Designing and executing demand generation activities that reach and drive the right traffic can improve sales and increase revenue through:
- Driving better performance from your digital media programs
- Improving conversion rates
- Delivering better quality leads
- Achieving a higher ROI
This article sets out the key steps to delivering the best plan of attack. Read on discover how to fuel your demand generation engine…
Reading time: 3 minutes
We’ve reached an exciting time in B2B marketing. Programmatic advertising and biddable/RTB Media is booming and it’s bought with it a whole new plethora of targeting possibilities that make reaching your ideal audiences a tangible reality, without requiring a massive budget.
Traditionally hard to reach accounts are now accessible, target account lists (TAL) can be expanded with accurate lookalikes and multiple stakeholders within a DMU can be strategically engaged, all thanks to the new possibilities opened up by programmatic AdTech.
The data is here along with the means for precision-based targeting. How you make the most of it is entirely down to your research and planning.
How do I plan for the ‘right’ leads?
No matter how much you embrace RTB media, you will not achieve your ROI if you go after the wrong prospects for your business.
In order to identify the ‘right’ types of leads there’s a fair few details we should know or at least be able to take educated guesses about our target audience. Including:
- who they are (job titles, location, responsibilities…etc.)
- what influences their buying criteria
- what information do they require
- which key stakeholders make up their DMU
- which touchpoints are critical for engagement
- which trends are shaping their behavior
- what channels they frequently use
- which thought leaders and influencers hold their trust
Having this insight makes planning and executing your demand generation program a whole lot more effective and is required if you wish to compete in today’s data savvy marketing environment.
Building a tightly defined target account list and overlaying this list with intent data is now a common practice that supports many winning demand generation strategies.
The 5 step plan of attack
Step 1
Start with your current clients – who are the most profitable audience segments? What shared characteristics can you identify? What makes them a good fit for your product/services? How can you use these to inform your list criteria?
Step 2
Compile your TAL using your defined criteria. It’s crucial the rationale dictating this criteria is robust and well thought out – are you basing this list on research or assumptions?
Step 3
Expand your lists with lookalikes and other account that share the same salient characteristics such as firmographic data. This will enable you to scale up your available reach.
Step 4
Combine 1st party data with 3rd party data sources to layer on audience understanding such as action based intent data.
Step 5
Use marketing research techniques such as telephone surveys to discover qualitative and quantitative insight.
How to I engage my target audience to drive traffic?
In order to make someone take action, you have to identify the right trigger to prompt your desired behavior (Dr BJ Fog).
With the average attention span falling from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds and the boom in digital advertising, the fight for attention is on. This means your trigger needs to be on point, as a poorly executed message will no longer cut it.
Here are 3 methods for increasing the likelihood of triggering the right traffic and at the best volumes:
1. Crafting the most compelling message
In order to uncover the key hook that will resonate with your audience and incite them to take action, you need to compile the knowledge accumulated from your target audience planning into a comprehensive content strategy.
Buyer personas are a trusted technique for transforming audience insight into an actionable pain points that aid content planning and content creation.
Recommended reading: B2B DMU Buyer Persona Cheat Sheet
2. Leveraging innovative creative
Innovative creative teamed with expertly crafted copy is now a must for forward thinking B2B marketers. Highly visual platforms are increasingly the norm even in the B2B sphere, changing the way we experience and consume information. Therefore, if you want to get a step ahead, you must recognize the importance of well executed creative. Here are 2 top resources to help tackle any programmatic elements of your content strategy.
Google Rich Media Gallery
Programmatic Creative vs. Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO)
3. Taking a multi-channel approach to increase touchpoints and reach
The best content in the world is useless if the right people don’t see it. It’s not the case that good content will always be found: the world of content is extremely competitive, and audiences have limited time.
You need to work hard, and often creatively, to make sure it’s seen – and acted upon.
Biddable/RTB Media and programmatic advertising enable you to precisely target groups, TALs or even individuals with precisely targeted content. You can cost-effectively resurface your message and content to prospects even when you don’t have their email address. Used in combination with social or other channels, this can greatly accelerate the prospecting stage and provide a powerful boost, progressing leads through your demand generation engine at greater speed and effectiveness.
Read our next article: How to Create a Ridiculously Successful Landing Page to discover what to do next.
