David McGuire previews his Ignite 2020 session, revealing that 68% of B2B marketers are not proud of their content

 

Earlier this year, Radix Communications released research showing that just 32% of B2B marketers are proud of even half the content they create.

But this isn’t yet another post accusing B2B marketers of aiming low, as if you don’t already know that effective content needs to be original, clearly written, packed with value, and aligned to your customers’ priorities. You already know that, and the research proves it.

The evidence shows you already have a very good idea about what great content looks like. You’re not short of ideas, skills are readily available, and even the driest subject matter is no obstacle.

There’s no lack of knowledge, ability or will; the problem comes when marketers need to fight their own organisation. And according to the research, that’s surprisingly often. In fact, 81% of respondents said they need to “fight hard” to produce good content – and that’s pretty much the same regardless of your seniority, location, business size or sector.

In my B2B Ignite session on Tuesday, I’ll unpack the reasons for that in detail – and talk about some possible solutions to the six most common content challenges that B2B marketers face.

Instead, in this post, I want to talk about something different. I want to tell you why it matters.

Specifically, I’ll share a few headlines – with evidence – about the business impact when your organisation gets in the way of your content. And I’ll try to do it in a way your stakeholders might understand.

Most B2B signoff processes actually harm content outcomes

An astonishing 59% of B2B marketers – basically six out of ten – agreed with the statement “If nobody else had to sign off our content, the results would be a lot better.” And in large enterprises, it’s more than eight out of ten.

We checked, and they’re correct. Respondents who agreed with the statement were indeed markedly less likely to be satisfied with their content’s writing quality, customer alignment, emotional impact, reader value and – crucially – business results.

Business results are worse when stakeholder interference is a problem

Marketers who said stakeholder interference is a big problem were 26% less likely to be happy with their content’s business results. And that’s a worry because more than half of respondents (54%) gave that answer.

It’s perhaps not surprising, because just 14% of people could say their organisation agrees on what good content is. That lack of alignment is not just annoying; it comes with a measurable business cost.

Cheap B2B content is 18% less likely to work

Satisfaction with business results is 18% lower among respondents who cited limited resources as a big problem. It’s the clearest possible example of a false economy.

Resource issues also had a marked impact content originality, and quality of copywriting – which is perhaps why 80% of respondents said they face a trade-off between content quantity and quality.

When marketing is overworked, content tends to be unoriginal

Respondents who said workload is a big problem were 25% less likely to say their best content had a clever, original concept. Which makes sense – when time is tight, you stick with what you know you can deliver and get signed off easily.

But that does nothing to differentiate your brand, achieve cut-through in a crowded market, or – crucially for your stakeholder conversations – create talking points for your salespeople. More than anything else, content that can achieve those things takes time.

Content created without customers is 27% less likely to get good results

It’s understandable that salespeople want to remain in control of valuable client relationships, and keep their best customers out of view, away from competitors’ eyes. But if they want leads, and end-of-funnel content their prospects will take seriously, then marketing needs to talk to customers.

When marketers can’t gain access to customers, they’re 24% less likely to produce content that’s well-aligned to customers’ needs. And the impact of that? They’re 27% less likely to be happy with the business results.

Life is too short for underwhelming B2B content

Ultimately, the most important reason that why the quality of your content matters is your own sanity. We all spend most of our waking lives at work, and when we look back, we want to see something that makes us proud.

In the same way, your customers’ working lives are too short – and too important – to waste on reading content you didn’t really want to publish in the first place.

You already know this, of course. But hopefully this research – and Tuesday’s Ignite session, when I’ll explain it – can help you make the case to stakeholders too, and get on with publishing the content you actually want to create.

---

This article is written by David McGuire and originally published here

What are the best content formats to use for online communications? As B2B content marketers constantly review and optimize their work, this question becomes ever more pressing as engagement rates drop and marketing budgets have to be justified.

Fortunately, we do have many content formats and channels to choose from for our B2B content strategies. But there are so many options that the abundance of choice sometimes becomes a problem.

So let’s step back and think more broadly. Of the three most fundamental types of content – in-person, audio, text, and visual – which content channel communicates best?

In-person communication is usually the most effective, but it is also limited. Traveling to conferences and meetings is expensive and time-intensive. It can become draining for some people if it’s done too frequently.

That leaves B2B marketers with text, audio, and visual communications.

So which one of these channels communicates best?

Research shows it is the visual channel that communicates best. But images paired with text communicate best.

Why Visual Content Gets More Engagement and Is Remembered Longer

As the video below explains, if a person hears a piece of information, three days later they’ll remember only about 10% of that information. If a picture is added, 65% of the information will be retained three days later.

So clearly, pictures aligned with text improve communication retention. If you’re investing thousands of dollars into a B2B marketing campaign, that’s a valuable piece of information to know, and it is even more valuable if you apply it.

This statistic correlates well with other research that is specific to marketing. In HubSpot’s 2020 State of Marketing report, marketers reported that social media content with a photo or imagery was most engaging.

Fortunately, most B2B marketers are already using visual content in their content marketing mix. 67% of the B2B content marketers surveyed in the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs 2020 B2B Benchmarks Budgets and Trends report said they use “infographics/charts/photos/data viz [data visualizations].”

Visual content for B2B content marketing is also particularly well-aligned with B2B marketers’ two primary goals for their content: Creating brand awareness and educating audiences.

But these are not the only reasons visual content complements existing B2B content marketing strategy and B2B content marketing programs. Visual content is also an ideal product of content repurposing. Most B2B content marketing programs have historically leaned very heavily on text-based content. Witness this in the “Content Types B2B Marketers Used in the Last 12 Months” chart cited above; 89% of B2B marketers produce blog posts and short articles.

So B2B marketers have ample amounts of text-based content. If they want to maximize their marketing budget, repurposing some existing text-based content into visual content can be a particularly strategic plan. This is especially true if these marketers choose to repurpose only their very best-performing text-based content into a visual format.

These are just some of the reasons to use visual content in B2B content marketing.

The question is… how to use visual content for B2B content marketing? What specific types of visual content can be created, and how can they be used to drive engagement and conversions?

To answer this question, we have gathered ten excellent examples of different types of B2B visual content marketing.  Use these examples for inspiration, but also as proof of what can be done. Visual content marketing can take many forms, and can be used in many ways.

 

1. Charts and graphs.

B2B buyers are especially data-oriented, and have often called for the content shown to them to be more data-focused. Charts and graphs (and all other types of data visualizations) speak to this need.

One study from QuickSprout found that “blog posts with graphs and charts received the highest number of [WordPress] trackbacks. On average, they received 258% more trackbacks than blog posts with other types of images.”

Charts and graphs, like all images, can be especially effective if they are optimized for search engines. Simply adding an informative, keyword-rich alt tag will help, as will making each image’s file name descriptive and keyword-focused.

The important thing to remember with charts and graphs is that they work best when they are given context. At their best, data visualizations are used for “data storytelling,” a popular method of using several different statistics or data points to explain and verify a larger theory or how a particular condition or situation came to be.

 

2. Illustrations.

If you work in B2B SaaS at all, you’ll be familiar with the web design and graphic design trend of using illustrations throughout marketing materials. Many B2B SaaS homepages like DropBox and Trello show these types of clean, flat-design illustrations.

Computer-generated illustrations can be included in this type of content format for B2B content marketing, but I want to place particular emphasis on hand-drawn illustrations.

Like this one from Happify:

Many B2B SaaS companies have employed hand-drawn illustrations throughout their content for some time. BuzzSumo used its brand illustrations to great effect for years. Google has been showcasing Google doodles for even longer.

Hand-drawn illustrations like this help content to stand out, but also help establish a recognizable visual “brand” to all content, even if it is just a blog post header image shared on social media. They do require the assistance of an illustrator, but there are quite a few platforms that can help you find an artist up to the task, like Behance, Dribbble, 99designs, and Fiverr.

 

3. User-generated content.

User-generated content can include any content format – videos, text testimonials, and more – but here I am speaking specifically of visual user-generated content. B2C content marketers have used user-generated content to excellent effect for years, both in ads, in social media posts, and even on product pages.

B2B marketers can do the same, though they may want to be cautious about the legal permissions required to safely use content their audiences have created about them.

That said, even if it does require extra time to get approval from your company’s Legal department, the benefits of “UGC” can be worth the extra effort. User-generated content often performs exceptionally well for social media advertising and can be even more effective if it is included on checkout pages for B2B e-commerce, or on your company’s products and services pages.

Even adding a headshot to a testimonial is one way to leverage visual content. Adding a photograph of a person draws the eye into the text, and humanizes the information even more, like this example of a customer testimonial from KoMarketing’s website:

 

4. “Real-life” photographs.

Let’s pivot from the user-generated content “real photos” supplied by your audience and customers to “real photographs” supplied by your staff.

This type of B2B visual content is more casual than the formal, more traditional photographs of your business that would typically be taken by a professional photographer. These photographs are basically employee-generated visual content. This type of content can do well on social media, particularly on Instagram.

So why would you want to ask employees to start photographing themselves and their teammates at work? Because while stock photos are convenient and look polished, they are often far less compelling than “real life” photos, especially if those photographs are taken by your company’s staff.

Here’s one example of a photograph taken in a company office by an employee who is leaving the firm. There is a poignancy to this photograph that a stock photo could never achieve.

This may be exactly why “real” photographs perform better than stock photographs: We have become trained to sift through ads so often and so deftly that we can almost subconsciously tell a stock photograph from a real photograph as we scroll through newsfeeds. We have learned to filter out ads.

Using a photograph taken by an employee at your company, which looks like a social media photo taken for a personal account, interrupts this filter. Even if it’s only for just a second, a B2B buyer’s eye may stop to consider what looks like someone’s personal post. If your messaging is just right, that one-second pause may be enough to engage the buyer and compel them to click through to your ad’s landing page.

The photographs used in these messages don’t have to look like they’re done by a professional photographer. Certainly, keep the photos professional in the sense of maintaining decorum, but perfect lighting and studied camera angles are not necessary, and may even suppress engagement.

 

5. Summarize text-based content into micro-infographics.

This is one of the best opportunities for repurposing text-based content. Here is the process:

• Select a few of your top-performing blog posts
• Highlight 5-10 key facts, sentences, or statistics from each post
• Ask a designer to convert the text into visually-compelling information

Here is an example of what this can look like:

Notice that this is not a full infographic. It doesn’t need to be. But after you have excerpted the information and made it into a visual representation, you will have enough images for several dozen excellent social media posts, which will further amplify content that is already driving business. And these visual elements can also be added to the existing blog posts.

 

6. Scroll-triggered animations, also known as ‘parallax’ scroll animations.

Content can be many things. It does not necessarily have to be blog posts or white papers. A product features page or a company’s home page also has content, and that content can be animated to appear more dynamic and interesting.

This can be done with what are called scroll-triggered animations, or “parallax” animations.

Google’s “How Search Works” page is an excellent example of this type of animation. For every aspect of how search works, Google presents a headline, a few lines of summary text, a link to a page dedicated to this topic, and an interesting animation that illustrates how the feature works.

Here is just one section from “How Search Works”:

Animations like this often require a skilled developer and a designer to create an effective animation that both communicates well and that works on every device and platform, but there are also a few WordPress plugins like Scroll Triggered Animations that can make implementing these types of visual presentations easier.

 

7. Infographics.

Infographics have long been one of the most-used and most effective visual content formats available. At KoMarketing, we’ve created dozens of infographics and used them in our marketing extensively.

Infographics can be repurposed from existing content, like a particularly in-depth blog post, an ebook, or a research study. They can also be developed as a completely new content project. If you happen to know of a series of statistics that can tell a particular story, or that can show the state of a particular aspect of your industry, an infographic may be particularly well-suited as a content format for that information.

For more information about infographics, see our blog post, How to Create an Infographic From Start to Finish in 5 Steps.

 

8. Interactive infographics.

These are an upgraded version of the standard infographic. They often allow the user to change how the infographic looks based on the user’s inputs. Or they allow users to adjust the data in certain ways (to view changes year by year, for example) so the information is presented based on what the user is most interested in.

Quartz’s This is every satellite orbiting earth interactive infographic is an excellent example of how engaging this type of visual content can be.

 

9. Pinterest pins.

Pinterest is more attuned to business to consumer companies, but there are quite a few business to business companies that do well on this platform. The most successful of these seem to have “pinterized” their strategy and the look of their content in a way that complements the platform’s feel while still attracting B2B buyers.

Squarespace’s Pinterest page is an ideal example of this “pinterization” of a B2B brand. Their Pinterest page has the distinctive look and feel of Pinterest, and SquareSpace seems to be consciously demonstrating how their product can help Pinterest’s audience.

Cisco’s Pinterest page offers a template for how to organize your content on this platform. Note how they have organized their visual content into Pinterest boards for blog posts, infographics, customer quotes, and videos.

 

10. Hand-written quotes.

Not all visual content has to be created by a graphic designer. Just as somewhat amateur photographs taken by employees and customers can lend authenticity, writing out quotations, statistics or anything else can help to “stop the scroll” and capture attention.

One of the best examples of this are hand-written notes on napkins or post-it notes. These don’t take more than a minute or two to create, and they often attract more engagement than a more professionally designed graphic would get.

This example, from Sima Dahl, is part of a series of quotes written out on napkins. It’s an interesting, creative way to create a series of messaging points.

 

Conclusion

Visual content fulfills many of the needs B2B marketers have right now:

• To get more engagement from their content
• To make their content more memorable
• To repurpose existing content, thus optimizing their budgets
• To provide more content formats to attract different types of B2B buyers

If your B2B content strategy has not yet prioritized visual content, it may be time to do so now.

______________________

This article is written by DEREK EDMOND and originally published here

 

While tech is ubiquitous in the world today, it doesn’t entirely sell itself yet. Business-to-business marketing professionals need to stay aware of the newest trends in the industry continually. However, trends change and shift so quickly that even the most current experts sometimes find themselves caught unaware when new marketing strategies or approaches emerge. 

As 2020 progresses, the need to be aware of what trends are likely to be crucial to the success of B2B marketing professionals remains vital. To help, these 16 professionals from Forbes Communications Council take a look at what B2B marketing trends we should keep an eye on in 2020.

1. Mastering The Soft Sell

Now is the time for compassion and understanding. As the world is reeling from a global pandemic, we, as marketers and communicators, need to lead with empathy. Don’t push products or solutions. Rather, create educational material or thought leadership pieces. The companies that master a soft sell while being compassionate will be the winners of 2020. – Liza Horowitz, Beacon Platform

2. Click Segmentation

We’re seeing tremendous growth in the number of brands hypertargeting customers using click segmentation in their email marketing. By automatically segmenting email lists based on what people click on, brands are seeing higher open and click-through rates, to lower unsubscribe rates. Click segmentation will help brands take their digital communications strategy to the next level in 2020 and beyond. – John Orlando, Constant Contact

3. Video For Humanizing Business

I believe humanizing business is a major current and future trend, which is why video is an effective method to deliver messages. People don’t read. They’re bombarded with too much content. Videos can be personalized and that’s what customers expect from brands. Now, I’m off to go create a “thank you” video for my team. – Stacy Sherman, Customer Experience Expert

4. Live Streaming For Digital Communication

The demand for live streaming will surge. More and more people will be viewing content from the comfort of their home or office. As marketers, we should consider incorporating live streaming into our campaigns and events — internal and external. We’ll also be faced with the challenge of creating entertaining and interactive content that’ll break through the clutter and impact a company’s bottom line. – Parna Sarkar-Basu, Brand and Buzz Marketing, LLC.

5. Better Tools For Video Content

According to a HubSpot report, 92% of marketers say video is an important part of their marketing strategy. So, the volume of video content being produced is increasing to best engage customers and employees. With this influx, marketers need an efficient, cost-effective tech solution, like a digital asset management platform, to store, manage and distribute content and future-proof their strategy. – Helen Aboagye, Imagen

6. Intent Signals

We are doubling down on intent signals, using search analytics to guide our prospecting and digital advertising spend. We are fishing where the fish are biting. No more standing on the dock waiting for the fish to swim past (our website). Data-driven ads and outreach are increasing connections, meeting setting and hopefully downstream conversion. – Andrew Kokes, HGS

7. A Focus On First-Party Data

Many of the leading business-to-business technology companies are placing increasing importance on cultivating direct marketing relationships with prospects, as opposed to buying leads from third parties because of changing regulation (GDPR, CCPA, etc). As a result, B2B technology companies are investing more in developing their own tech stacks that are integrated cross-channel with DMPs and CDPs. – Brian Lee, Unleash Your Identity

8. Growing Importance Of Predictive Analytics

The coronavirus pandemic has created a sudden, major disruption to the economy. Marketers are scrambling to adapt their plans in such a dynamic environment. Predictive analytics can help marketers model scenarios based on economic principles, and adapt their spending, channels and timing to create a data-driven strategy that reduces risk and takes the “guesswork” out of that process. – Nanette Kirsch, Keen Decision Systems

9. Increased Focus On Data Privacy

There is probably no bigger shift happening in marketing (both B2B and B2C) than the continuously evolving data privacy landscape. B2B marketers are used to leveraging a lot of customer and prospect data in their campaigns, but new regulations are forcing companies to take a hard look at the data they collect and store. Marketers need to pay close attention to how this impacts their capabilities. – Tom Wozniak, OPTIZMO Technologies, LLC

10. Podcasts Being The New Normal

Pick any B2B tech marketing trend (such as augmented reality, account-based marketing or AI-led automation), talk to experts about it, record and podcast. It’s the best way to reach busy on-the-go tech marketers who tend to multitask while listening to podcasts. Transcribe the podcast to create content that helps the same tech marketers in their search for more information on the trend. – Prashant Saxena, Isentia

11. Better Tools To Differentiate Audiences

A significant trend I expect is having reliable online/social media monitoring tools that gauge legitimate brand sentiment. This would also help differentiate between real audiences and the behavior of synthetic audiences (bots) that can mislead you. – Roohi Saeed, Procore

12. Heavily Personalized Communications

Your potential clients and customers have unique personas, identities and preferences; treat them that way. Make sure to go beyond simple variables in your communications. One of the reasons our company keeps heavily investing in our employee benefits virtual assistance is its ability to hyperpersonalize communication at scale. Design your communications for an audience of one. – Rick Ramos, HealthJoy

13. Comprehensive Virtual Event Strategies

Given the current global situation, watch for more comprehensive virtual event strategies that use interactive platforms such as Zoom and Hangouts (vs. traditional webinar platforms). Events should involve multiple parties who interact, engage the audience, and take on more of a debate or panel session format to involve people and bring in multiple viewpoints and issues. – Jennifer Kyriakakis, MATRIXX Software

14. Rise Of B2B Influencers

Influencer marketing disrupted the B2C extremely overtly — think swipe up to shop, influencer-branded clothing lines, etc. But B2B hasn’t realized that influencers are making their way into their space and will be just as disruptive. These influencers might not have the numbers reach, but they are incredibly influential as thought leaders and will drive an increasing number of B2B purchasing decisions. – Patrick Ward, Rootstrap

15. RCS Messaging

RCS (rich communication services) messaging will open up a new form of communication for businesses. It will allow marketers to add photos, videos, locations, map directions and more to their messages. This is a big upgrade on standard SMS functionality and will help B2B marketers showcase their products and services in new ways. – Liam Quinn, Reach Interactive

16. Hyperrelevance

Hyperrelevance is all that matters now. Regardless of what technology you employ (and there are some great ones out there with intent signals, web personalization, sending platforms, marketing automation, etc.), marketers are now in a world where they need to keep their ear to the ground and know exactly what their audiences are thinking and caring about and crafting the message for that moment. – Daniel Frohnen, Sendoso

______________________

This article is written by Expert Panel, Forbes Communications Council and originally published here

Traditional marketing is still a valuable B2B asset. And the art of synergizing traditional marketing with digital marketing is worth mastering. Here’s how.

Long-term business success requires organizations to transform, innovate, and take risks.

This principle drives companies to embrace the latest high-tech products and services to ensure they don’t fall behind in the digital economy.

Unfortunately, the integration of new martech sometimes comes at the expense of discarding traditional tools – a potentially costly mistake.

Traditional marketing is still a valuable asset for any B2B organization.

And as new technologies emerge, the art of synergizing traditional marketing with digital marketing is worth mastering.

In order to realize the full potential of new digital tools and move leads down the funnel and ultimately convert buyers, marketers need to employ a holistic, omnichannel approach that retains a role for traditional marketing.

The digital revolution has greatly enhanced marketers’ ability to reach, engage, and convert their ideal target audiences.

But traditional marketing tactics like direct mail, networking, and cold calling are still vital for building a memorable and ultimately, profitable brand.

Building an effective marketing strategy means reaping the best of both worlds by seamlessly integrating new channels with traditional assets.

Here are five ways to combine your traditional and digital marketing.

1. Cold Calling + Intent Data

There is an ongoing debate around cold calling and whether it’s still an effective strategy.

Should we leave it in the 1970s or defiantly proclaim that cold calling is not dead?

When intent data is added to the mix, the cold calls of yesterday could become the warm calls of tomorrow.

By incorporating intent data into the cold calling process, marketers can reach better-qualified prospects, while foregoing contacting the least promising contacts.

By signaling which prospects are most likely to convert, intent data makes cold calling far more efficient.

Prior to making a call, marketers can use intent data to identify:

• The prospects that are looking for their solution.
• What other solutions they may be considering.
• What context clues might be telling about their readiness to buy.
• How to evaluate and address the prospect’s specific needs.

Armed with this critical information, sales teams will see conversion rates skyrocket.

Every marketer strives to learn as much as possible about their prospects.

When it comes to cold calling, an inherently intrusive tactic, LinkedIn profiles and firmographics simply aren’t enough.

To optimize conversion rates and reduce the stress for the sales team that comes with calling unqualified prospects, intent data is the critical missing piece.

2. Print Media + Deep Media Nurturing

Successful marketers understand the value of developing and nurturing buyer relationships at every stage of the sales funnel.

They’ve cultivated a buyer-focused mindset that is wired to drive more sales at lower costs and adapt according to the shifting buyer journey.

With the rise of deep media nurturing – an integrated, omnichannel strategy that employs the full range of digital assets – marketers have already taken lead nurturing beyond the inbox.

And now, the savviest marketers are going a step further by expanding lead nurturing beyond the digital space.

Running ads in digital magazines using premium programmatic display is a popular deep media nurturing tactic.

And while print media is obviously not as prominent as it once was, there’s a reason why print editions of digital magazines are still in circulation: audiences read them.

If the goal of deep media nurturing is to reach prospects across multiple channels to increase conversion probability, it makes sense that incorporating print media advertising into the mix will accelerate conversion rates.

Aside from being an additional touchpoint, print media has several unique advantages.

Compared to their digital counterparts, for example, print ads are seen as less intrusive and have a much longer shelf life. A print ad in a cybersecurity magazine will be seen as long as a physical copy of the magazine exists.

Moreover, print media provides more flexibility when it comes to ad placement.

Unlike programmatic display advertising where placement is primarily determined by digital bidding on advertising exchanges, in print media, marketers control exactly where their ads are placed.

Finally, just as the promise of deep media nurturing relies on crafting customized messaging attuned to the buyer’s journey, print media allows marketers to get granular and target their audience in niche industry publications with relevant messages.

3. Events + ABM

Today, virtually all successful B2B marketers rely on Account-Based Marketing (ABM) to target and engage accounts that are most likely to convert.

Leveraging the targeting power of ABM with the intimacy of live event marketing can help marketers realize the full potential of both.

A top-class ABM technology stack will not only help practitioners hone in on their most lucrative accounts but also get a prioritized view of the key decision-makers (and influencers) at a target account.

Putting this marketing intelligence to work will aid any professional in planning – and ultimately, executing – a high-impact event engagement strategy.

As marketers narrow in on the best-fit accounts, they have to monitor the online activities of their targets and identify the signals that may trigger the event outreach.

One way or another, every group of targets will signal their interest in attending or sponsoring a specific event.

ABM technology gives marketers access to real-time insights based on their accounts’ actual online activity and allows them to act on these signals.

ABM also enables marketers to de-prioritize low-yielding industry-events.

How?

By pinpointing must-attend events and the exact locations of the most valuable contacts within the target accounts.

Knowing which trade shows a target account is sponsoring or attending enables marketers to allocate resources to the highest-impact events and locations.

Once the event (or geographic region) that may feature the ideal prospects is identified, marketers should determine which decision-maker is ready for a one-to-one conversation.

In-person communication is the unifying piece of a thriving ABM campaign simply because it encourages the richest two-way value exchange between a marketer and the target accounts.

Utilizing the full power of ABM to gain maximum insight into a prospect enables marketers to foster authentic relationships founded on a comprehensive understanding of the prospect’s needs and buying habits.

4. Traditional Content Platforms + Geotargeting

Traditional content platforms like billboards and banners are making a resurgence in B2B marketing, helping to drive brand awareness, reinforce brand messaging, and engage new audiences.

To optimize the impact of this traditional advertising platform, marketers can integrate geotargeting – a technique that determines the geolocation of a website visitor and delivers tailored content to that visitor based on their location.

By pinpointing prospect locations, geotargeting gives marketers a better understanding of their buyers’ personas and their journey maps, enabling them to advertise content where it’s most likely to be seen and remembered.

Placing messages in strategic locations creates brand equity in the areas that matter.

The right target location could be a conference, a sports arena within the vicinity of the audience, or a bus whose route is in a business district where several target accounts are headquartered.

The marker of a good strategy is the extent to which it speaks to the right audience at the right time and in the right place.

Marketers can use geotargeting as their compass and leverage location data as a powerful strategy for personalized content outreach.

5. Direct Mail + Lead Nurturing

While lead nurturing is integral to conversion rate optimization, the sheer volume of online exchanges increases the odds that digital communications end up in digital spam.

A prudent tactic to hedge against the digital message being drowned out by the unquantifiable volume of online content is to augment lead nurturing with direct mail.

It might seem like a blast from the past, but at the current rate of inbox saturation, it’s a strategy that works.

The underlying idea is to send prospects something relevant and of value that will help a brand stand out.

If five follow-up emails fail to elicit a response, what are the odds that the sixth email will convert?

On the other hand, a follow-up in the form of a physical letter, a postcard, or a thoughtful gift can be the differentiator that triggers a prospect to consider the offering and agree to an appointment.

The endless personalization opportunities that direct mail entails can go a long way toward building trust by speaking directly to the prospect’s needs.

It makes them more likely to respond and move down the sales funnel.

Conclusion

In the era of unprecedented technological innovation, some marketers might be tempted to abandon the low-tech traditional marketing channels.

But far from being antiquated, these channels have the potential to significantly bolster marketing initiatives.

Leading organizations are currently reimagining the interplay between traditional and digital marketing, employing a holistic mix of the old and the new to create rich forms of engagement that accelerate conversion rates.

Driving ROI is not just about implementing the latest technologies.

It’s about evaluating how to strategically deploy each marketing capability in the service of broad marketing objectives.

Abandoning capabilities just because they’re not new or “cutting edge” is shortsighted and ultimately, counterproductive.

______________________

This article is written by Alexander Kesler and originally published here