Member Article

Differing approaches to effective B2B marketing campaigns

Mirfield-based creative digital agency The Bigger Boat provides effective campaigns across design, digital and search.

Andy McCaul, co-founder, advises: “We work with a lot of B2B clients, helping to maximise the return on their marketing investment. The first step before we make any suggestions on strategy is to perform in-depth research, to help us understand their competitive advantage and market. That way, we can then establish what people search for, the demand, and how competitive the space is. The combination of these factors shapes the strategy.

“Before spending money on other activities, you need to ensure that your website is capable of generating leads. It’s important you’re capturing data at the various stages a user goes through before they are ready to buy. Softer calls to action – such as brochure downloads and guides – usually do well for lead generation, as well as things like ‘request a quote’ or ‘visit the factory’. An effective website should be a reliable source of lead gen for your business.

“Only then is it time to consider activities to support the site. Paid search can be very effective for testing a range of keywords, landing pages and calls to action. We also use geo-targeting around client sites, for services or products that are bought locally – utilising Google Analytics, goals & event tracking to measure the success of this. Organic SEO is more of a long-term plan – it can be incredibly effective, but takes time and effort. It’s better to understand what works before committing to a long-term SEO strategy, to avoid wasting any effort.

“Email marketing can be a great tool to keep in touch with an existing database of clients and prospects. Sharing case studies and useful content can help businesses sell more to their existing customer base as well as converting prospects.

“Social media is good for building awareness, but if you’ve got a monthly lead target to hit, this shouldn’t be your first option. Linked in and Twitter can be effective for B2B clients, but we’ve also seen success across Facebook and Instagram – it really depends on the situation.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Katie Mallinson .