-term partnership with OneIMS first started—when they initially reached out to us, JohnsByrne had a website. That’s it. In other words, the problem was that they had very little digital presence and no inbound marketing strategy.

Corey follows up the description of the problem by sharing how OneIMS helped the company learn how to leverage their website, search engine optimization (SEO), digital marketing, etc. to draw in new customers and attract prospects. He explains that OneIMS showed them how to use HubSpot to statistically measure outreach and, throughout the long-term partnership, has become fully immersed in the JohnsByrne team.

Like the first example, Corey concluded the testimonial with a clear, positive recommendation.

What Do These Customer Testimonial Video Examples Do Well?

These two examples of customer testimonial videos follow several best practices:

  • They include both a written and video testimonial on each page.
  • They feature a clear story structure: introduction, problem, solution, example, conclusion, CTA.
  • They attribute their praise and feedback to the company instead of an individual employee.
  • They have high production value with clear visuals and audio.
  • They include specific examples and address the problem/solution.

Thanks to careful planning, research, and execution, these customer testimonial videos are powerful assets OneIMS can use to meaningfully connect with prospective buyers.

Conclusion

B2B case studies and customer testimonials are essential for increasing brand credibility, resonating with potential buyers, and building deeper relationships with both existing customer and high-quality leads. By using the techniques and guidelines described in this article, your B2B organization will be ready to create and implement a successful customer testimonial strategy in 2024.

Need help optimizing your customer testimonial strategy, connecting with B2B buyers, and growing your business? We’re ready to partner with you. Schedule a consultation with us today to learn more about how OneIMS can propel your B2B business to new heights.

Request the Case Study and Playbook


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How to Measure the Effectiveness of Your B2B Content https://www.oneims.com/how-to-measure-the-effectiveness-of-your-b2b-content/ Mon, 11 Mar 2024 15:36:25 +0000 https://www.oneims.com/?p=23397 Is your content pulling its weight? Content marketing is no longer optional—at least, if your B2B company wants to stand out in the market, reach new audiences, generate leads, and achieve sustainable growth. But how do you know if your content is performing effectively? How can you tell if your social media campaigns, webinars, email […]

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Is your content pulling its weight?

Content marketing is no longer optional—at least, if your B2B company wants to stand out in the market, reach new audiences, generate leads, and achieve sustainable growth. But how do you know if your content is performing effectively? How can you tell if your social media campaigns, webinars, email newsletters, and podcasts are leading to positive results?

To ensure the effectiveness of your B2B content, you must carefully monitor, track, and analyze how it performs with your online audience.

Unfortunately, 36% of B2B marketers think their organization doesn’t measure content performance effectively. Stay ahead of the competition by measuring—and optimizing—the effectiveness of your B2B content.

Is Content Marketing Effective?

Survey says: yes.

The Content Marketing Institute surveyed content marketers around the globe and found that content marketing continues to be a powerfully effective B2B marketing strategy.

In 2023, content marketing helped B2B marketers accomplish a variety of goals, including

  • Creating brand awareness (84%)
  • Generating demand/leads (76%)
  • Nurturing audiences/subscribers/leads (63%)
  • Generating sales/revenue (58%)

That last number is important—because in 2022, only 42% of B2B marketers said content marketing helped generate sales/revenue. In other words, 16% more marketers found that content marketing leads to revenue and sales growth.

From these numbers, and from content success stories of our own, we know that content marketing remains an effective way of reaching, engaging with, and nurturing target audiences, even in today’s competitive B2B landscape.

What Makes B2B Content Successful?

What does successful B2B content look like?

While the specifics of content success can (and should!) be defined according to your B2B company’s unique goals, performance benchmarks, audience, and industry, there are some standards of excellence that all B2B content should meet.

Successful Content Is High-Quality

Effective B2B content is always high-quality—meaning it is well-written, error-free, and visually-appealing. By creating superior content, you can establish your B2B organization as a reputable, knowledgeable leader in your industry and build trust with your target buyers.

Successful Content Provides Value

B2B content must be valuable. Your content should truly benefit your audience by making their lives better and their jobs easier.

Successful Content Is Tailored to Your Audience

Great B2B content should speak directly to your audience, be tailored to their needs, address their pain points, and answer their questions. Of course, before you can tailor content to your audience, you have to know your audience inside and out—79% of B2B marketers agree that it’s the most popular success factor for content marketing.

Successful Content Is Distributed Effectively

Creating high-quality, personalized, valuable content is only part of the equation. Distributing that content is just as important to its success. An effective content distribution strategy could include email marketing, social media campaigns, video marketing, and more, but the most important aspect is that the platforms and channels used are aligned with the places your target audience spends the most time online.

Successful Content Drives Leads & Conversions

In B2B marketing, the true measure of content success is whether the content results in better leads and more conversions. (A viral social media post is exciting and extremely beneficial to brand awareness, but if it doesn’t result in more buyers down the line, it’s missing the mark.) Successful B2B content engages with prospects through every stage of the buyer’s journey and encourages them to convert.

Successful Content Is Continuously Improved & Optimized

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” Winston Churchill may not have been talking about content performance, but the point remains: Continuously improving and optimizing B2B content is key to success.

How Do You Measure B2B Content Performance?

Measuring the performance of B2B content pieces, campaigns, and strategies involves tracking important metrics and performance benchmarks as well as analyzing the resulting data insights.

What Are KPIs in Content Strategy?

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are measurable values used to quantify and evaluate performance as well as progress toward established goals. Different marketing campaigns, channels, and formats have their own KPIs that B2B marketers use to track both performance and progress. For example, common email marketing KPIs include click-through rates, subscribe rates, and open rates. Alternatively, likes, shares, and comments are important social media KPIs.

How Do You Assess Content Performance? 10 Metrics & KPIs to Track

Understanding the impact of your content campaigns is paramount for refining your strategy and ensuring sustained success. Here, let’s shine a spotlight on the critical KPIS and metrics you need to effectively assess, measure, analyze, and optimize content performance.

1. Website Analytics

Use your website analytics to track the performance of individual pieces of content, assess user engagement, and identify the sources of your web traffic. Pay attention to metrics such as bounce times, page views, time on page, session duration, and conversion rates.

2. Social Media Metrics

Evaluate the performance of your content on social media platforms. Monitor engagement metrics including likes, shares, comments, followers, and click-through rates. Identify the types of content that resonate most with your audience on each platform.

3. Email Campaign Analytics

For targeted email campaigns, scrutinize key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, and conversion rates. A/B testing different email content can provide insights into what resonates best with your audience.

4. Conversion Tracking

Set up conversion tracking on landing pages, gated content, contact forms, and more to understand how your content contributes to lead generation and conversion efforts. Identify which pieces of content are most effective in moving prospects through the sales funnel.

5. SEO Performance

Assess your content’s impact on search engine rankings. Use search engine optimization (SEO) tools to monitor keyword performance, track organic search traffic, and evaluate the quality and quantity of backlinks to your content.

6. ROI Calculations

Calculate the return on investment (ROI) for your content marketing efforts. Compare the costs associated with content creation and distribution against the revenue generated or cost savings achieved. ROI helps quantify the value your content brings to your B2B organization’s bottom line.

7. Lead Generation Metrics

Evaluate the effectiveness of your content in generating leads. Track metrics such as the number of leads generated, conversion rates, and the quality of leads based on their interactions with your content.

8. Sales Conversion Rates

Measure the impact of your content on sales conversions. Analyze how content contributes to moving prospects from the consideration stage to the decision stage and, ultimately, the conversion stage of the buyer’s journey.

9. Brand Awareness Metrics

Assess the growth of brand awareness through content marketing. Track metrics such as brand mentions, social media followers, and overall brand visibility within your target audience.

10. Customer Retention Rates

Explore how your content contributes to customer retention. Analyze whether existing customers engage with your content and assess its impact on customer loyalty and satisfaction.

How to Measure Content Effectiveness: 5 Steps to Follow

Content marketing is an incredibly effective way to reach your target audience and engage with potential buyers, and successful B2B content results in more leads, more conversions, and more revenue. However, without an accurate process for measuring the effectiveness of content pieces and campaigns, it becomes challenging to determine whether content is achieving the desired results.

To ensure your B2B content initiatives are successful and evaluate the performance of your content, follow these steps.

1. Set Clear Goals & KPIs

SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals are essential to B2B content success. Goals guide your content marketing team’s actions and ensure everyone is working together to achieve them. The challenge, then, is setting KPIs that align with your goals to ensure you are on the right track.

It’s easier said than done: The Content Marketing Institute found that goal setting (70%) and tying performance data to goals (76%) were significant hurdles for many B2B marketers when it comes to measuring content performance.

Fortunately, if your B2B organization has invested in a revenue operations (RevOps) framework, you will have a strong foundation for setting and achieving organizational goals.

2. Track Engagement & Metrics

According to the Content Marketing Institute survey, the most frequently used content performance metrics are conversions (73%), email engagement (71%), website traffic (71%), website engagement (69%), and social media analytics (65%). Tracking these metrics—and more—is the best way to learn how your audience interacts with your B2B content.

Leverage tools like Google Analytics to track website data and track social media activity and other metrics to measure content success.

3. Monitor Leads & Conversions

Leads and conversions—aka one of the core goals of B2B content marketing—are another important piece of the content performance puzzle. Monitor lead generation metrics and conversion rates to determine which content pieces and channels are the most successful, see what content brings in the most high-quality leads, and what campaigns attract the most attention from your audience.

4. Analyze Data Insights

Once you have access to metrics and KPIs, you can analyze the data, identify patterns, and draw insights that you can then use to improve and optimize B2B content. Marketing automation tools, customer relationship management (CRM) software, as well as your marketing operations (MarketingOps) team, are a valuable part of this process and can be leveraged to understand data and make informed decisions.

5. Get Feedback from Your Target Audience

An effective yet often overlooked way to measure the performance of your content is to ask your audience what they think about it. Share surveys, conduct interviews, hold focus groups, and request feedback from both loyal customers and prospective buyers to learn more about the relevance, perception, and value of your B2B content. Based on what you learn, you can then make improvements for future content campaigns.

Conclusion

Is your B2B content actually resulting in improved brand awareness, more leads, and additional revenue? More importantly, how can you tell whether your content is pulling its weight?

Measuring the effectiveness of your B2B content is essential for optimizing content performance, improving conversion rates, and driving growth. By tracking key metrics, analyzing data insights, and gathering audience feedback, you can create a benchmark for success, learn what’s working (and what isn’t), and ensure your content efforts yield positive results.

Need help improving your B2B content and implementing a content marketing strategy that attracts new buyers, retains existing customers, and leads to sustainable growth? We’ve got you covered. Schedule a consultation with us today to get started.

Request the Case Study and Playbook


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Content Brainstorming: Tips to Generate B2B Content Ideas https://www.oneims.com/content-brainstorming/ Sat, 13 Jan 2024 18:51:55 +0000 https://www.oneims.com/?p=23300 Is there anything worse than staring at a blank page? Whether you call it writer’s block, creative burnout, or artistic paralysis, having a lack of ideas is extremely frustrating—even more so when you know the value of developing original and compelling content for your business-to-business (B2B) marketing efforts but just can’t come up with anything. […]

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Is there anything worse than staring at a blank page?

Whether you call it writer’s block, creative burnout, or artistic paralysis, having a lack of ideas is extremely frustrating—even more so when you know the value of developing original and compelling content for your business-to-business (B2B) marketing efforts but just can’t come up with anything.

Your mind is blank. Or worse: The few ideas you have are terrible.

What can you do?

What topics should you cover?

What kind of content should you create?

How can you turn the blank page into a list of engaging, captivating content ideas?

Fortunately, finding new content ideas doesn’t have to be so challenging. With the right content generation strategy in your back pocket, you can quickly develop unique, interesting, relevant content ideas that can help drive your business forward, gain the trust of your audience, and support your growth goals.

What Is Content Brainstorming?

Content brainstorming is the creative, unstructured process of generating a multitude of new and exciting ideas, topics, themes, and concepts that you can use to develop impactful, high-quality content that resonates with your audience.

By encouraging you to explore a wide range of perspectives, tapping into your imagination, and helping the creative juices flow, content brainstorming opens you up to a new world of B2B content possibilities.

Why Is Brainstorming Important for B2B Content Creation?

Constantly creating new content is a challenge for many B2B marketers. However, there are targets to hit, deadlines to meet, and key performance indicators (KPIs) to track. The blank page isn’t an excuse; you need an effective way to overcome mental blocks and think of new ideas—a lot of them. And fast.

 

When you or your B2B marketing team hit a creative roadblock, content brainstorming is a reliable way to boost creativity, generate a large number of ideas, and keep the content ideas flowing.

How to Brainstorm Creative Content Ideas

There are many different content brainstorming strategies you can use to find fresh, creative ideas for your B2B business, and we’ve created a list of proven methods to help you get started. The good news? They’re easy (and free!) to implement, whether you’re working remotely with a team, in-person at a conference table, or alone in your office.


Every person, team, business, and industry is different; some methods may be more successful than others. Try out a few of these strategies, discover which ones work best for you, and see what content ideas you can generate.

1. Understand Your Audience

Understand Target Audience for Content Ideas

Content brainstorming must start with your audience. You need to have a clear understanding of your target buyers if you’re going to create content that speaks to them, so audience research should guide your brainstorming efforts.

  • Research Audience Demographics

Who is your target audience? Research the basics: age, gender, location, income level, education level, industry, job title, buying preferences, and more. Collecting this type of data will help you create content to their liking.

  • Analyze Audience Interests & Pain Points

Understanding the needs, interests, pain points, and challenges of your target audience will give you valuable insight into the types of content that will solve their problems, address their pain points, and encourage them to make a purchase.

  • Create Personas for Targeted Content

Based on your audience research, create buyer personas and negative personas that you can use as the foundation of your B2B content. These personas will help you and your marketing team create content and campaigns with targeted messaging that speaks directly to the needs, motivations, and desires of your ideal buyers.

2. Search for Sources of Inspiration

 Search for Sources of Inspiration for Content Topiics

Once you start keeping an eye out for content ideas, you’ll find sources of inspiration at every corner. Here are a few tried-and-true places to start your search.

  • Conduct Keyword Research

You’re likely familiar with the power of keyword research and search engine optimization (SEO). But have you considered how keyword research can be used to generate unique content ideas?

Using dependable SEO tools like Semrush or Ahrefs, identify and build a list of keywords relating to your brand, products, services, industry, or topic. Then, enter them into the platform to get more in-depth information, like their monthly search volume and difficulty as well as related questions and keywords. These insights are filled to the brim with opportunities for new content.

  • Analyze & Stay Updated on Industry Trends

Creating content relating to events and news in your industry is a great way to position your brand as a leader and establish your expertise. Therefore, keep up with industry trends to inform new topics and develop timely content ideas. Consider using tools like Google Alerts that will notify you when something significant happens in your industry so you can quickly develop and share content in response.

  • Explore Competitor Content

Exploring websites, blogs, social media posts, and other content from your competitors is a valuable method for generating new content ideas. By examining their content, you can discover which topics they cover—and, more importantly, which topics they don’t cover. It’s in these gaps where your brand can stand out and offer your audience something new.

Additionally, research how they connect with their customers. Is there a type or format of content they produce that seems particularly successful? What does that unveil about the interests and preferences of your audience? How can you fill in the gaps with a unique perspective and bring something new to the table?

  • Utilize Social Media & Community Feedback

Social media is an extremely effective source of inspiration for B2B content brainstorming and generation. Follow relevant hashtags, track brand mentions, look at what influencers in your industry are posting—what can you learn from the patterns you observe and insights you glean? Similarly, what questions are your followers asking? What excites and engages them?

Use social media as a tool for content brainstorming, and don’t hesitate to ask your digital community what types of content they want to see. There’s nothing better than going directly to the source.

  • Learn from Customer Surveys & Feedback

Your existing customers are a fountain of direct insight into the topics that interest them and the content formats that they prefer. Compile customer surveys and share customer feedback with your marketing team during brainstorming sessions so that you can generate content ideas that directly address the most pressing and timely issues your clients are facing.

3. Use Techniques to Generate Content Ideas

Techniques to Generate Content Ideas

Telling stories, drawing attention, and creating memories are as old as humankind itself. Sure, the writing and creative fields have evolved since then, especially with the introduction of new technologies, but the core of it remains the same. Why not draw from classic brainstorming techniques as you generate B2B content ideas?

Try a Mind Mapping Exercise

Mind mapping is a simple and visual word association exercise perfect for content brainstorming—all you need is a pen and paper. (Or, of course, you can use mind mapping software online.)

Start with a broad topic in the middle of the page, and then write down as many subtopics you can think of that associate with it. Draw branches from the main topic to the associated topic, and keep branching out until you can’t come up with any more related ideas that could be added to the map. The result is a map of ideas that cluster together that you can use for content inspiration.

Hold Freewriting Sessions

Freewriting is a technique that involves writing continuously on a subject or topic for a set period of time. No editing, no stopping to think, no worrying about grammar or punctuation—just writing whatever comes to mind. It’s a great method to unlock your creative juices and is surprisingly successful at generating new ideas.

Set a timer for five or 10 minutes, write until it goes off, and see what your brain comes up with.

Use Content Generation Tools & Software

Content generation tools and software are specially designed to help writers, artists, and marketers brainstorm content ideas. These tools are ideal for situations in which you are looking for trending, timely, popular topics.

Most content idea generators work the same: When you enter a broad topic, word, or theme related to your industry or goals, the program will return a list of potential content ideas.

Host Collaborative Brainstorming Sessions

Another invaluable content brainstorming resource? Your customer-facing teams.

Host collaborative brainstorming sessions where members of your marketing, sales, customer success, and revenue operations teams can generate creative content ideas. Thanks to each person’s unique experiences and insights as well as to how each team interacts with prospects along the buyer’s journey, you can use these sessions to come up with a diverse range of content ideas that connect with customers at every stage of the sales funnel.

Leverage Creative Exercises & Prompts

There’s a reason creative exercises and writing prompts have withstood the test of time: They’re easy, effective, and engaging. Explore creative prompts and visual exercises online that you think you or your marketing team would find interesting, and put them to the test. For example, prompt your team to brainstorm content ideas relating to company failures and success. What can you learn by comparing them? How can you highlight successes and turn failures into relatable, informative content?

4. Consider New Content Formats & Variables

New Content Formats & Variables

There’s a whole wide world of content out there. Don’t limit yourself to the same formats, variables, and topics you’ve always focused on; now is the time to delve into new ways of creating content.

Explore Various Content Types

Different content types and formats appeal to different audiences. Explore various content forms, such as videos, podcasts, infographics, blog posts, webinars, social media campaigns, ebooks, and white papers, to see what types resonate with your ideal customers.

Repurpose Content for Different Platforms

Why invest time, money, and resources into a content asset if you’re only going to use it once? Instead, for each piece of content you create, consider how you can repurpose it for different platforms, mediums, and formats. For example, turn a successful blog into a video, infographic, and ebook, or host a podcast where you answer the questions asked during a webinar.

By repurposing existing content, you create an opportunity to reach a new audience.

Experiment with Different Tones, Styles, & Angles

Another way to engage with a different segment of your target audience is to take some of your existing content and change its tone, style, or angle. Whether you decide to expand on a topic with a more authoritative voice to inform readers or transform static assets into interactive content, refreshing old content is an efficient way to create new content pieces and increase your overall content return on investment (ROI).

5. Organize & Evaluate Content Ideas

Organize & Evaluate Content Ideas

Not all the ideas you generate through content brainstorming will be winners. (And that’s the point: The goal of brainstorming is to come up with a wide range of possibilities—some good, some not so good.) Once you have a list of options, you can start to evaluate ideas, polish concepts, and pick the content ideas that will engage your target audience.

Evaluate Feasibility & Resource Requirements

Take a closer look at the topics and ideas you generated during your content brainstorming session. Which ideas are feasible? Which ideas are possible based on the resources at your disposal?

Topics that are impractical, unsuitable, or irrelevant can be discarded. Those that are feasible and possible can be turned into well-defined content concepts that you can use to support your B2B marketing campaigns and growth goals.

Prioritize Ideas Based on Relevance & Audience Interest

Remember that audience research you conducted and the personas you created? It’s time to refer to them again.

Prioritize the content ideas, topics, and formats that your target audience will find most interesting, relevant, informative, engaging, and valuable based on your understanding of their needs, pain points, and purchasing habits. Based on your analysis, you can focus on the most promising or timely content ideas.

Create a Content Calendar

Add the best ideas from your B2B content brainstorming efforts into a content calendar. Note that these ideas should be fleshed out at this point: They should be specific, with a defined format, voice, and call to action (CTA); include various deadlines to keep the content schedule on track; and have a point person (or point people) responsible for developing and distributing the content piece.

6. Test & Iterate Content Ideas

Test & Iterate Content Ideas

In a way, content is both an art and a science. We’ve talked about storytelling and craft; now, let’s go over the science part. Just like analysts in a laboratory environment test beakers full of chemicals, B2B marketers must test content to see what’s working (and what’s not).

By analyzing and improving upon the content ideas you have brainstormed, you can continue to increase your content ROI.

Conduct A/B Tests for Content Performance

A/B testing, or split testing, is a technique to discover which variation of a content piece is the most successful—however that success is defined. For example, creating two sets of newsletters or social posts will allow your marketing team to “test” which variant is most interesting and relevant to your audience. Conduct A/B tests to analyze the performance of content assets so you can optimize the outcome.

Analyze Metrics & Adjust Content Strategies

One of the best parts of creating digital content is that you can easily measure important performance data and conduct deep analysis on the results. Look at the analytics of your blogs, videos, webinars, landing pages, and other content pieces to gather insights. Then, based on your findings, you can adjust your content strategy to address issues and build upon areas of growth.

Seek & Incorporate Feedback

What’s the best way to see how your content is performing? Asking your target audience directly.

Create opportunities for prospects and existing customers to provide feedback on content pieces. By opening up comments on blog posts, sending out surveys after live webinars, or reaching out to leads after they download an ebook, you can collect valuable feedback that you can then incorporate into your B2B content strategy.

Conclusion

Content brainstorming is one of the most effective ways to generate content ideas that will help your B2B company stand out from the crowd. If you know your business needs to create more high-quality, valuable, relevant content assets but are stuck in a content rut, experiment with our creative content brainstorming ideas.

Need help developing a content strategy, generating more leads, increasing revenue, and achieving sustainable growth? We’re ready to partner with you. Schedule a consultation with us today to get started.

Request the Case Study and Playbook


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Video Marketing for Manufacturing Businesses Explained https://www.oneims.com/video-marketing-for-manufacturing-businesses/ Sun, 31 Dec 2023 17:22:57 +0000 https://www.oneims.com/?p=23260 Imagine having a powerful tool that not only captures attention but guides your audience seamlessly from awareness to conversion. That tool is video, and it’s time to harness its full potential. In the manufacturing sector, where intricate details matter, video content serves as an effective tool for educational purposes, enabling companies to create tutorials and […]

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Imagine having a powerful tool that not only captures attention but guides your audience seamlessly from awareness to conversion. That tool is video, and it’s time to harness its full potential.

In the manufacturing sector, where intricate details matter, video content serves as an effective tool for educational purposes, enabling companies to create tutorials and product demonstrations. 

In this expert guide, we’re diving deep into the secrets of video marketing for manufacturing companies. We’ll explain how you can use it strategically at every stage of the buyer’s journey, from creating a memorable first impression to sealing the deal and retaining loyal customers

How Video Can Be Used as a Marketing Tool

Video can be strategically used at each stage of the buyer’s journey to engage, attract, and convert audiences:

Awareness Stage:

Engagement and Brand Awareness: At the beginning of the buyer’s journey, use videos to capture attention and introduce your brand. Focus on creating emotionally resonant and visually appealing content to establish a memorable first impression.

Interest Stage:

Educational Content: As potential customers move into the interest stage, provide informative videos that address their pain points or challenges. These videos should aim to educate and position your brand as a valuable resource, building trust and credibility.

Consideration Stage:

Product Demonstrations: In the consideration stage, potential customers are actively exploring solutions. Use videos to showcase your products or services in action. Highlight key features and benefits to help prospects understand how your offerings meet their needs.

Intent Stage:

Testimonial and Case Study Videos: As prospects move closer to making a decision, share video testimonials and case studies. Hearing from satisfied customers can provide social proof and alleviate concerns, helping to solidify the decision to move forward.

Purchase Stage:

Promotional Videos and Offers: At the point of purchase, create videos that communicate special promotions, discounts, or exclusive offers. These videos should serve as the final incentive for prospects to convert into customers.

Post-Purchase Stage:

Onboarding Videos: After a purchase, use onboarding videos to guide customers on how to use your products or services effectively. This not only enhances the customer experience but also helps prevent any post-purchase confusion or dissatisfaction.

Retention and Advocacy:

Exclusive Content for Customers: To encourage customer loyalty, provide exclusive video content, such as advanced tutorials, tips, or behind-the-scenes footage. This can turn customers into advocates who may refer others to your brand.

By aligning your video content with the specific needs and mindset of the audience at each stage of the buyer’s journey, you can create a cohesive and compelling narrative that guides them seamlessly from awareness to conversion.

How to Use Video Marketing for Lead Generation

Lead generation does not exist in vacuum. We always teach our clients that the growth comes from following a very specific formula. 

Acquisition + Retention = Growth. 

When we think about the importance of videos for lead generation, we want to think about it in the context of the four elements of that formula: capturing existing demand, creating demand and increasing awareness, managing and nurturing leads, and managing and nurturing customers.

Capture Existing Demand:

In this stage, video serves as a tool to capture and retain the attention of an audience already expressing interest in your products or services. Utilize videos to succinctly showcase key features, highlight customer testimonials, and provide quick overviews that reinforce the value proposition, encouraging potential customers to move further down the funnel.

Create Demand and Increase Awareness:

Video plays a pivotal role in creating demand and increasing awareness. Develop compelling content that introduces your brand, explains unique selling points, and addresses pain points of your target audience. Engaging explainer videos, educational content, and visually appealing brand stories are essential to capture the attention of a wider audience and foster interest.

Manage and Nurture Leads:

As leads enter the nurturing phase, video content becomes a dynamic tool for maintaining engagement. Create personalized videos that guide leads through specific aspects of your offerings, addressing their concerns and providing valuable information. Utilize webinars and in-depth product demonstrations to deepen their understanding and build trust, ultimately moving them closer to conversion.

Manage and Nurture Customers:

Post-conversion, the role of video shifts towards customer satisfaction and retention. Develop onboarding videos to facilitate a smooth customer initiation. Provide educational resources, such as tutorials and how-to videos, to enhance the customer experience. Additionally, use video content to communicate updates, exclusive offers, and success stories, fostering an ongoing relationship and transforming customers into advocates for your brand.

By strategically incorporating video at each of these four stages, you can optimize its impact on your marketing efforts. Video content serves as a versatile medium that not only attracts new prospects but also nurtures and retains them, contributing to a holistic and effective marketing strategy.

Creating a Manufacturing Video Marketing Strategy

Define Your Objectives

Begin by setting clear and measurable goals. Whether it’s brand awareness, product promotion, or increased engagement, a well-defined objective is the foundation of a successful strategy.

Know Your Audience

Deepen your understanding of your target audience. Identify their pain points, preferences, and behaviors to tailor your content effectively.

Choose the Right Style

Align the style of your videos with your brand identity and the preferences of your audience. Whether it’s informational, emotional, or educational, consistency is key.

Select Distribution Channels

Choose platforms strategically based on your audience’s online habits. Whether it’s YouTube, LinkedIn, or your website, focus on platforms that align with your marketing goals.

Create a Content Calendar

Plan your video releases systematically. A well-structured content calendar ensures consistency, keeps your audience engaged, and enhances your brand’s visibility.

Optimize for SEO

Enhance the discoverability of your videos by incorporating relevant keywords in titles, descriptions, and transcripts. SEO optimization is integral to maximizing your video’s impact.

Engage Your Audience

Foster a sense of community around your brand by actively engaging with your audience through comments, shares, and discussions. This interaction builds trust and loyalty.

Analyze and Adapt

Regularly analyze video metrics to understand what resonates with your audience. Use this data to adapt your strategy continuously and improve the effectiveness of your video content.

How do you promote a product in a video? 

Below are some video ideas for manufacturers:

Product Demos

Present a detailed walkthrough of your product, highlighting its features and functionality.

Behind-the-Scenes

Offer a glimpse into your manufacturing process, emphasizing the craftsmanship and dedication behind your products.

Customer Testimonials

Feature satisfied clients sharing their success stories, building authenticity and trust.

Problems & solutions 

Provide a step-by-step visual account of your manufacturing process, explaining how your product solves the common challenges.

Tutorials and Innovative Applications

Showcase use cases of your products, inspiring your audience with the versatility of your offerings.

How Does Video Improve My SEO?

Video can have a positive impact on your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts in several ways:

Increased Engagement

Videos are inherently more engaging than text-based content. Users tend to spend more time on pages that include videos, which can reduce bounce rates and improve overall user engagement metrics. Search engines often prioritize pages with higher engagement in their rankings.

Diversified Content

Search engines like Google aim to provide a diverse range of content types in search results. By incorporating videos into your content strategy, you can diversify your content and increase the likelihood of ranking well in search results.

Rich Snippets

Google often displays rich snippets, which include video thumbnails, in search results. If your page includes a video, it may appear as a rich snippet, making your result more visually appealing and potentially attracting more clicks.

YouTube SEO

If you host your videos on YouTube (which is owned by Google), optimizing your videos for YouTube search can indirectly impact your overall SEO. YouTube videos can also appear in Google search results, providing additional opportunities for visibility.

Backlinks and Social Shares

Compelling videos have the potential to attract backlinks and social shares. When other websites link to your video content, it can positively impact your site’s authority and SEO. Social shares can also contribute to increased visibility and traffic.

Improved Dwell Time

Dwell time, the amount of time visitors spend on your site, is an important SEO metric. Videos can increase dwell time, especially if users watch the entire video or spend more time on your site exploring related content.

Mobile Optimization

With the increasing use of mobile devices, video content is well-suited for on-the-go users. Search engines often prioritize mobile-friendly content, and videos that are optimized for mobile can enhance the user experience, positively impacting SEO.

Keyword Optimization

Just like with text content, you can optimize videos for relevant keywords. Use descriptive titles, captions, and video transcripts to provide search engines with context about your video’s content.

Local SEO

If your business has a physical location, video content can be used to enhance local SEO efforts. Create videos that showcase your products or services, share customer testimonials, or highlight local events to attract local searches.

Remember that while videos can contribute to SEO, it’s essential to create high-quality, relevant, and valuable content. Also, ensure that your videos are properly optimized for search engines by incorporating relevant keywords, creating descriptive titles and descriptions, and providing transcripts when possible.

Getting Started With Manufacturing Video Marketing 

Ready to dive into manufacturing video marketing? Whether you need help understanding your customers, attracting new ones, keeping the ones you have, or growing your business, we’re here to team up with you. Let’s start the conversation!  Schedule a consultation with us today to begin improving your marketing.

Request the Case Study and Playbook


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How to Calculate Customer Lifetime Value https://www.oneims.com/how-to-calculate-customer-lifetime-value/ Mon, 25 Dec 2023 19:21:24 +0000 https://www.oneims.com/?p=23270 We all know our customers are valuable—but have you ever considered how valuable they are to the long-term growth and success of your business-to-business (B2B)? If you don’t know how much value a customer brings to your bottom line, it’s hard to tell if you’re investing in the buyers that will bring you the most […]

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We all know our customers are valuable—but have you ever considered how valuable they are to the long-term growth and success of your business-to-business (B2B)?

If you don’t know how much value a customer brings to your bottom line, it’s hard to tell if you’re investing in the buyers that will bring you the most revenue in their lifetime. But by calculating exactly how much revenue individual buyers or customer segments will generate over time, you can tailor your marketing and sales strategies to target the highly valuable customers who will help your business grow.

To estimate how much profit your business can expect to generate from your loyal customers, turn to the B2B customer lifetime value metric.

What Is Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or CLTV)?

Customer lifetime value (CLV or CLTV) is the total revenue a business can expect to receive from an individual customer or segment of buyers throughout the course of the relationship. This valuable metric helps your B2B company understand how profitable particular customers or groups are over time—and how much profit you can actually expect, on average, from your customers.

The longer a buyer continues to purchase your company’s products or services, the more their CLV increases.

Knowing the value of your average customers and identifying your most loyal segments makes it easier for your business to allocate resources and invest in strategies that boost customer retention.

Essential Components of B2B Customer Lifetime Value

Before you can measure CLV for your B2B business, there are a few calculations you have to make first.

Keep in mind that the accuracy of these numbers will directly correlate to the accuracy of your CLV calculation, so be as precise as possible when making estimations—establish a reliable way to track and analyze customer data to help reduce the risk of errors.

Customer Value: Revenue Generated from the Customer

The first number you need for the CLV formula is the customer value (CV). CV is the average revenue generated from the customer or buyer segment. To calculate CV, start by calculating two values: average purchase value (APV) and the average purchase frequency rate (APFR).

Average Purchase Value (APV)

The APV is an estimation of the average amount of revenue a customer generates during a specific time period. Use the following formula to find APV:

Average Purchase Value Formula

Average Purchase Frequency Rate (APFR)

The APFR, also referred to as the average number of purchases, estimates the number of purchases made by unique customers during an allotted time and is calculated as follows:

Average Purchase Frequency Rate

Customer Value (CV)

When used as part of calculating CV, both APV and APFR must cover averages over the same timeframe.

After you have estimated APV and APFR, you can calculate CV with the following formula:

Customer Value Formula

The CV is the first number required to calculate CLV.

Average Customer Lifespan: Length of Customer Relationship

The second number required for the CLV formula is the customer lifespan, which describes the average length of time a customer continues to purchase your products or services.

To calculate customer lifespan, determine the average number of years a customer stays active with your B2B company and then consider your total number of customers. Use the following formula:

How to Calculate Average Customer Lifespan

The resulting figure is the average lifespan of a customer’s relationship with your business.

Costs Associated with Customer Acquisition & Retention

While the CLV formula does not factor in the costs to acquire and retain customers, it can be useful in some business situations—such as in budget discussions—to consider these elements in your CLV analysis.

One option is to subtract acquisition and retention costs from CLV. The resulting number will help your business compare how much it costs to acquire and retain a customer versus how much revenue that same customer is expected to generate for the company.

Calculating Customer Lifetime Value for B2B Companies

Now that you have used customer data and analysis tools to estimate CV and average customer lifespan, you can start calculating CLV and use the results to guide your long-term B2B growth strategy.

Customer Lifetime Value Formula

Among B2B companies, the most popular method of finding CLV is with the following easy formula:

Customer Lifetime Value Formula

The result is a monetary value that represents the revenue you can expect the average customer to generate throughout their entire relationship with your business.

Other Metrics Impacting Customer Lifetime Value

CLV works hand in hand with other metrics to provide a comprehensive look at your business’s ability to generate revenue over time. Consider calculating these metrics as well to support your findings and provide additional data-driven insights.

Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA)

Some B2B companies in various industries, such as SaaS businesses, use the average revenue per account (ARPA) metric instead of CV in the CLV formula. After finding ARPA, you can multiply the result by the average customer lifespan number to find CLV.

Churn Rate

A business’s customer churn rate is the percentage of customers who end their relationship with the company in a certain time period. Since customer lifespan is a significant factor in the CLV calculation, reducing the overall churn rate increases your CLV.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) represents how much it costs, on average, to acquire a new customer. Comparing CAC and CLV will reveal how long it takes for a customer to generate enough revenue for your business that it covers the initial costs of acquiring that customer.

Customer Retention Rate

The customer retention rate indicates the percentage of customers who continue purchasing your products or services over a given time period. It’s a simple calculation—dividing the total number of customers at the end of the timeframe by the number of customers you started with and multiplying that number by 100 to get a percentage. The result reveals how well you retain existing customers, which is as critically important to growth as acquiring new ones.

The Importance of Calculating CLV in B2B Marketing & Sales

CLV is an important metric for any B2B business. Let’s take a closer look at how your organization can use CLV as part of your long-term growth plan.

Make Strategic Decisions

With CLV, you can identify customer loyalty and retention issues, better understand customer behavior, and analyze customer spending patterns. The insights this metric provides can lead to improved data-driven decision-making as well as growth-focused marketing and sales strategies.

Take a Customer-Centric Approach

CLV helps you identify and target your ideal customers—those who bring the most revenue to your business. This metric makes it easier to segment customers based on needs, preferences, profitability, and behavior and then develop customer acquisition and retention strategies via customer-driven marketing designed to specifically target that segment of buyers.

Maximize Long-Term Revenue & Profitability

Over time, higher CLVs will lead to increased revenue. A higher CLV indicates more value that the customer brings during that time frame—in other words, more revenue. Thanks to CLV, your B2B business can target those customers that bring in the most revenue to your company. After you identify your high-value customers, you can create retention, upselling, and cross-selling strategies that cater to that audience.

Strategies B2B Companies Can Use to Enhance CLV

Using these proven strategies, you can increase your business’s average CLV and generate more revenue.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Strategies

Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms are designed to help organizations manage and optimize their interactions, communications, and relationships with customers as well as their data. As these systems centralize and organize your customer data, you can leverage them to improve your CLV rates in a variety of ways—from analyzing purchasing behaviors to creating a seamless customer experience.

Personalization & Customized Offerings

Personalization is key to both customer retention and ensuring customers have a positive, engaging experience. B2B buyers are looking for more personalized relationships with companies and are more likely to stay with a company that they feel values them. Create a more personalized experience for your customers by engaging with them on social media, using marketing automation to address their unique pain points, and personalize product and service recommendations to encourage them to spend more money on your business in the long run.

Value-Added Services & Upselling

Provide valuable content, personalized upselling opportunities, and exciting upgrades to existing customers. These strategies keep your current customers engaged and loyal to your business, boosting total revenue as well as CLV.

Customer Retention Initiatives

Higher CLV relies on long-lasting relationships with existing customers. If a customer makes frequent purchases at your company but leaves in just a few months, their lifetime value is still low. Increasing customer loyalty, ensuring a smooth customer experience, and maintaining a high retention rate are essential to enhancing CLV.

Challenges in Determining & Utilizing CLV in B2B Marketing & Sales

The B2B landscape has unique challenges that can make calculating and leveraging CLV difficult.

Complexities in the B2B Sales Cycle

The B2B sales cycle is complex, inconsistent, and constantly changing alongside customer buying patterns. These complexities can complicate the process of calculating APV and APFR. Use CRM platforms, marketing automation systems, and customer data to make accurate estimates in the face of the complicated B2B sales cycle.

Multiple Decision-Makers & Stakeholders

B2B purchases involve multiple decision-makers and stakeholders, all who give input and have opinions—sometimes conflicting—about the purchase. Transforming the idea of an individual “customer” to a company may require adjustments to CLV metric calculations, so look at historical data to maintain consistency across data points.

Data Accuracy & Reliability

Accurate CLV measurements require accurate, reliable data. But limited or inaccurate customer data, short relationships, and conflicting data sources can distort your calculations. To ensure data is accurate, invest in the right tools to collect and organize customer data, create workflows to collect and manage data, and update databases regularly to maintain data integrity.

Conclusion

CLV is an incredibly powerful metric that B2B companies can use to make strategic decisions, target your ideal customers, and maximize revenue—essential components to achieving long-term, sustainable growth. Once you learn how to calculate customer lifetime value, you will know how to identify highly valuable customers and can start focusing your marketing and sales efforts on acquiring (and retaining) these revenue-generating buyers.

Need help acquiring and retaining customers? We’re ready to partner with you.

At OneIMS, we designed the growth formula framework to support your business’s growth goals. By following our proven formula, your business will acquire new buyers, retain existing customers, optimize revenue, and focus on sustainable growth.

Ready to learn more? Let OneIMS be your growth partner. Schedule a consultation with us today to get started.

Request the Case Study and Playbook


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How to Use Social Media to Boost Your Manufacturing Brand Awareness https://www.oneims.com/how-to-use-social-media-to-boost-your-manufacturing-brand-awareness/ Fri, 22 Dec 2023 22:03:41 +0000 https://www.oneims.com/?p=23261 Ever wondered how social media can help your manufacturing business grow? This may sound a bit unexpected, but the connection between manufacturing and social media holds immense potential. A solid online presence can make your brand more visible and allow you to connect with customers in a whole new way. Many manufacturing leaders are on […]

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Ever wondered how social media can help your manufacturing business grow?

This may sound a bit unexpected, but the connection between manufacturing and social media holds immense potential. A solid online presence can make your brand more visible and allow you to connect with customers in a whole new way.

Many manufacturing leaders are on the fence when it comes to this topic. Let’s explore how these two seemingly different worlds can work together for your business’s benefit.

We’ll break down how you can leverage social media for manufacturing industry.

How Does Social Media Help Build a Business?

To answer this question, we need to get technical. Let’s talk about the difference between the intent channel and the awareness channel.

Intent Channels

Platforms like Search Engines fall into the category of intent channels. These are spaces where individuals actively seek solutions to their problems. Think of it as a virtual marketplace where users are on a mission to find answers.

Awareness Channels

Social media platforms are awareness channels. These platforms are where people casually learn rather than make quick purchases. Even though they aren’t for immediate buying decisions, they have a big impact on making people aware of brands and solutions.

Some Channels are Mixed

Not all channels fit neatly into one category. Take YouTube, for example. It’s a mix, serving both as an awareness and intent channel because it allows users to search for specific content. Similarly, many social platforms are changing, blurring the lines between awareness and intent channels. Features like search and filters based on keywords, hashtags, or interests reshape these platforms.

While intent channels are where customers actively look for solutions, awareness channels are where they engage in industry conversations and trends. Your business should navigate both areas strategically, using social media not just for promotion but also to build connections, stay relevant, and position yourself as an authority in your field.

Which Social Networks Are the Most Relevant to the Manufacturing Industry?

Finding the right channels can be a game-changer for your brand. Let’s dive into the top five social media platforms crafted specifically for manufacturers and discover why an active social media presence matters to you.

LinkedIn: Professional Network

LinkedIn is your primary platform for connecting with industry professionals, showcasing your expertise, and cultivating vital B2B relationships. In this professional setting, share industry insights, company updates, and thought leadership content. Being active on LinkedIn enhances your brand’s credibility and encourages collaboration within the manufacturing community.

YouTube: Visual Storytelling

YouTube serves as the ideal canvas for visually showcasing your manufacturing processes. Create informative and engaging content, such as product demonstrations, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and success stories, to captivate your audience. Leveraging YouTube’s extensive reach ensures your brand gains visibility within the industry and attracts potential clients and partners.

X (former Twitter): Real-Time Communication

Twitter, which recently transitioned to X, provides an opportunity for real-time updates, industry news, and engaging conversations with a broad audience. Craft concise and compelling tweets to amplify your brand’s reach and participate in relevant trending topics. This platform allows you to establish your brand as a thought leader within the manufacturing industry.

Instagram: Aesthetic Branding

While traditionally linked with lifestyle and fashion, Instagram has become a potent platform for visual storytelling in various industries, including manufacturing. Showcase the artistic aspects of your brand by sharing high-quality images and videos highlighting your products, team, and company culture. Instagram’s visually-driven approach enables you to humanize your brand and connect with audiences on a more personal level.

Facebook: Community Building

With its expansive user base, Facebook remains a crucial platform for creating a community around your brand. Establish a Facebook business page to share updates, and industry news, and engage with your audience through comments and discussions. Leverage Facebook Groups to foster a community where your customers, partners, and enthusiasts can share experiences, pose questions, and connect with your brand.

So what channel should you choose? No one can really tell. Depending on your product, your ideal social media might not even be on this list.

Hint: Test different channels and analyze the engagement. Be where your customers are at.

Why Is Social Media for Manufacturing Important?

A strong social media presence enhances your brand’s visibility, fosters community engagement, and establishes your authority within the industry. It’s a dynamic tool that allows you to showcase your expertise, connect with your audience, and stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market

How Do I Promote My Manufacturing Business on Social Media?

In the past, the opportunity to showcase your expertise was limited to occasional appearances on conference stages. However, with social media, you now possess the ability to demonstrate your manufacturing prowess at scale, 24/7. It’s a dynamic shift that allows you to connect with your audience, share insights, and build your brand continuously. As you embark on your social media marketing journey, here are five essential steps to get started:

Define Your Objectives

Begin by clearly outlining your social media marketing objectives. Whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving lead generation, or fostering industry connections, having specific and measurable goals is crucial. Understanding your objectives will guide your content strategy and help you measure the success of your social media efforts.

Identify Your Target Audience

Knowing your audience is the cornerstone of effective social media marketing. Identify the key demographics, interests, and challenges of your target audience. Tailor your content to address their needs and interests. This targeted approach ensures that your social media efforts resonate with the right people, leading to increased engagement and a more impactful online presence.

Choose the Right Platforms

Not all social media platforms are created equal, and choosing the right ones for your manufacturing business is essential. Consider where your target audience is most active and tailor your strategy accordingly. LinkedIn might be ideal for B2B connections, while Instagram could be a great platform for showcasing your visually appealing manufacturing processes. Allocate your resources wisely by focusing on the platforms that align with your goals and audience.

Craft Compelling Content

Content is king in the realm of social media marketing. Develop a content strategy that showcases your expertise, highlights your products, and provides value to your audience. Use a mix of visual content, such as images and videos, to keep your audience engaged. Consistency is key, so establish a content calendar to maintain a regular posting schedule.

Engage and Build Relationships

People buy from the people they like and trust. The more they see you, the more likely they are to buy from you. But remember that social media is a two-way street. Engage with your audience by responding to comments, and messages, and participating in relevant discussions.

Building relationships fosters trust and loyalty. Collaborate with influencers, industry partners, and other businesses to expand your reach. Actively seek out opportunities to connect with your audience, both online and offline, to strengthen your brand’s presence in the manufacturing community.

Does Social Media Work for Manufacturers?

Yes! Your buyers are real people too. However, just like any other marketing strategy, it’s not a magic pill. Here’s what you need to know about social media marketing for industrial companies and what mindset you should have to succeed in it.

Maximize Social Channels for Content Distribution

  • See social channels not as direct response platforms but as vehicles to repurpose and distribute your content effectively, reaching your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
  • Leverage the unique features of each platform to amplify your message and widen your audience reach.

Position Yourself as the Subject Matter Expert

  • Use these platforms strategically to position yourself as a subject matter expert in your industry.
  • Share insights, thought leadership, and valuable information to establish authority and credibility among your audience.

Prioritize Helpfulness Over Salesmanship

  • Avoid coming off as needy or overly sales-focused; instead, focus on being genuinely helpful.
  • Offer solutions, answer queries, and provide value to your audience. The trust you build will naturally lead to long-term brand loyalty.

Understand the Long-Term Play of ROI

  • Realize that Return on Investment (ROI) in social media is a long-term endeavor, not an immediate guarantee.
  • Patience is key; by consistently delivering valuable content, you’re investing in building lasting relationships and brand equity.

Adopt a Long-Term Mindset

  • Resist the temptation to seek quick returns on social media. Instead, adopt a long-term horizon for your strategy.
  • Recognize that you’re not just making transactions; you’re building an empire. Sustainable growth requires a strategic, forward-looking mindset.

Build Brand Equity and Trust Gradually

  • Acknowledge that becoming a subject matter expert and gaining brand equity and trust is a monumental achievement that doesn’t happen overnight.
  • Consistent, authentic engagement and content sharing contribute to the gradual establishment of your brand as a trusted authority.

Tailor Content for Platform Relevance

  • Create content that seamlessly integrates with each platform’s native format.
  • Repurpose content strategically to ensure it’s not only relevant but also engaging for the specific platform and its diverse audience.

Remember, you’re not just navigating social media; you’re building a robust empire. Approach each step with confidence, knowing that the long-term value you cultivate is the cornerstone of your success in the digital realm.

Industrial Manufacturers: Posting Ideas for Social Media

As industrial manufacturers, navigating the social media landscape may initially seem like uncharted territory, but with a strategic approach, you can turn your platforms into powerful tools for brand promotion and community engagement. Here are some tailored posting ideas to fuel your social media content:

Product Showcase Videos

Create visually appealing videos highlighting your manufacturing processes and showcasing your products in action. Emphasize quality, precision, and unique features.

Behind-the-Scenes Content

Offer a behind-the-scenes look into your manufacturing facility. Share images of your team at work, machinery in action, and the dedication that goes into producing your goods.

Educational Content

Share informative posts that explain complex manufacturing concepts, industry trends, or the benefits of your products. Simplify technical information for a broader audience.

Customer Testimonials

Feature satisfied customers in video testimonials or written success stories. Showcase real-world applications of your products and the positive impact they’ve had on businesses.

Employee Spotlights

Introduce your team members through spotlights. Highlight their expertise, roles, and contributions. This personal touch humanizes your brand and establishes a connection with your audience.

Industry News and Updates

Share relevant industry news, updates, and your insights on emerging trends. Position your business as an authoritative source for industry information, fostering trust among your followers.

Live Q&A Sessions

Host live question-and-answer sessions on platforms like Instagram or Facebook. Engage with your audience, address their queries about your industry, products, or company, and foster a sense of transparency.

Interactive Polls and Surveys

Create polls and surveys to gather insights from your audience. Ask about preferences, industry challenges, or opinions on new product features. Use the data to tailor your strategies.

Boost Your Online Presence with the Growth Formula

Growth formula framework

In realizing the immense potential of social media for manufacturing, we’ve not only explored the landscape but also crafted a robust Growth Formula Framework to guide your journey toward digital success.

Customer acquisition and retention are at the core of your growth strategy. Our comprehensive approach involves:

Capture Existing Demand:

  • Optimize your online presence with a robust SEO strategy.
  • Utilize targeted Google Search Ads to capture immediate demand.
  • Identify and leverage intent channels beyond Google to reach potential customers actively seeking solutions.

Create Problem and Solution Awareness and Demand:

  • Implement content marketing campaigns across various channels.
  • Develop valuable lead magnets to guide potential customers toward solutions.

Create Brand Awareness:

  • Showcase your expertise through thought leadership content.
  • Actively engage on social media platforms to amplify your brand message.

Manage and Nurture Leads:

  • Implement a robust lead segmentation strategy.
  • Develop nurturing campaigns through automated email drips and retargeting ads.

Manage and Nurture Customers:

  • Identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities based on customer behavior.
  • Implement customer advocacy programs to turn satisfied customers into advocates.
  • Establish continuous communication strategies to keep customers engaged.

At OneIMS, we’ve integrated these strategies into our proven framework, providing the right balance for manufacturers seeking growth in the digital world. Our approach ensures a tailored and effective marketing strategy, addressing every aspect of the customer journey.

Discover how we’ve helped manufacturers like you achieve remarkable growth in the digital landscape. Click here to read our successful case study.

Request the Case Study and Playbook


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Content Marketing for Manufacturers https://www.oneims.com/content-marketing-for-manufacturers/ https://www.oneims.com/content-marketing-for-manufacturers/#respond Fri, 22 Dec 2023 20:12:16 +0000 https://www.oneims.com/?p=20546 Today, B2B buyers perform research online before making purchases. As a result, you have to show up with relevant information when they need it. Without exaggerating, one of the best ways to connect with potential buyers is to provide valuable content. This way, it becomes easier to convince them to buy from your business. Now, […]

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Today, B2B buyers perform research online before making purchases. As a result, you have to show up with relevant information when they need it. Without exaggerating, one of the best ways to connect with potential buyers is to provide valuable content. This way, it becomes easier to convince them to buy from your business.

Now, content marketing for manufacturers is a marketing tactic that’s easy to talk about but difficult to execute. You have to create content with the right information and ensure it’s available to your ideal audience.

That said, content marketing for manufacturers is highly beneficial if you use the right strategy. In this guide, you’ll find some practical recommendations for achieving the best possible results from your content marketing campaigns.

Importance of Content Marketing for Manufacturers

Picture this: amidst the noise of a competitive market, your content stands out as a beacon of knowledge and reliability. That’s the power of content marketing for manufacturers. It goes beyond building brand awareness; it establishes you as a trusted industry expert, fostering enduring relationships with your clients.

What is content marketing in the manufacturing industry?

In the manufacturing arena, content marketing takes on a unique persona. It’s about translating the intricacies of technical jargon into content that resonates with engineers, procurement professionals, and decision-makers. From comprehensive white papers to compelling case studies, your content needs to be a beacon of clarity, addressing the specific challenges and requirements of your manufacturing audience. Here’s what makes manufacturing marketing so unique. 

Technical Expertise: 

Dive deep into the technical nuances of your industry. Your content should exude a profound understanding of product specifications, manufacturing processes, and industry standards.

Visual Appeal: 

Words are powerful, but visuals add an extra dimension. Incorporate infographics, videos, and 3D animations to simplify complex concepts and engage your audience visually.

Thought Leadership: 

In the manufacturing world, establishing thought leadership is not optional—it’s a necessity. Provide insights into industry trends, innovations, and best practices to position yourself as the go-to authority. Elevating your brand from being a participant in the industry to a trailblazing leader requires a strategic approach to thought leadership content.

What is thought leadership in marketing?

Thought leadership is more than just a buzzword; it’s a strategic positioning that places your brand at the forefront of industry conversations. It involves becoming a trusted source of insights, expertise, and innovative ideas. Thought leaders don’t just follow trends; they set them. This approach not only enhances brand credibility but also fosters a sense of trust and respect among your target audience.

Content Research for B2B Manufacturing

Now, let’s talk about the backbone of effective content marketing: research.

Audience Analysis: Create Manufacturing Buyer Personas

To create compelling content, you need to understand your audience. Otherwise, you’ll end up creating content they can’t relate to. And ultimately, you’ll waste your time and resources.

Having a buyer persona helps you understand the types of messages and offers that will resonate with your audience. Likewise, you can easily determine the tone to use. Should it be informal or formal?

What details do you need in your buyer persona? Here are some of them:

  • Name
  • Job
  • Age
  • Income
  • Marital status
  • Favorite marketing channels
  • Location
  • Ambition
  • Pain points
  • Hobbies
  • Dislikes 

There are even more details you can add to your buyer personas. The aim here is to make your buyer personas as detailed as possible.

Since a few people are involved in B2B purchases, you should create buyer personas to represent each party. Generally, there are two steps to create your buyer persona.

First, you can enter the details of who you think your ideal customer should be. This can be after research into people at your target companies.

Second, you can look at your current customers and find trends common to them. Here’s a buyer persona example from Buffer:

Manufacturing Buyer Persona

By creating buyer personas, you can adapt your content and content marketing strategies to your ideal customer.

Competitor Analysis: 

Even if you have a great content marketing strategy, there’s still a lot to learn from your competitors. For example, some of your competitors have achieved better results from their content marketing campaigns.

What can you learn from high-performing competitors? Some aspects of their strategies to study include:

  • Keywords they rank for
  • Top-performing pieces of content
  • Publishing frequency
  • Top keywords they rank for
  • Top keywords they don’t rank for
  • Content promotion strategy
  • Discover content gaps using a tool like SEMrush 

Now, you’ll need to use tools and observe your competitors’ activities to understand their strategy. To make competitive analysis more effective, you can create a document for a few of your competitors.

CHECK THIS: Definitive Guide to Marketing Your Manufacturing Company

Keyword Research: 

Think of keywords as your digital breadcrumbs. Utilize them strategically to optimize your content for search engines and enhance visibility.

Industry Trends:

Stay on the cutting edge. Regularly update your knowledge on the latest trends, technologies, and market shifts within the manufacturing sector.

How to Develop a Content Marketing Strategy

Now that we’ve laid the foundation, it’s time to delve into the strategic realm of content marketing for manufacturers. Brace yourself as we navigate the crucial steps that will elevate your content game and propel your brand to new heights.

1. Define the buying process

It’s a known fact, B2B buyers require a long sales cycle before purchasing products. At different stages of the sales cycle, they need content to move towards the purchase.

While every product has a sales cycle, there are slight variations across industries. For your manufacturing company, you need to define the buying process for your products.

For a start, you can use the general framework for the buying process. This includes the stages of the sales funnel, which are:

  • Top of the sales funnel
  • Middle of the sales funnel
  • Bottom of the sales funnel

Across these three stages of the sales funnel, potential buyers go from becoming aware of your business to buying your products. These stages include processes such as:

  • Awareness
  • Interest
  • Desire
  • Action
  • Retention

Once you define the buying process for your manufacturing product, you need to create relevant content at each stage. Unsurprisingly, marketers create more content at the top of the sales funnel. 

For instance, Manufacturing Content Marketing 2020 study by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) revealed that marketers create 50% of their content at the top of the sales funnel.

Manufacturing content marketing

This could be because there are more people at the top of the sales funnel. Most importantly, you need to provide the necessary information at each stage to move prospects towards the sale.

READ THIS: Digital Marketing for Manufacturer

2.  Have a documented content marketing strategy

With the many choices in content marketing, it’s easy to run inefficient campaigns. Fortunately, you can eliminate these issues by having a documented content marketing strategy.

Unfortunately, only 41% of manufacturing marketers have a documented content marketing strategy in their organization, according to CMI’s study.

Content Marketing Strategy for Manufacturing

Having a documented content marketing strategy allows you to define vital details such as:

  • Content marketing goals
  • Content types
  • Content calendar 
  • Content marketing channels
  • Team members and assigned tasks
  • Publishing frequency


By having these details in a document, you’ll have more focused content marketing campaigns. For instance, you can easily see the next task and the team member to execute it.

Consequently, you’ll increase the chances of achieving better results from your content marketing campaigns.

RELATED: B2B Content Marketing: The Ultimate Guide to Generating Leads and Revenue With Content

3. Use various manufacturing content types

Ultimately, content is the fuel that runs content marketing. If your content is poor, no amount of marketing can deliver your intended results. In fact, promoting poor content can hurt your company’s reputation.

Apart from having the right content, there are many ways to present them. Furthermore, some content types are more suitable to particular stages of the sales funnel.

Content Ideas for Manufacturing Companies to Drive Leads

Now that we’ve laid the groundwork for content creation and distribution, let’s delve into practical content ideas specifically tailored for manufacturing companies. These strategies are designed not only to engage your audience but to drive valuable leads into your sales funnel.

Blog posts

This is one of the most popular and effective ways to reach your ideal audience. By using blog posts, you can provide relevant information and attract more visitors to your website.

According to a HubSpot study, businesses that use blogs as part of their content marketing get 67% more leads than those that don’t. To illustrate, here’s Huawei’s blog:

Huawei blog Content

Apart from your blog posts, executives can also write guest posts for other industry blogs. This will help improve your reputation and attract new leads.

READ THIS: How To Optimize Content For Your Manufacturing Company

Podcasts: Expert Interviews and Industry Insights:

Position your company as an industry authority by conducting interviews with key experts within your organization or industry. Share their insights on current trends, innovations, and challenges, showcasing your company’s thought leadership.

With people living busy lives, they want to consume content while doing other things. That’s why podcasts have become popular over the years. 

According to Edison Research and Triton Digital survey, 104 million Americans listen to podcasts monthly. On your podcast episodes, you can invite industry experts to provide their expertise on many industry issues.

Podcast Content Marketing Trends

This will help increase your audience base and acquire more leads.

RELATED: Why Your Business Needs a Podcast

Educational Webinars, Workshops, and Whitepapers:

Host webinars or virtual workshops that address common pain points within the manufacturing sector. Offer practical solutions, share best practices, and position your company as a valuable resource for industry professionals seeking knowledge.

Another type of educational content is whitepapers. 

This is a technical paper about a manufacturing product or concept. It requires a lot of research and provides technical details about a product.

You’ll find whitepapers helpful at the bottom of the sales funnel when prospects want to make their buying decision. Likewise, it can be a lead magnet.

Here’s a whitepaper from Bastian Solutions about exploiting advanced automation:

Bastian Whitepaper

Interactive Tools and Calculators:

Develop interactive tools or calculators that help your audience assess their needs or calculate cost savings. This type of content not only engages your audience but also provides them with a tangible benefit, positioning your brand as a problem-solving partner.

Case Studies and Success Stories:

Highlight your successful collaborations and projects through detailed case studies. Showcase the challenges faced, the solutions provided, and the measurable outcomes. This not only demonstrates your capabilities but also builds trust with potential clients.

 Another type of content similar to this is testimonials. Here’s a case study from Bastian Solutions showing business challenges, key technologies, and results.

Manufacturing Content Marketing Example

Behind-the-Scenes Content:

Humanize your brand by sharing behind-the-scenes content. Take your audience on a virtual tour of your manufacturing facility, introduce key team members, and provide insights into your company culture. This creates a connection and fosters transparency.

FAQs and Troubleshooting Guides:

Anticipate the needs of your audience by creating comprehensive FAQs and troubleshooting guides. Address common questions or concerns your clients might have, positioning your brand as a reliable source of information and support.

Remember, the key to successful content is to align it with your overall business goals, address the needs of your audience, and provide genuine value.

Images

When people say content, most people assume it’s written. However, there are other forms of content apart from the written format.

Images make it easy to present content in an easy-to-consume format. 

A type of image you can exploit is infographics. Infographics help you to present concepts through visual elements. Here’s an infographic explaining injection molding:

Infographics for Manufacturing content marketing c

Videos

Over the years, videos have become a popular content format with buyers. For example, a HubSpot study revealed that 54% of consumers expect videos from businesses.

Video Content for Manufacturing Businesses

For your manufacturing company, there are many video applications. Through videos, you can show your audience behind the scenes, your product in operation, product demo, customer interviews, and more.

Another form of videos is webinars. These are online seminars to provide value to your audience about the manufacturing industry. 

4. Create a content marketing calendar

Frankly, content marketing takes time before you obtain considerable results. And to even get those results, you have to run content marketing campaigns consistently.

One way to achieve consistency is to create a content marketing calendar. On this calendar, you can add content tasks and assign them to your team members.

In addition to that, you have the option to set deadlines. This way, you can plan your content marketing campaigns over weeks and execute accordingly.

5. Promote content to your audience

While creating great content is critical to the success of your content marketing campaigns, content promotion is just as vital. If you wait for visitors to come to your website themselves, you’ll obtain poor results.

After creating your content, you need to share it on platforms where you can reach your ideal audience. For most manufacturers, common strategies to promote your content include:

  • Social media
  • Email sequences
  • Search engine optimization 
  • Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing

If you’re using HubSpot as your content management system, you have the option to promote your content through email sequences. Likewise, you can share on your social media accounts.

Manufacturing Content Promotion

Source: HubSpot

By promoting your content, you can attract more visitors to your website and increase your chances of converting them.

6. Track your content marketing performance

After your campaigns, you need to know if you’ve achieved your intended results. That’s why tracking vital metrics is essential to your campaigns.

Of course, the metrics you track will depend on your content marketing goals. For example, are you looking to build brand awareness or acquire leads?

Once you track these metrics, you can determine whether your content marketing campaigns have been successful or not. Moreso, you can obtain insights from your current campaigns. Consequently, you’ll have information to improve your future campaigns.

If you’re looking for a robust tool, then Google Analytics can measure most of the metrics on your website. 

Google Analytics Tracking

You can also track conversions and how visitors navigate your website. 

RELATED: 10 Best B2B Marketing Analytics Tools You Need to Know

SEO for Manufacturers

Optimizing your content for search engines is a fundamental aspect of content marketing:

Keyword Optimization:

Incorporate relevant keywords naturally into your content to enhance its searchability. Understand the keywords your audience uses and integrate them seamlessly into your content. This involves:

  • Conducting keyword research to identify high-value target keywords. Look for phrases with healthy search volume that align with your offerings.
  • Using keywords naturally throughout your content. Include them in headings, opening paragraphs, image names, meta descriptions, alt text etc. Avoid over-optimization.
  • Updating on-page content over time to target new opportunities and shifting search trends.
  • Ensuring website architecture and URLs reflect keyword themes – e.g. /services/packaging-machinery-maintenance/
  • Building internal links between related content using anchor text with primary and secondary keywords.
  • Monitoring keyword rankings regularly and doubling down on terms driving conversions.

Quality Backlinks:

Earning backlinks from trusted industry websites amplifies your authority and improves search visibility. Useful strategies include:

  • Producing truly useful, engaging content that sites are eager to reference. Offer unique insights, data, tips etc.
  • Reaching out respectfully to relevant sites to share your content and suggest potential partnerships.
  • Promoting your best content through social media to spark interest.
  • Building relationships with influencers, analysts and publishers in your space. Offer value before requesting links.
  • Contributing guest posts to reputable trade publications that allow links back to your site. Pitch relevant ideas tailored to each outlet.
  • Monitoring competitors’ backlinks and identifying trusted sites you can earn placements on.
  • Participating actively in relevant online communities and forums by sharing expertise.

The focus should be on building quality backlinks slowly over time from reputable sources, rather than bulk low-quality links. Patience and persistence pay off.

Mobile Optimization:

Ensure your content is easily accessible and navigable on mobile devices. With an increasing number of users accessing content on mobile, mobile optimization is crucial for a positive user experience.

As we conclude this segment on content creation and distribution, remember that the journey doesn’t end with creation—it extends to effective distribution and optimization

Implementing the Growth Formula Framework in Manufacturing Marketing:

In the dynamic realm of manufacturing, achieving digital growth demands a strategic and holistic approach. Our Growth Formula Framework provides a roadmap for success, balancing key elements to drive sustained growth.

1. Capture Existing Demand:

  • Optimize your website for organic search with a robust SEO strategy.
  • Run targeted Google Search Ads to capture the immediate demand.
  • Engage in industry-specific forums and social media groups beyond Google.

2. Create Problem and Solution Awareness and Demand:

  • Develop a content calendar addressing industry challenges through blogs, whitepapers, and webinars.
  • Create lead magnets such as ebooks and guides to attract and capture leads.

3. Create Brand Awareness:

  • Regularly produce thought leadership content through articles, videos, and podcasts.
  • Engage on social media platforms to amplify your brand message.

4. Manage and Nurture Leads:

  • Implement a CRM system for lead segmentation based on demographics and behavior.
  • Set up automated email drip campaigns and retargeting ads.

5. Manage and Nurture Customers:

  • Analyze customer behavior for cross-selling and upselling opportunities.
  • Develop customer advocacy programs for reviews, testimonials, and referrals.
  • Maintain continuous communication through regular updates and exclusive offers.

Conclusion

If you want to provide relevant information to convert and connect with your audience, content marketing is your best bet. First, however, you need to execute content marketing the right way to derive these benefits.

In this guide of content marketing for manufacturer, we’ve presented valuable tips you can implement in your campaigns today. And if you find it overwhelming to create content for your manufacturing company, you can reach out to us. 

Request the Case Study and Playbook


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How to Create an Effective B2B Customer Acquisition Strategy https://www.oneims.com/how-to-create-an-effective-b2b-customer-acquisition-strategy/ Thu, 21 Dec 2023 18:46:26 +0000 https://www.oneims.com/?p=23253 Growing your business takes more than a good website, charming sales representatives, and a few followers on social media. If your business-to-business (B2B) wants to grow sustainably, predictably, and meaningfully, your company must focus on developing a strategic plan to acquire new buyers, retain existing customers, and generate more revenue. Of course, that’s easier said […]

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Growing your business takes more than a good website, charming sales representatives, and a few followers on social media. If your business-to-business (B2B) wants to grow sustainably, predictably, and meaningfully, your company must focus on developing a strategic plan to acquire new buyers, retain existing customers, and generate more revenue.

Of course, that’s easier said than done.

Recruiting new business can be especially difficult for B2B companies. The B2B space comes with unique challenges in the customer acquisition process, from lengthy sales cycles and multiple stakeholders to tough negotiations and high levels of competition, that makes it hard to draw in, educate, and convert new buyers.

To succeed in this landscape, your business needs to implement a customer acquisition strategy that is built on a long-term revenue growth framework.

What Is a B2B Customer Acquisition Strategy?

A B2B customer acquisition strategy is a plan that defines the approach and tactics used by B2B businesses to successfully acquire customers. It includes identifying your target audience, educating them about how your products or services will solve their problems, and leading them down the path to conversion.

It’s important to note that customer acquisition strategies are ongoing—not a one-time event. Producing new business requires consistent, tenacious, and persistent effort to see success.

B2B customer acquisition strategies should also be scalable. As your B2B organization acquires new customers and continues to grow, your customer acquisition process must be able to keep up with the expansion.

7 Tactics to Improve B2B Customer Acquisition

An effective B2B customer acquisition strategy involves implementing a variety of tactics, methods, and channels to attract new leads and convert them into customers. Reach your target audience and engage with potential buyers by putting these B2B customer acquisition tactics into play.

1. Understanding the Target Audience

Understanding your target audience is an important first step in customer acquisition. By knowing the needs, preferences, pain points, and desires of your ideal buyers, you can better tailor your marketing efforts and maximize the effectiveness of your customer acquisition efforts.

Conduct marketing research and then create buyer personas, negative buyer personas, and ideal customer profiles (ICPs) to guide your approach to each audience segment. Include factors such as industry, job title, budget, location, pain points, needs, and company size as part of your personas and ICP.

2. Crafting Value Propositions

What sets your B2B business apart from the crowd? Why should buyers purchase your company’s products or services? What unique value are you offering customers?

Defining your unique selling position (USP)—the benefits and advantages of your solutions compared to competitors—you can distinguish yourself in the market and increase your chances of acquiring new customers.

The key to crafting value propositions is to clearly articulate the value your business provides to buyers. Then, with your USP in hand, develop messaging that resonates with your target audience and effectively communicates your competitive edge.

3. Selecting Acquisition Channels

Using the right channels to reach and engage with your target audience is essential to B2B customer acquisition success. Depending on where your ideal customers spend their time, a variety of offline and online channels may be a good fit for your customer acquisition efforts.

Online channels:

Offline channels:

  • Industry events and conferences
  • Trade shows
  • Direct mail and print advertising
  • Cold outreach strategies (phone, appointment setting)
  • Branded merchandising
  • Radio or podcast advertising

Analyze historical and present data (including previous marketing campaigns) to identify the channels that generate the most leads and conversions for your business. These are the best channels to invest in.

4. Implementing Lead Generation Tactics

Lead generation is the process of finding and collecting the contact information of potential customers—which makes it a significant part of any successful customer acquisition strategy. Improving your lead generation efforts enables you to attract and connect with more high-quality leads, providing your business with more prospects to nurture and (ideally) convert into paying customers.

Effective lead generation tactics include offering gated content to capture leads, attract buyers with lead magnets like webinars or product demonstrations, designing landing pages and calls-to-action (CTAs) to convert leads, and participating in industry events.

5. Nurturing Leads

Once you have attracted leads and obtained their contact information through your lead generation efforts, it’s time to nurture them.

Lead nurturing involves building a relationship with prospective buyers and guiding them along the buyer’s journey. The goal is to encourage their interest in your company, products, and services by providing engaging, personalized content about how you can address their pain points, segmenting your contact list to share relevant information with different groups, and providing a seamless customer experience to encourage loyalty.

Since lead nurturing occurs throughout all stages of the bow tie funnel and at every step of the buyer’s journey, it’s important to develop lead nurturing workflows that your marketing, sales, and customer success teams can follow in order to develop relationships with prospects and lead them toward a purchasing decision.

6. Investing in Sales Enablement & Lead Conversion

B2B customer acquisition requires all hands on deck.

Your marketing and sales teams must have the resources, technology, and workflows they need to successfully attract and convert new buyers. However, these teams can’t succeed if they are siloed; sales and marketing alignment is vital to increasing your chances of converting prospects into paying customers. By working together to achieve customer acquisition goals, marketing and sales can improve the customer acquisition process.

Additionally, invest in sales enablement efforts to provide your sales team with the resources and training they need to succeed. Sales enablement will enable your sales representatives to work smarter instead of harder, overcome common sales challenges, save resources, and close more deals.

As your marketing and sales teams move more and more leads through the funnel toward conversion, you’ll need a way to track, score, and manage prospects. Lead tracking tools and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms will help streamline your lead conversion efforts and help your sales and marketing team members better prioritize their time.

7. Measuring & Optimizing Customer Acquisition

Measuring success, analyzing performance, and optimizing your customer acquisition strategy is the foundation of continuous improvement and growth.

Establish relevant key performance indicators (KPIs), including lead conversion rates, customer acquisition cost (CAC), customer lifetime value (CLV), and return on investment (ROI), and then use these metrics to continually track your progress. Look for what’s working, what’s not working, and where you can improve.

With these insights, your B2B business can make data-driven decisions about how to best optimize your customer acquisition strategy.

B2B Customer Acquisition: & the Growth Formula Framework

There are two halves to the sustainable, predictable growth equation: acquisition and retention. To see success, your B2B company must focus on both acquiring new buyers and retaining existing customers.

The OneIMS growth formula framework illustrates this balance as an ongoing, recursive process that businesses can follow to achieve their growth goals.

The left half of the loop focuses on acquisition. Let’s take a closer look at the foundation of a successful B2B customer acquisition strategy.

Create Awareness

Most of the buyers in your target market are not aware that they have a problem your business’s products or services can solve—or if they do, they can’t articulate it. To reach these uninformed and unaware potential customers, you must create awareness about your company and the solutions you provide.

Generating demand for your products or services starts with educating buyers about the problem, the solution, and your business so they can make an informed decision. Use persuasive content across a wide range of marketing channels to reach and engage with your ideal customers.

Capture Demand

While most of your ideal audience is not in-the-know, some buyers are already looking for the type of solutions that your B2B business provides—these are your in-market buyers. Since they are already trying to discover a way to address their pain points and concerns, it’s your job to ensure they find your business and see your products or services as that ideal solution.

Capturing this demand requires using the proper channels to reach ideal customers in the places they already spend their time online, offering case studies and testimonials to show that your company is the best decision, and providing free trials or consultations to emphasize how your product or service can help.

Conclusion

Creating and implementing an effective B2B customer acquisition strategy is key to staying competitive in today’s market and is an important part of the path to sustainable growth. By leveraging these proven channels and techniques, your B2B company can acquire more customers and aim for lasting success.

And if you need help building a customer acquisition strategy that reaches the right buyers in the right place at the right time, OneIMS has you covered.

We designed the growth formula framework to support your business’s growth goals. By following our proven formula, you will acquire new buyers, retain existing customers, optimize revenue generation, and focus on sustainable growth.

Ready to learn more? Let OneIMS be your growth partner. Schedule a consultation with us today to get started.

Request the Case Study and Playbook


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Lead Generation For Manufacturers: How to Optimize Your Website https://www.oneims.com/lead-generation-for-manufacturers-how-to-optimize-your-website/ Tue, 19 Dec 2023 15:23:47 +0000 https://www.oneims.com/?p=23235 Manufacturing precision is non-negotiable, but are your leads measuring up? In a digital sea, your website can’t just float. It needs to roar. Let’s dive into the intricate world of manufacturing industry lead generation and explore how you can master your digital presence to drive business growth. How Do You Generate Leads in the Manufacturing […]

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Manufacturing precision is non-negotiable, but are your leads measuring up? In a digital sea, your website can’t just float. It needs to roar.

Let’s dive into the intricate world of manufacturing industry lead generation and explore how you can master your digital presence to drive business growth.

How Do You Generate Leads in the Manufacturing Industry?

Generating leads in manufacturing demands a playbook that’s as robust as your production line. Let’s dissect some battle-tested strategies that not only defy the complexities of the industry but also position your business for sustained growth.

Make CTA Stand Out

Every journey needs a guide, and your website is no exception. Strategically placed and crystal-clear calls-to-action (CTAs) will direct your visitors to take the next step, whether it’s downloading a resource, requesting a quote, or reaching out to your sales team.

Crafting calls-to-action (CTAs) is like leading your website visitors through a well-orchestrated symphony. The notes must be clear, compelling, and resonate with the desired actions. Here’s how to turn your CTAs into a persuasive melody.

Action-Oriented Language:

Your CTAs should be a beacon, guiding visitors toward their next step. Use action-oriented language that clearly communicates what you want them to do. Whether it’s “Request a Quote,” “Download Now,” or “Contact Us,” make it explicit and enticing.

Align CTAs with User Intent:

Tailor your CTAs to align with the visitor’s intent on each page. If they’re exploring products, invite them to “Explore Our Catalog.” If they’re reading a blog, encourage them to “Learn More” or “Subscribe for Updates.” The goal is to seamlessly guide them through their journey.

Strategic Placement:

The placement of your CTAs is the conductor’s wand in this symphony. Test different locations to find what works best for your audience. Common placements include at the end of blog posts, in the header, or as a floating button for easy access as visitors scroll.

Strategic Placement

Contrast for Visibility:

Your CTAs should stand out, demanding attention without being obtrusive. Utilize contrasting colors that complement your overall design. The visual contrast ensures that the CTA is noticeable, prompting action without being lost in the visual noise.

Size Matters:

Size isn’t everything, but it matters. Experiment with different CTA sizes to strike the right balance. The CTA should be prominent enough to catch the eye but not overpower the surrounding content. It should seamlessly integrate into the overall design.

A/B Testing for Optimization:

The magic happens in the details. Conduct A/B testing on different CTA placements, designs, and even wording to identify what resonates best with your audience. This data-driven approach allows you to refine your CTAs continuously.

A/B Testing for Optimization

Create Urgency and Scarcity:

The art of persuasion often involves creating a sense of urgency or scarcity. Incorporate phrases like “Limited Time Offer” or “Exclusive Access” to motivate visitors to act promptly. This psychological trigger can significantly boost conversion rates.

Personalization:

Make your CTAs feel like a tailored invitation. Consider personalizing CTAs based on user behavior or demographics. For example, if a visitor has already downloaded a resource, invite them to take the next step in the buyer’s journey.

Optimize Your Forms

Lead capture forms are your secret weapon. Keep them concise, asking for essential information. Balancing data collection with user convenience is an art—master it to ensure a steady influx of qualified leads.

How Do I Create a Lead Form for My Website?

The lead form on your website is the portal through which potential leads express interest and initiate a connection with your manufacturing prowess. To ensure this gateway is smooth and inviting, let’s explore the best practices for creating lead forms.

Lead Form in a Website

Define the Purpose:

Before diving into form creation, clearly define the purpose of the form. Are you gathering contact information for a newsletter, facilitating a quote request, or capturing details for a product demo? Understanding the end goal ensures that your form aligns with your specific objectives.

Smart Placement:

Much like placing tools in a workshop for easy access, strategically position your lead capture forms on key pages. Consider high-traffic areas, such as the homepage, product pages, or resource download pages. Ensure that the forms are prominently displayed without being intrusive.

Conciseness is Key:

Keep your lead forms concise and to the point. Long and cumbersome forms can create friction, deterring potential leads. Ask only for essential information that is crucial for your follow-up process. The goal is to strike a balance between gathering valuable data and respecting the user’s time.

Prioritize Essential Information:

Identify the information that is absolutely essential for initiating meaningful conversations. Typically, this includes basics such as name, email address, and perhaps the company name. Additional fields can be added strategically based on the nature of your business and the specific goals of the form.

Error Handling and Confirmation

A well-functioning tool leaves no room for errors. Implement clear error messages for any incomplete or incorrect form submissions. On successful submission, provide a confirmation message or redirect users to a thank-you page, assuring them that their information has been received.

Create Effective Landing Pages

Think of landing pages as the red carpet for your campaigns or products. Create dedicated pages that align seamlessly with your promotional efforts. Consistency from ad to landing page is the key to conversion success.

Laser-Focused Content:

When crafting a dedicated landing page, think precision. Your audience has arrived seeking specific information, so provide it with utmost clarity. Utilize compelling headlines that not only capture attention but also succinctly convey the unique value of the product or service.

Visual Appeal:

A picture is worth a thousand words, and in manufacturing, visuals speak volumes. Integrate high-quality images or videos that showcase your products in action. Visual appeal not only captures attention but also helps your audience visualize the tangible benefits of what you offer.

Visual appeal

Benefits Over Features:

While it’s important to highlight features, emphasize the benefits. Your audience is not just looking for a product; they’re seeking a solution to their challenges. Clearly outline how your offering makes their lives easier, more efficient, or more profitable.

User-Friendly Design with Conversion in Mind

In the vast landscape of manufacturing marketing, your website’s design is the compass guiding visitors through a seamless journey. Let’s break down the principles that make user-friendly design not just a preference but a necessity for success.

Clean and Intuitive Design:

Think of your website as a well-organized factory floor. A clean and intuitive design ensures that visitors can navigate effortlessly. Avoid clutter, prioritize essential elements, and maintain a visual hierarchy that guides users through the information flow.

Mobile Responsiveness:

The manufacturing industry is always on the move, and so is your audience. Optimize your website for mobile responsiveness to cater to professionals who are accessing information on the go. A mobile-friendly design ensures that your content is easily accessible and retains its visual appeal across various devices.

Intuitive Navigation:

Imagine a well-lit path through a factory – that’s what your navigation should emulate. Create a clear menu structure that categorizes information logically. Make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for, whether it’s product details, industry insights, or contact information.

Speedy Information Retrieval:

In manufacturing, time is money. The same holds true for your website. Help visitors find information quickly to prevent bounce rates. Implement a robust search functionality, organize content logically, and use clear labels to guide users effortlessly to the information they seek.

Consistency Across Pages:

Consistency is the glue that holds your digital factory together. Maintain a consistent design theme and layout across all pages. This not only enhances brand identity but also creates a sense of familiarity for visitors navigating through different sections of your website.

Interactive Elements:

Spice up your design with interactive elements that engage visitors. From intuitive hover effects to clickable icons, these elements not only enhance the user experience but also make your website more memorable and enjoyable to explore.

Accessibility:

Your digital factory should be accessible to everyone. Ensure that your design accommodates individuals with varying needs, including those with disabilities. This not only broadens your audience reach but also aligns with ethical and inclusive business practices.

How Many Leads Should a Website Generate?

While there’s no magic number applicable to all, a rule of thumb for manufacturing websites is a 2.1% conversion rate for bottom-of-funnel sales. However, this figure is influenced by factors like website traffic, lead quality, and the effectiveness of your conversion optimization strategies.

How to Generate Leads from a Website Organically

Organic lead generation relies heavily on strategic SEO and compelling content marketing. Here’s how to cultivate leads naturally through these key strategies:

Keyword Research:

Identify key terms relevant to your manufacturing offerings, aligning with your audience’s search language.

On-Page Optimization:

Fine-tune pages with strategic keyword placement for a well-structured, readable layout, improving search engine indexing.

Off-Page Optimization:

Expand your strategy with quality backlinks, social media engagement, and forum participation to boost your website’s authority and trustworthiness.

Quality Content:

Craft relevant, high-quality content addressing audience pain points. Regular updates signal ongoing value to search engines.

Lead Generation for Manufacturing: Website Examples

This is the actual case from our practice.

Our client, a metal finishing company, faced a conversion roadblock with their “Request a Quote” form. The demand for blueprints and extensive technical details deterred potential prospects, limiting conversions.

Our Solution:

Simplified CTAs:

  • Request Quote: Streamlined for those ready to delve into specifics.
  • Talk to Engineers: Connected prospects with technical experts for immediate answers.
  • Request Sample: Introduced hands-on engagement, allowing customers to send in parts for a polished sample.

Form Optimization:

  • Removed unnecessary form fields.
  • Increased conversions on the “Talk to Engineers” form, paving the way for smoother interactions.

Results:

  • Early Conversions: Prospects engaged earlier, building trust before entering the quote process.
  • Streamlined Process: The simplified journey led to increased conversions.
  • Tangible Connection: Offering polished samples boosted overall sales conversion, turning parts into future production blueprints.

In a competitive market, our client transformed from a service provider to a collaborative partner, setting them apart in the customer’s creative journey. Strategic CTAs and a streamlined process not only boosted conversions but positioned our client as the preferred choice.

Closing the Loop with Our Growth Formula Framework

The Growth formula

Although website optimization is essential for lead generation in the manufacturing industry, there’s much more to your growth.

At OneIMS, we’ve distilled all our insights into a powerful Growth Formula Framework, designed to propel manufacturers toward success.

By aligning marketing campaigns with our proven strategies, we maximize customer acquisition and retention, fostering sustainable growth.

Ready to see the impact? Dive into our successful case study showcasing how this framework transformed a packaging company’s digital journey.

Read it now and discover the path to digital excellence.

Request the Case Study and Playbook


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12 Essential B2B Demand Generation Best Practices for 2024 https://www.oneims.com/b2b-demand-generation-best-practices/ Sat, 16 Dec 2023 20:15:26 +0000 https://www.oneims.com/?p=23232 Demand generation—the process of stimulating awareness of your brand and interest in your products or services—is an essential part of any sustainable business-to-business (B2B) growth strategy. B2B marketers and salespeople know the power of building relationships with leads and guiding them through the buyer’s journey, and that’s why demand generation is now considered a tried-and-true […]

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Demand generation—the process of stimulating awareness of your brand and interest in your products or services—is an essential part of any sustainable business-to-business (B2B) growth strategy. B2B marketers and salespeople know the power of building relationships with leads and guiding them through the buyer’s journey, and that’s why demand generation is now considered a tried-and-true approach.

However, demand generation is only successful when it’s done right. Too many B2B companies start off on the wrong foot or make mistakes that lead them down the road to nowhere.

This year, let’s throw out the old ways of doing demand generation and bring in the proven best practices that will transform your marketing and sales efforts.

What Is a B2B Demand Generation Framework?

A demand generation framework is a strategic plan of action to develop, implement, and measure marketing and sales initiatives that drive demand for your B2B business’s products or services. This roadmap includes processes, tactics, and strategies designed to build reliable brand awareness, create a buzz about your company, and generate high-quality leads.

Demand generation is divided into two stages: demand creation and demand capture.

Demand Creation

Demand creation focuses on the portion of your target market who is not actively looking for a solution to their problem—the problem your company’s products or services address. It involves generating awareness of both the problem and its solution by creating and distributing content tailored to a wider audience that educates them about their pain points.

Demand Capture

Demand capture addresses leads who are actively seeking a solution to their problem. This process includes engaging content that helps prospective buyers see how your B2B company is the best fit for their needs. While demand creation casts a wider net on channels such as social media and podcasts, demand capture focuses on the channels your audience uses when they are close to making a purchase, such as email marketing or your business’s landing pages.

Demand Generation Best Practices for B2B

Since demand generation is a broad, holistic strategy that involves a combination of many different types of marketing and sales tactics working together to create interest in your B2B brand and capture high-quality leads, there are a lot of moving pieces.

As you create and implement a demand generation framework for your business, follow these proven best practices.

Demand Generation Best Practices for B2B

1. Understand Your Target Audience

Identifying and defining your target audience is the first step to creating an effective demand generation framework.

Start by creating buyer personas and negative buyer personas, which require extensive audience research into their demographics, purchasing behaviors, pain points, challenges, goals, and preferences. These insights will be the foundation of the rest of your approach to B2B demand generation.

2. Develop a Content Strategy

Once you have a clear understanding of your ideal customers, you can create and distribute content that will resonate with them. Develop informative blog posts, white papers, case studies, and ebooks as well as multimedia content (videos, podcasts, infographics) and interactive content (quizzes, webinars, product demonstrations) that addresses the pain points, interests, and preferences of your target audience.

At the same time, it’s equally important to implement search engine optimization (SEO) best practices to ensure your content is delivered to the right people at the right time via the right channel. Optimize content assets for relevant keywords and create a mobile-friendly website so it’s easy for your audience to find and access your content.

3. Invest in Multi-Channel Marketing

An important part of a successful demand generation strategy is identifying the channels that most effectively reach your target audience. By investing in a multi-channel marketing approach, you can increase your scope and maximize your demand generation efforts.

Social media is, of course, a powerful demand generation channel. Use social media to connect with potential buyers, share valuable content, and inform a wider audience about your brand. Paid advertising—including pay-per-click (PPC) ads and social media ads—is another effective way to get the word out about your products and services. And don’t forget about email marketing, which is one of the best ways to nurture leads and guide them along the sales funnel.

Take advantage of these channels as well as anywhere else your target audience spends their time online to drive qualified leads to your website.

4. Leverage Marketing Automation Tools

Marketing automation tools can streamline lead nurturing, automatically engage with leads at various stages throughout the buyer’s journey, qualify and score leads, deliver ads at the right time, and distribute personalized content at scale. Why wouldn’t you utilize this technology as part of your demand generation strategy?

Leverage the benefits of marketing automation technology to simplify and optimize your demand generation workflows.

5. Create a Lead Generation & Management Strategy

Lead generation and management strategies focus on capturing and nurturing B2B leads, making these efforts a critical part of any demand generation initiative. Popular lead generation tactics, including account-based marketing (ABM) and lead nurturing, help your business engage with potential customers and build trust with your target audience.

It’s also important to create compelling lead magnets—incentives you can offer to leads in exchange for their contact information. Develop valuable resources like ebooks, webinars, and white papers to attract leads, and use landing pages on your website to capture them.

6. Prioritize Lead Scoring

Not all leads are created equal. Even the best demand generation campaigns will capture some leads that aren’t worth your time. But when leads come down the funnel, how do your marketers and salespeople know which ones to prioritize?

Lead scoring is a method of qualifying leads. By establishing criteria for identifying leads that are most likely to turn into paying customers, you can prioritize high-quality leads and focus your efforts on converting them. This process not only reduces wasted time but also increases your lead conversion rate.

READ: 3 Steps to Developing a Smart Lead Scoring Strategy

7. Align Sales & Marketing Teams

Siloed marketing and sales teams lead to disorganized, ineffective demand generation campaigns. To create a cohesive demand generation strategy and convert the right prospects into customers, these teams need to work together, share data, and have the same goals.

Align marketing and sales teams by establishing communication channels and clear feedback loops. Set regular meetings between departments, define shared goals and key performance indicators (KPIs), and use insights from each team to adjust the strategies of the other.

Open collaboration and cooperation between sales and marketing will ensure your business is targeting the right leads and nurturing prospects throughout the sales funnel.

8. Focus on Customer Retention

Attracting new prospects and converting them into buyers is half the battle. If you want to increase conversions and generate more demand for your products or services, you need strategies in place to retain existing customers.

Why? Because happy, engaged, loyal customers not only become repeat customers but also spread the news about your brand through word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing. They will talk about your business with their colleagues and share their positive experience with your brand, bringing in new leads through referrals and increased brand awareness.

Develop post-purchase engagement strategies, such as nurturing existing buyers with relevant content, that encourage customer advocacy and referrals.

9. Track & Analyze Performance

Tracking and analyzing the performance of your demand generation initiatives is the only way to see what’s working and what can be improved.

Define and monitor KPIs such as lead conversion rates, lead quality, customer acquisition cost (CAC), cost per lead (CPL), customer lifetime value (CLV) so you can track progress toward specific goals. Additionally, use tools like Google Analytics to track website performance and marketing automation software to analyze campaign insights.

By tracking KPIs and other metrics, you will be able to monitor the progress of your demand generation efforts.

10. Optimize, Optimize, Optimize

Demand generation is an ongoing process, and successful demand generation requires you to continuously optimize your strategy.

With the insights you gain from tracking and analyzing demand generation performance and KPIs, you can make data-driven decisions about how to optimize your campaigns, refine your strategy, and meet your growth goals. Based on the results, you can identify the strongest channels, find bottlenecks and weak points, and adjust accordingly.

11. Encourage Compliance & Ethical Practices

People are more hesitant than ever to give their contact information to a business. And with data breaches and privacy violations constantly making headlines, who can blame them?

Reassure prospects and customers that your B2B company prioritizes compliance with data protection laws, privacy regulations, and ethical standards. Always ask for explicit consent from leads before collecting their data, and inform them of how and why that information is being collected. Ensure that all data collected is secure and protect sensitive information by establishing robust security measures. Additionally, train your demand generation team about the importance of following ethical practices as well as the consequences of non-compliance.

Transparency is essential to the credibility and trustworthiness of your B2B brand.

12.  Adapt to Market Changes

The B2B landscape is constantly evolving—and as the market changes, so should your approach to demand generation.

Stay up to date on news in your industry. Keep informed of industry and market changes, and adapt your strategies based on shifting customer behaviors. We recommend listening to podcasts and watching videos by B2B leaders to get started.

Create & Capture Demand for Your B2B Brand

Demand generation is the key to increasing brand awareness, driving interest in your products or services, building stronger relationships with high-quality leads, shortening your sales cycle, and achieving your revenue goals. By following these best practices, your B2B company will be ready to create and implement a successful demand generation strategy in 2024.

Need help optimizing your demand generation efforts and growing your business? We’re ready to partner with you. Schedule a consultation with us today to learn more about how OneIMS can propel your B2B business to new heights.

Request the Case Study and Playbook


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