Profile, Identify, Attract, Engage and Measure
Digital marketing is a discipline. Creativity helps, but rarely is there a magic-bullet lead generation campaign that will suddenly start raking in paying customers over and over again. It takes planning and some strategic thinking to create a process that works. That is what I will guide you through as your digital marketing consultant. The process I follow is:
Profile – your ideal customers and their defining attributes
Identify – where they are and the sources they trust and regularly visit
Attract – to your website and nurture with marketing automation programs
Engage – with relevant content on issues they care about
Measure – evaluate and adjust your spending and programs accordingly
Profile and Identify Your Target Customers
It’s been called lead generation, demand generation, content marketing, online marketing, growth hacking, but it all boils down to using digital channels to attract prospective customers, or leads. As your digital marketing consultant, I will help you model your ideal customers, define their attributes, and use online content, channels, sources, and technology to find and engage them at the cheapest cost per lead.
It’s more than just a snappy video or clever tweets. It’s modeling the attributes of the ideal customer and finding prospects that match them using the rich resources available online. While the “finding” can be done manually with a laborious process, a variety of technologies can help automate, which as your digital marketing consultant, I can help you evaluate. Some attributes we will focus on are:
- Industries – with the best use cases for your technology
- Company characteristics – size, go-to-market strategy, maturity, etc.
- Adopted technologies – compatible products that make you a good fit
- Key change events – mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations,promotions
- Titles – evaluators, decision makers and other purchase participants
- Other – attributes that are unique and pertinent to your business
Attract with a Mix of Digital Marketing Programs and Channels
As your digital marketing consultant, we will keep your company, messages and offers in front of your target audience with a variety of programs so you are top of mind when they need your product. Different channels serve different purposes and with a variety of programs running through multiple channels, you can turn the dials up and down as needed.
- SEO – Drive traffic to your website with organic search results
- Retargeting – Drive web visits with online ads to past web visitors and the names in your marketing database
- Online Advertising – Drive marketing database registrations with content offers
- Public Relations – Build the brand, create awareness and drive web traffic by making other online programs more effective
- Events – Build the marketing database and uncover blue-bird opportunities
- Content Syndication – Build the marketing database with qualified, interested names
- Social Media – Create buzz and keep your followers aware of your news, events, content and progress
- Marketing Automation – Nurture and engage those who have opted-into your marketing database with new content
Engage with the Right Content, at the Right Time, Through the Right Channel
The average B2B customer interacts with a company seven times before entering into a sales process. Most of these interactions are driven by marketing content. My job as your digital marketing consultant is to make sure you are offering relevant content at the appropriate time and through the most effective channels.
Identify and Attract Channels
Thought leadership and best practice content peeks the interest of your prospects and attracts them to your website. As a digital marketing consultant, I’ve learned the best channels for this are the broad-reaching ones that can be targeted to your ideal customer.
- Advertising, SEO, Retargeting – These channels can offer your content in simple and succinct ways that require just a click for the prospect to take action
- Content Syndication – Media properties which your target customers already trust and visit regularly can offer your content to tightly targeted audiences
- Public Relations and Events – Articles, bylines, guest blogs, and speaking engagements get your thought leadership content into the market with the implied endorsement and credibility of a third party host
Educate and Engage Channels
During the educate and engage stages, thought leadership content is joined by product content as you lead them towards a potential sales conversation. While all the previous channels stay in effect, the two new channels are:
- Marketing Automation – Once a prospect has expressed interest, registered for your website, and given you information towards knowing where they rank on the ideal customer scale, you can offer content that is particularly relevant to them based on their past actions and the content they have already accessed
- Social Media – Social media channels are another avenue to keep those who have expressed interest informed of new releases, research and other news that will motivate them to interact with your further
Marketing and Sales Qualified Channels
While the previous channels continue to keep your company and content in front of the prospect, human interaction and content repurposed as sales tools come into play. My goal as your digital marketing consultant is to mature and qualify these leads for sales.
- Phone and Emails – Sales development professionals reach out to the engaged leads that fit the profile of the ideal customer, sending them personal emails and making phone calls that provide additional content, recommend next steps and ask qualifying questions
- Online – Web meetings are effective for interactive sessions that include personalized presentations, demonstrations, and two-way Q & A discussions so you and your prospects get to know each other better
Content Type by Digital Channel
Measure Your Progress and Adapt Accordingly
Digital Marketing Funnel Model
Example of Different Funnel Conversion Numbers Based on Audience
Build the Right Funnel Model for Your Go-to-Market Strategy
As an employee and digital marketing consultant I have built many funnel models, and no two companies’ funnels have been the same—and they change over time. I can build one for you or help you build one based on intelligent assumptions, then create processes to track against it and refine the funnel model based on real-world results. Read more about what I can do as a marketing metrics consultant.
Executive and line-of-business leads are more expensive to identify and attract but tend to have better conversion rates as they move through the process. Technical and individual contributor focused leads that start with an open source or freemium download tend to be less expensive but require higher volumes to be effective.
I will help you determine the factors that will influence your conversion rates such as:
- Target audience role (LOB/IT/Developers)
- Target audience management level
- Average sales price
- Product delivery: Saas or on-premise
- Licensing – subscription or perpetual
- Open source and freemium offers vs. trials and POCs (proof of concepts)
- Market maturity and stage of adoption