Categories
b2bmarketing demandgeneration

Why Direct Response is Failing in B2B Marketing: An In-depth Analysis of Customer Conversion Rates

Direct response for B2B Marketing is basically dead. 🤕 Why?

B/c people have changed how they buy B2B software.

Easy example to prove this: Look at your leads that become closed won customers. I bet that most of them viewed 5, 10, 40+ pages before submitting a demo request form.

The leads that only saw your 1 landing page before submitting the form? Their conversion rate to opportunity and especially to closed won is probably way lower. 🤷‍♂️

Who disagrees and why? Who agrees?

Categories
b2bmarketing

Unveiling the Secrets: Why I Choose Marketing Over Sales – A Personal Insight 📈

I get asked why I like Marketing more than Sales. Here’s why 📈

Categories
b2bmarketing demandgeneration thisistheway

Why You Shouldn’t Use Menu-Less Landing Pages for Software with $10K+ ARR: Boosting Sales with Informed Customers

If your software ARR is > $10K, DO NOT use landing pages with no top-level menu.

Give people the option to easily read your customer stories, check out your pricing, review your integrations, etc.

If someone is going to spend that much, they want to educate themselves before talking to Sales.

Agree/disagree?

Categories
b2bmarketing demandgeneration

Boosting Business Growth: How We Increased Our Pipeline by 54% in One Quarter

We grew pipeline 54% QoQ last quarter 🎉 Here’s how and why:

1️⃣ The initiatives from the previous interim head of Marketing, Keiko Tokuda, and the rest of the Marketing team started taking effect more (I joined 4.5 months ago at Zingtree so I can’t take all the credit 😊)

2️⃣ We changed our positioning & messaging to be more relevant to our target audience & created related content

3️⃣ Optimized Google and Bing ads (particularly turning off low-performing campaigns)

4️⃣ Started to create demand (especially through educational distribution-focused paid social ads)

5️⃣ We exhibited at a tradeshow event and created extra opps in comparison to normal

6️⃣ We had more 6-figure deals come inbound than previous quarters

We have a 30% opp to closed won rate for our pipeline, so this isn’t just fluffy pipe increase.

👉 What has helped you grow your pipeline lately?

Categories
b2bcx b2bmarketing b2bsales gtmstrategy

Revamping Your GTM Strategy: Key Expectations for Mid-Market and Enterprise Audiences

Trying to move upmarket in your GTM strategy?
Here are expectations that change with a MM and ENT audience. Make sure to change your GTM strategies accordingly:

BEFORE Form Fill:
– Talk to peers before buying
– Research on their own beforehand

Early Stage Sales:
– Do a trial / PoC with you
– Review your knowledge base
– Review your API documentation

Late Stage Sales:
– Check tech stack / custom integration requirements
– Go through security review (and legal review)
– Dig into product fit

Post-Sale:
– Expect professional services as an option to help them
– Expect you to have an implementation process
– Expect a CSM to guide them regularly

What would you add to this list?

Categories
b2bmarketing demandgeneration

Closing the Demand Creation Gap: Igniting Interest in Innovative Solutions

We believe we have a demand creation gap, not a demand capture gap. 

There just aren’t many people searching Google for what we do b/c we’re sort of creating a new category.

So we must start creating demand and educating people to move them from solution unaware to solution aware.

And of course, positioning ourselves as the best option for when that trigger event happens in their company for them to actively start buying.

Categories
b2bmarketing creative demandgeneration

Unlocking the Secrets of Successful LinkedIn Ads: A Deep Dive into ‘Create Demand’ Campaigns

Curious how “create demand” LinkedIn ads actually look? 👇

These are actual ads we’re running and getting great engagement and reach on.

Key components:

1. Educational message in the image (Zingtree + Zendesk integration story)

2. Long post copy so that those who are curious can dig in and learn more.

3. CTA text to learn more (explicitly not about getting a demo)

4. Related web page when someone clicks through

Deployment strategy:
– Distribution-focused reach to our whole audience that we know uses Zendesk already
– The goal is education in the feed; not a lead gen form fill
– Audience expansion & LinkedIn audience network off

How would you improve these?

Shoutout to Omar I. Hamoda for the great designs!

Categories
b2bmarketing gtmstrategies

5 Proven Strategies to Enhance Your Marketing Team’s Customer Insights

Our whole Marketing team has better insights 💡 on our customers than almost every employee outside of our Sales & CX team.

That’s because every Marketer at Zingtree meets with 10 prospects, customers, or ICPs per quarter.

These insights guide our writing, our design, our strategies.

Want to implement this in your org? Here are some ways:

1)
Take amazing notes during the meetings, esp. when joining Sales & CX calls. 
Now you are an asset b/c you give the rep great notes, rather than being a burden for joining the call.

2)
Make it an OKR for every Marketer every quarter

3)
Join relevant Slack/FB communities so you have access to ask ICPs to chat

4)
Look at Sales & CX calendars and ask to join meetings and be a fly on the wall

5)
Build trust with Sales & CX by being an asset with meeting notes AND by being responsive to many of their requests in general.

How are you getting insights and upleveling Marketing’s value in the company?

Categories
1 2 b2bmarketing contentstrategy copywriting

Master the Art of Content Creation: A Comprehensive Guide to Never Miss Deadlines Again

Most teams miss content deadlines frequently.

No planning & incorrect time estimations are common issues.

Use this process flow for creating content and backing into estimated due dates for content:

Think of each of these as sub-tasks for creating one piece of content. Put a due date and owner next to each sub-task.

1. First draft created

2. Review #1 by manager (and maybe others who have good domain expertise to give input)

3. Incorporate feedback (if there is any)

4. Potential: Review #2 by manager (and maybe others who have good domain expertise to give input)

5. Incorporate feedback (if there is any) (add more cycles here if needed)

6. Send to Design (if necessary) (note: ideally, design has already been aware and influenced the project)

7. Content creator review design

8. Design incorporate feedback (add more cycles here if needed)

9. Post final files to Google Drive

10. Publish (internally, externally on web, etc. depending on use case)

11. Share with GTM team

What steps would you add or change?

Categories
b2bmarketing marketingstrategy

Smart Budgeting: How I Reduced Zingtree’s Marketing Costs by 30% in Just 2 Months

I cut the Marketing budget by 30% just 2 months after joining Zingtree without anyone asking me to do so.

Why? I try to think like a CEO. If this was my money, I wouldn’t spend it all yet, or I’d spend it differently.

How did I do this?

– Cutting budget from items that weren’t performing for Zingtree

– Delay investing heavily in new initiatives until we proved them out with a smaller budget (early positive signals, early revenue results)

– Reevaluating the agency, freelancer, and vendor list

——–
To all the Marketing leaders, don’t invest too heavily before you can prove results (or early positive signals) of new initiatives.

To all the CFOs and CEOs out there, tag your Marketing leader so they can get some inspiration 😉