B2B Marketing Automation: 5 highly effective Tactics to Drive More Sales
B2B marketing is a way for companies to stay in contact with leads and customers regularly. It needs thoughtful preparation on your part and can help you convert more people once they get into your sales funnel.
Automating the process is known as B2B marketing automation and when done right, can do the heavy lifting for you. You can easily get more leads and drive them into your sales funnel and ramp up your business.
What’s different?
Though the B2B and B2C marketing automation are different, yet we could find some similarities.
Both have the same principles, but B2B does not have the same level of personalization as a B2C approach. B2B aims to be more proactive and sell you something that might not be available to the public.
Automation can help you nurture leads into prospective clients and drive more business without the extra effort. You can spend the time saved on the deliverables and ensure a quality product every time.
Here are 5 B2B marketing tactics that lead to results every time-
Lead Nurturing
It is the practice of using automated emails to keep in touch with leads and keep them posted on things that you want them to know. It is one of the most used B2B marketing automation and leads to great results.
It is very well known in the B2B industry as the new leads need a lot of trust in you before they make a purchase. This becomes even more true if you are new in the game.
Once someone signs up for your newsletter or list, make sure you follow up with them regularly. Warm them up to your services and make sure that they are ready to be handled by the sales team next.
Automation does two things. One, you will be able to know how long before the client buys or rejects you. Two, you can adjust your digital marketing strategies according to the prospective buyer’s behavior. It gives you insight as to how they will react to your promotional messages and how you should craft them from thereon.
Here is the best sequence for these marketing emails to warm up the lead and build a solid relationship with them before the sales team steps in -
.Welcome them to your list and introduce the brand or service you offer them. Let them know the number of people that are using your brand's offering and use the biggest names that you have to win their trust.
.Used gated content that needs sign-ups for accessing. Webinars and free downloadable goodies are great examples of these.
.Track their behavior and then adjust accordingly. You can define your end goal, whether it be email opens, page visits, or clicks in general.
Lead Scoring
B2B acquisition cycles are lengthy and sometimes you will have to go above and beyond to secure a client. Lead scoring means that you will have to nurture and let the client qualify before you have them as a buyer.
You can use marketing automation to assign points to these leads and track whether their interest is growing or decreasing. You can assign each prospective a score and have a custom CRM dedicated to this.
The lead can serve as an automation trigger themselves.
Multi-channel Campaigns
As you get comfortable with one channel, you can expand and reach out to clients through multiple channels. You can have the relevant automated messages go from different channels and contact the client.
Mostly these are email, SMS, and re-targeting but can also include social media messages. Get comfortable with one form first, then dive into other ones. Experiment with these and see which one suits you the best.
There is a chance that you will get a majority of responses in one channel only, but this does not mean that you leave other channels. On the other hand, you can market aggressively to them on other channels if they are not responsive to one of your main ones.
Customer Profiling
You can separate your own B2B leads on the basis of engagement or activity and other characteristics, too. Automated list management is a great way to segregate your clients into different lists.
This lets you formulate a strategy for these people while taking into consideration their common characteristics.
Page Tracking
You can use your website’s behavior to trigger an automated campaign that will help you secure the client. It could be taking people to a specific landing page or initiating action when they reach your website. It is a great opportunity for you to give them more information about your own services and products.
To know such metrics, all you need to do is install a tracking code on your own website and see what the customer is doing. This will help you cater your marketing strategies to their specific behaviors.
Every B2B organization needs to research what they want from marketing automation and see what kind of product is the right fit for them. With the internet boom, such automations are now available to even the smallest of businesses, and one should take full advantage of them.
