Sales are the lifeblood of your business, and keeping them up is no easy feat. As a B2B company, your sales team probably has their hands full with leads and meetings rather than customers in person. Even so, that doesn’t mean you have to abandon face-to-face meetings. In fact, demand generation marketing can be an excellent way to reinvigorate your B2B sales team by bringing new life into old tactics through modern technology. It also helps you to stay ahead of competitors who might not be investing as much in demand generation.
Read on to see how demand generation marketing can help you increase B2B sales by introducing new customers and reactivating dormant ones.
Defining Demand Generation Marketing
Demand generation marketing is the practice of increasing the demand for your product or service by creating new customers and revitalizing old ones. By investing in marketing tactics that reach out to your ideal prospects and engages them in the buying process, demand generation marketing helps companies reach new customers without having to pay for sales.
The key to demand generation marketing is to engage new leads without annoying them. Demand generation marketing is a combination of content marketing, lead nurturing, and sales enablement. It focuses on creating content in the form of blog posts, webinars, ebooks, and other media that appeals to your target audience and educates them on the value proposition of your product.
Demand generation marketing also involves the use of lead nurturing to engage these prospects and guide them through the buying process. Lead nurturing includes activities like sending emails with helpful content and setting up automated emails based on prospect behavior.
Finally, demand generation marketing also focuses on sales enablement, which is all about putting your sales team in the best possible position to close deals by providing them with the tools and resources they need to succeed.
Plan Your Content Calendar
Every B2B sales team should have a content marketing calendar where they map out what marketing content will go out each month. Your sales team’s content calendar should include blog posts, webinars, ebooks, and other content that prospects can find through search engines and social media. You should also include traditional advertising in your content calendar. In particular, you should schedule out ads that target your ideal customers and prompt them to buy your product.
If you’re starting a new content marketing campaign, you can use prospect data from other companies in your industry. This data can help you determine what content your prospects are searching for and what content they would find most valuable. Your content calendar should also include a social media marketing calendar. This will allow you to keep track of what content you’re posting to which social media accounts. Your social media marketing calendar should also include social listening tools that help you track the content your prospects are sharing online.
This information can help you determine what types of content to create to reach your ideal prospects.
Use Video Marketing
Video marketing is often overlooked in B2B sales, but it can be an excellent way to grow your leads. When used properly, videos can be engaging and informative. They also allow you to connect with prospects in a more personal way than other types of content. Video can be especially useful for product demonstrations and how-to guides that walk prospects through specific processes related to your industry. You can host videos on your website or create them for social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube.
You can also use video as an ad unit on platforms like LinkedIn and Google Display Network. If you’re just getting started with video marketing, you might want to consider outsourcing the process to a video production company. This can help you to save money on equipment and editing software so you can focus on creating high-quality content that resonates with your prospects.
Run Email Campaigns
Email is perhaps the oldest form of marketing, but it’s no less effective in B2B sales. Email campaigns can be especially useful if you’re trying to reach out to a large volume of prospects at once. Email campaigns can target your entire prospect list or focus on a certain subset. You can use email campaigns to prompt your prospects to take action. For example, you might create an email campaign that prompts your prospects to sign up for a webinar or download a valuable e-book. You can also use email campaigns to help your prospects through the buying process.
This can be especially useful if you’re using email automation. Email automation allows you to set up emails that send out based on prospect behavior. This can include emails that prompt your prospects to respond to questions you might have asked during lead nurturing or emails that prompt them to take specific actions like downloading a free trial of your product.
Host Events
No matter what industry you’re in, hosting events can be a great way to boost B2B sales. Your events can take many forms, including conferences and webinars. They can also be more informal gatherings like happy hours or networking events. By hosting events, you can reach out to new prospects and reactivate old leads who may have fallen out of the buying process. You can also use events as a way to collect contact information from prospects and follow up with them later on. If you’re hosting an event, you’ll want to make sure to invest in the right technology to make it successful.
This can include things like video conferencing equipment and microphones. It can also include things like ticket purchasing software or social media management tools that make it easier to organize the event.
Send Out Employee Advocates
Some businesses choose to outsource their marketing efforts and hire a marketing agency to handle it. This may be necessary if your company is growing rapidly, but it can also be expensive. A cheaper alternative to hiring a marketing agency is to use employee advocates. Employee advocates are people who work for your company who are passionate about your product. They can help you to reach out to new prospects and reactivate old ones. Employee advocates can take many forms. At the very least, they can send out emails to prospects and schedule social media posts.
They can also communicate with leads on your website or through chatbots. By using employee advocates, you can cut costs and reach more prospects. You can also use employee advocates in tandem with other marketing channels to amplify their impact.
Show Off Your Customer Success Stories
Another way to engage and influence potential customers is to feature customer success stories on your website or in other marketing materials. Customer success stories are real examples of people who have used your product successfully. They can be especially helpful if your industry is complex or if you sell a product that many prospective customers may find difficult to understand. Customer success stories can also help you to demonstrate the benefits of your product and provide reassurance to prospects who may be on the fence between your product and a competitor’s.
If you have lots of customer success stories, you can share them on your website by creating a landing page for each one. You can also publish them in blog posts and social media posts. Finally, you can create a Customer Success TV channel on a platform like YouTube.
Conclusion
Demand generation marketing can be an excellent way to increase B2B sales. It involves creating content that appeals to your target audience and educating them on the value proposition of your product. It also involves engaging new leads and guiding them through the buying process with lead nurturing. Finally, demand generation marketing also focuses on sales enablement, which is all about putting your sales team in the best possible position to close deals by providing them with the tools and resources they need to succeed.
Need help with your demand generation process? Contact us for some help in getting started.
