How often do you hear new business marketing campaigns are a ‘bit hit and miss’, or that just ‘the timing was wrong’? Or simply ‘it’s a blunt instrument - we're great at keeping clients but can't seem to win new ones’. A reactive approach to growth can lead to a smash and grab for some new marketing tools which, if they don’t work within a few weeks, are binned. Only to make way for a grab at another marketing tool – whether that’s more direct marketing, SEO, advertising or telemarketing.
If you have a new client momentum and a healthy pipeline, where sales time and account based marketing is underway, life can feel pretty good. But what if your existing client base is growing stale? What if you want to launch a new business division or what if you want to step-up to a new growth phase? And in a Brexit climate, what if you want to develop your international marketing? Add to that the insane speed of the development of new marketing technologies and tightening data regulation placing larger regulatory burdens on businesses - such as the imminent 2018 Euro Data Regulations - how do you avoid the hit and miss of new business marketing campaigns?
A structured approach to new business strategy and business growth - Account Based Marketing (ABM) - reduces the risk in any new business campaign. It builds qualified audience segments and communities to nurture, starting from cold through to fully qualified prospects, giving you greater likelihood of positive ROI. Its key elements are :
1) Planning your prospect experiences develop the pathways for businesses to meet your own and plan how you want your brand & offer perceived. Build understanding and insight, build prospect personas and likely issue profiles.
2) Ensuring your prospecting is content rich in line with your brand strategy and designing messaging relevant to inbound prospects’ stage in the funnel. For outbound, don’t go in with blunt approaches. Use questioning, research and referral based methods of contact coupled with compelling and relevant content marketing.
3) Leveraging marketing technologies to drive engagement employing either a) interruptive or b) organic media strategies. Community engagement on social media is as relevant for prospects as it is customers. Taking an organic PBM approach makes prospect nurturing and new customer wins strategic rather than a flash in the pan.
Creating effective ABM is about striking the right balance between outbound and inbound activities as well as using the right mix of marketing tools. These can be a combination of social media, event management and especially publishing the kind of content (or the ‘hooks’) which will guide your prospects on their journey to becoming warms for conversion.
Don’t build blunt instruments! Build eye-catching, engaging and relevant ABM campaigns.
How Fire NBM can assist you with prospect based marketing:
· BRAND INSIGHT, POSITIONING AND PROPOSITION DEVELOPMENT
Our experienced researchers conduct surveys, insight programmes and phone interviews for businesses to discover what challenges their prospects and existing clients face, what they are looking for in service and product providers and how they make their buying decisions
· CREATIVE DEMAND GENERATION Fire NBM works with companies to develop B2B prospect personas, branded content marketing strategies, propositions, campaigns and creative execution. Our social media specialists ensure messaging and content works well across all digital media whilst our content team includes qualified journalists.
· PR AND MEDIA IMPLEMENTATION We plan and implement the optimal mix of digital and offline media for integrated, multi-channel, inbound and outbound campaigns, making your B2B business growth initiatives more productive in terms of new leads and ROI.