When you’re starting any marketing campaign, it’s really important to clearly define your goals first. This is the single best way to ensure you get the results you want.

One of the most common mistakes we see is people getting it backwards. They start by choosing the platform or the content type, and come to us saying “We need to do Google Ads!” or “We need to improve our SEO!” without much thought behind the message or the “why”. When there’s a mis-match between your goals and the marketing platform or action you choose, you are less likely to get the results you want.

What are your goals? 

Instead, start with your purpose. What results do you hope to get? Look ahead to the end of the campaign – what will make it worthwhile for you? Usually it’s going to be an increase in your business, through more sales. So take it back one step from that and ask: What can marketing do to help you achieve this?

Some of the most common goals are:

Building your brand – This is essential if your name isn’t already known and trusted. In most sectors, there are so many similar suppliers out there jostling for attention, you need to stand out from the crowd and become a name you can trust. Clients are much more likely to want to work with you if they know and trust the name, rather than just receiving a cold approach.

Educating the market – B2B solutions are often technically complex and innovative. It can take time and effort to explain to people how your solution works and why it is better than the alternatives. The right marketing can really help to educate the market on your solution, increasing understanding and moving prospects closer to a sale. Educating the market can also include letting current customers and new prospects know about your products and services, including the ways they are unique, and generating demand for a particular product or solution.

Generating new leads for the sales team to use – This is a very common goal. Virtually every business needs good leads and marketing can help drive this directly. At the same time, having a trusted brand, and a solution that is understood first, can greatly improve the quality of leads you generate.

Different marketers will sometimes call the above a range of different names, but we’ve tried to simplify things as much as possible.

Other goals we hear about will often end up fitting into one of the above goals. For example, sometimes people tell us they want more click-throughs, or to drive more traffic to their website. But it usually pays to dig deeper and work out why this is. Do you have information you want them to read when they get there? Do you want to capture their details? Do you make sales directly on your website?

Other goals that business-to-business (B2B) marketers might have include:

  • Nurturing existing leads
  • Supporting your sales team by increasing recognition, or providing materials

Or, of course, one of the most common answers we get is “all of the above”! That’s fine too.

Once you know what you want to achieve, your campaign has a much better chance of success.

Who is your audience?

Next you need to work out who you want to reach. Are you targeting existing customers, or new, or both?

What demographic segments do you want to reach? While consumer marketers often look at gender, age group and income, B2B demographics more commonly include things like job role, company type and industry sector.

Having worked this out, you can then start identifying the best platforms. If you’re just targeting existing customers, you might be able to reach them via your own website, email lists and social platforms. If you’re looking to reach beyond your existing customers, you might need some external help, which could include anything from industry magazines and websites, to events, to paid search engine marketing or social media.

The key is to work out where you can actually reach the demographic you’re targeting. You need to understand where they get their information from, and how you can become part of that conversation.

But remember, distribution matters! The best marketing campaign in the world won’t have an impact if it sits unviewed on your company website. Leverage the opportunities available to reach your target audience.

See here for more tips on Audience targeting for B2B Marketing.

What is your message?

Next, what do you want to tell them? Again, this will be driven by your purpose.

You need to use different content for branding as opposed to education as opposed to lead generation. Branding can be very powerful, and is often best done in a more subtle way, such as stylish print ads in respected industry journals, but at the same time, this sort of content on its own is not going to generate direct leads.

If your goal is to educate the market, then well-written content is going to be key. Rather than just going for the hard sell, talk about your customers’ pain points, show how you understand the industry, and only then show how you can help them.

Having high quality, relevant and technically accurate content on your website is also the smartest and most sustainable way to improve SEO.

If you are looking to generate leads, you need to offer valuable content in return for details. This could be a white paper or eBook or a webinar offered in return for someone’s email address.

Measuring success

Only once you know your purpose, your message and your audience, should you start choosing your platforms and your copy.

Now, maybe you still need to do Google Ads after all that, and if you do that’s great, but at least you know why.

Make sure you measure your campaign based on what you wanted to achieve. Often the things which are easy to measure, such as banner clicks or impressions, are not necessarily the best ways to assess branding or education campaigns. If your goal was to change the perception of your company in the market, or to increase demand over time, statistics like clicks and likes can distract from this goal.

See here for more tips on how to maximise ROI in B2B Marketing.

For more information on specific ways you can work with Monkey Media to achieve your goals see our fact sheets here on:

Building your Brand

Educating the Market

Generating Leads

Or, if you have a range of goals, then you can talk to one of our consultants to help create an integrated marketing package that’s just right for you.

Top tips

  • Identify your purpose first, then your target audience and messages
  • Distribution matters – regardless of which platforms you use, find the ones that best reach your target audience
  • Make sure your copy matches your goals – if you want to educate the market, create something educational. If you want leads, you need a strong call to action
  • Make sure the way you measure your campaign matches your goals